by Eckart Frahm
We have only a few, usually short inscriptions of Ashur’s own rulers, with very little information on the political history. The chronological skeleton is provided by the Assyrian King List (AKL; see Table 3.1) and the lists of annually appointed līmum officials, which we call “Eponym Lists,” found at Kaniš (KEL A‐G). They cover, almost without gaps, the period between ca. 1974 BCE and the end of the 18th century BCE (middle chronology). Their data can be correlated with an “Eponymic Chronicle” (Birot 1985) found at Mari, which covers nearly hundred years until ca. 1775 BCE and adds short historical notes to the names of many eponyms. But its focus on the exploits of Šamši‐Adad and his ancestors – it was perhaps used in ceremonies honoring them – explains the absence of data on Ashur, at least as far as it is preserved. In Ashur itself (Veenhof 2008a: 35–41) centuries of restoration and rebuilding have left few traces of the Old Assyrian levels of the upper city. Of Assur’s temple and of the so‐called “old palace” only scanty remains, incomplete ground plans, and foundation trenches are preserved. A few inscriptions and inscribed bricks mention building activities of the early rulers, but we lack archives to inform us on the political history. In the lower town the excavators hardly touched the level of this period. Only a few graves were found (Hockmann 2010: graves nos. 36(?), 37, 53), not a single house was excavated (Miglus 1996: 55), and no private archives have been found. The vast majority of the Old Assyrian texts we know originate from the lower city of Kaniš, in Central Anatolia, the seat of an Assyrian trading colony (called kārum Kaniš) and the administrative center of a colonial network (Veenhof 1995b). The ca. 23,000 cuneiform texts from the archives of the traders living there provide information on Ashur, especially in letters sent from there. But their focus on trade, commerce, and the activities and lives of the families of the traders makes information on the political history of the city remarkably hard to come by. What we learn about the City Assembly, its officials, and the rulers of Ashur is embodied in letters and judicial records that nearly all deal with issues related to trade and finances. Only a few documents provide some insight into commercial and economic politics, and political history is hardly touched.
Table 3.1 The Old Assyrian part of the Assyrian King List
27 Sulili/Sulê son of Aminu
28 Kikkiya
29 Akiya
30 Puzur‐Aššur (I)
31 Šalim‐aḫum (son of 30)
32 Ilušuma (son of 31)
A total of 6 kings whose year‐eponyms have not been marked/found.
33 Erišum (I) son of 32 40 years ca. 1974–1935
34 Ikunum son of 33 [14] years ca. 1934–1921
35 Šarru‐kin son of 34 [40] years ca. 1920–1881
36 Puzur‐Aššur (II) son of 35 [8] years ca. 1880–1873
37 Naram‐Sin son of 36 (4)4? years ca. 1872–1829?
38 Erišum (II) son of 37 (20?) years ca. 1828?–1809
Šamši‐Adad, son of Ilu‐kabkabu, went to Karduniaš in the time of Naram‐Sin.* During the eponymy of Ibni‐Adad Šamši‐Adad came up from Karduniaš, he conquered Ekallatum and resided three years in Ekallatum. During the eponymy of Atamar‐Ištar Šamši‐Adad came up from Ekallatum and removed Erišum (II), son of Naram‐Sin, from the throne.
39 Šamši‐Adad I 33 years ca. 1808–1776
40 Išme‐Dagan son of 39 40 years ca. 1775–1736
41 Aššur‐dugul “son of nobody” 6 years
*This is not no. 37, but a king of Ešnunna, Ashur’s southern rival in this period.
Table 3.1’s list of the rulers of Ashur, a skeleton of the history, is based on the Assyrian King List (AKL), where by a modern numbering they figure as nos. 27–41, but the length of their reigns is only recorded beginning with no. 33, Erišum I. With his accession the institution of the eponymous līmum‐officials started, whose list apparently served as source for the figures. One list of them (KEL A = Veenhof 2003a) mentions the accession of the rulers and allows the restoration of the damaged figures for rulers 34–6. Those for 37 (which ends in 4) and 38, whose reign was cut short by Šamši‐Adad’s conquest, are unknown. But with the help of statements about the temporal distance between work on the same temple by successive Old Assyrian rulers (called “Distanzangaben”; see Veenhof 2003a: 51–2; Janssen 2006, 2009, and 2012) we can calculate that together they reigned more than sixty years. Their suggested figures are between round brackets, as are the patronymics of rulers 31 and 32, taken from original inscriptions.
Some problems remain due to small breaks in the eponym lists and the interpretation of the “Distanzangaben,” which prompted Barjamovic et al. 2012: 26–7 to start the reign of ruler 33 five years earlier, in 1969 BCE.
We know nothing of rulers 27 and 29, and 28 is only mentioned as the builder of the city‐wall by a later Assyrian king, who may have found an inscription of him or wished to stress the wall’s early date. No. 27 connects the Old Assyrian rulers with the dynasty of Šamši‐Adad I (39), whose ancestors, called “kings who are forefathers,” were inserted secondarily and in reversed order before him.1 His “father” Aminum appears again as ruler no. 17 and as brother of Šamši‐Adad I, which is impossible, since the latter was born around the time Aminum died. Who Aminum was and where he reigned is still unclear. If the link between Sulili/Sulê and Aminum is secondary, the former might have been Ashur’s first ruler, but we lack evidence for it. That a much later text (Lambert 1985) presents him as the first ruler of a new Old Assyrian dynasty by stating: “From the beginning to the appearance (?) of the dynasty of Sulili, up to the dynasty of […],” is probably simply a reflection of what AKL mentions. Identifying him with the elusive ruler Ṣilulu, only known from his seal, used by a later namesake (RIMA 1: 12f.), is risky.
Ruler 30 figures as the first ancestor in the genealogies of later rulers and was the founder of the Old Assyrian dynasty, which comprised an unbroken series of nine rulers. How long nos. 30–2 ruled is unknown, but if Ashur became an independent city‐state soon after ca. 2025 BCE the three of them, perhaps together with one or more of rulers 27–9, should have ruled ca. fifty years, which is very well possible. How Puzur‐Aššur I conquered the throne is unknown. We have no information on ruler 40 after 1761 BCE, when the archives of Mari stop, and a reign of forty years is suspiciously long. After ruler 41 the list mentions six kings, usurpers (“sons of nobody”), who ruled for a very short period, but a presumably older recension of AKL (Grayson 1981: 115, § 3.10) mentions instead of ruler 41 two other rulers, the first of which, Mut‐Aškur, is attested as grown‐up son of no. 40. The historical tradition was confused and the legitimacy of certain rulers disputed. AKL omits a ruler Puzur‐Sîn, perhaps from the end of the 18th century BCE, who in his inscription boasts of having removed buildings of Šamši‐Adad I and his grandson, “men of non‐Assyrian blood,” that infringed upon the shrines of the god Assur.
Disturbing is that the two eponyms mentioned in AKL as those of the years in which Šamši‐Adad made his conquests do not figure in the eponym list and that the short note in AKL on Šamši‐Adad’s career is a later addition, because it uses “Karduniaš,” a later name for Babylonia. This raises doubts about the reliability of AKL, but the basic facts are true: Ashur was conquered by Šamši‐Adad, and we know from other sources that Ešnunna posed a threat. The Mari Chronicle mentions the year of Šamši‐Adad’s birth (ca. 1850 BCE) and his succession of his father, fifteen years later, and texts from Mari document the year of his death, 1776 BCE, and his succession by Išme‐Dagan. The latter’s reign until 1762 BCE is well documented, but what happened afterwards is unknown due to a lack of written sources.
Old Assyrian History
As mentioned we know almost nothing of Ashur’s early political history. Neither royal inscriptions nor archival texts from kārum Kaniš describe historical events, and contacts with other Mesopotamian cities or rulers are not mentioned (relations with cities and rulers in Anatolia, who were trading partners of the Assyrian merchants and with whom the lat
ter concluded treaties, are a different matter; see Veenhof 2008a: ch. V). Dating by eponyms and not by year‐names (as in Babylonia) deprives us of the historical data contained in the latter. The inscriptions we have, from rulers 31–34 (RIMA 1: 14–46), deal only with Ashur itself and mention the building of temples, of Assur (by Šalim‐aḫum and Erišum I), Ištar (by Ilušuma, confirmed by inscribed bricks found in levels E–D), Adad (by Erišum I and Ikunum), and perhaps Nabium (by Ikunum). Later kings also mention the work of Sargon (Šarru‐kin) and Išme‐Dagan, but their own inscriptions have not survived. We also hear about a building called “Step Gate” (mušlālum), behind the temple of Assur, the place where the court met in the presence of the statues of the seven divine judges (RIMA 1, 20: 26–9). Ilušuma reports that he led the water from “two springs, which the god Assur had opened for me in Mount Abiḫ” (a northern spur of the Jebel Ḥamrin) through two gates into the city.
Work on Ashur’s fortifications, important now that the city had gained independence, receives less attention. Ilušuma used the water of the just‐mentioned wells to make bricks for the city wall and he and his son Erišum I mention a wall (part of the city wall?), which the former had “laid out crosswise(?)” and the latter raised higher than his father (RIMA 1: 17 and 23). A king from ca. 1400 BCE writes that before him Kikkiya, Ikunum and Sargon I had built the city wall. A letter to kārum Kaniš by its representatives in Ashur (called nībum) shows that the colonies, by decision of the City Assembly, had to contribute to the costs of keeping it in good repair (Dercksen 2004a: 62–5).
Two early inscriptions, one of Ilušuma, from shortly after 2000 BCE, and one of Erišum I, a generation later, provide important information on the economic policy of the city (RIMA I: 15 and 22–3). The first, after mentioning the building of Ištar’s temple, states:
I established the addurārum of the Akkadians and their children. I washed their copper. I established their addurārum from the front of the Lagoon and Ur and Nippur, Awal and Kismar, Der of the god Ištaran, until the City (=Ashur).
The meaning of these words depends on the interpretation of addurārum. This term also appears in the inscriptions of Erišum I, who writes:
When I applied myself to the work (on the Assur temple), my city obeyed me and I realized the addurārum of silver, gold, copper, tin, barley, wool, even until bran and chaff.
Both inscriptions fit the tradition of early kings boasting of the prosperity of their city by mentioning favorable market prices and wages obtained during their reign. This is clear with Erišum, where addurārum must mean free circulation of and access to the goods mentioned, with a regular supply and fair prices as result. In the first inscription “the addurārum of the Akkadians(= Babylonians) and their children,” if one applied the meaning current in Babylonia (see Charpin 1987), would mean that the Babylonians were freed from the consequences of unpaid debts (owed to the Assyrians?), in particular in copper, which were perhaps “washed off.”2 But then the measure would have been in force over a very large area, and Ashur was not a producer of or a market for copper. Moreover, such cancellations of debts were ad hoc measures with only retroactive force and would not apply to “the Akkadians and their children.” This suggests that addurārum here also refers to free circulation, perhaps realized by tax exemption, free access, and market rights, granted to the Babylonians coming to Ashur, now and in the future (see Larsen 1976: 63–78 and Veenhof 2008a: 126–30).
Economic history
Interpreted in this way both inscriptions reveal that at an early stage Ashur took measures meant to promote its position as a trading city, visited by foreign merchants who came to sell and buy. This agrees with evidence of the archival texts found in Ashur’s colony in Kaniš: Ashur played a key role in the international trade, importing into Anatolia tin, woolen textiles, and lapis lazuli, and bringing back from there gold and especially silver (Veenhof 2010). The latter was used to buy what the Babylonians brought to Ashur, copper from Oman and woolen textiles for export to Anatolia, and to pay for the large quantities of tin and lapis lazuli sold by traders arriving from Susa in Elam (Figure 3.1). The cities mentioned by Ilušuma indicate how these goods reached Ashur, with Babylonian caravans that crossed to the east of the Tigris and proceeded via Der, Awal (where the Diyala was crossed) and Kismar, following the road along the foothills of the Zagros, which would also be used by caravans from Susa. The commercial purpose of the measures is clear from Erišum’s inscription. Unlike other kings, who only mention prices of basic subsistence goods, he includes silver, gold, copper, and tin, which played a key role in the trade.
Figure 3.1 Schematic illustration of the movement of goods in the Old Assyrian overland trade
(drawing by K. R. Veenhof).
If Ashur was above all a trading city, a kind of central place in a wider international network that linked southern Mesopotamia and Elam with Anatolia (Larsen 1987), its power was primarily economic. It bought, supplied, exchanged, and shipped valuable and essential goods (tin for the production of bronze) based on its international contacts, commercial and organizational skills, capital, and good communications and transport infrastructure. The history of ancient Ashur was closely linked to its role in the international trade, which is also reflected in the concerns and composition of the City Assembly, in which merchants seem to have played an important role.
The overland trade created much work and income and supplied the city and its inhabitants with lots of silver. The economic importance of the goods imported to Anatolia (tin and textiles) was the basis of Ashur’s success in a land where Assyrian traders could not follow the flag. Mutual economic interests and the observation of what was agreed on in the treaties (called “oaths”) – import taxes and right of preemption for the local rulers; residence and extraterritorial rights, security of caravans, and compensation for losses for the Assyrians – secured Ashur’s position abroad (Veenhof 2008a: ch. V).
There was of course more to Old Assyrian history, but with a size of no more than ca. 40 ha and perhaps five to eight thousand inhabitants (a fair number of which lived in the colonies or traveled in Anatolia), Ashur’s military power must have been limited. A royal palace and military institutions are remarkably absent from the sources and there are no indications for territorial gains during this period. None of the cities in its neighborhood were subjected to Ashur and no political interactions with Ashur’s southern neighbors, such as Ešnunna and the city of Sippar, are documented. “Akkadians,” i.e. Babylonians, only occur as importers of textiles and, together with the Subaraeans and Amorites living northeast and northwest of Ashur, as people to whom by decision of the City no gold was to be sold. A treaty with a minor ruler in Southern Anatolia stipulated, moreover, that “Akkadians” who came to his town (to trade) had to be seized and extradited to the Assyrians (Günbattı 2004: 250, note 8, lines 11–15).
With a limited territory, mainly the valley of the Tigris and the southern part of a triangle between the Tigris and the Lower Zab, and situated at the edge of the 200 mm isohyet zone, the city‐state probably was able to feed its population, but without prospects of creating agricultural surpluses (Dercksen 2004b: 155–60). Assyrian traders used their silver to buy barley and wool, the latter from the Suhu‐nomads who grazed their sheep west of the city, in the area of the Wadi Tharthar.
Ashur’s role in the international overland trade may not have been a completely new phenomenon. Its strategic location near the point where the road coming from the southeast crossed the Tigris, and perhaps its important temples, may have stimulated commercial activity at an early stage (Veenhof 2008a: 122–5). How early is difficult to say. The use of tin, shipped in great quantities by the Old Assyrians caravans, for bronze making started much earlier, as the texts from Ebla in Northern Syria (24th century BCE) show. One wonders how this rare metal, apparently imported into Mesopotamia (together with lapis lazuli) from mining areas northeast of Iran (Dercksen 2005a: 19), reached Syria and Anatolia before 2000 BCE. It is pos
sible that Ashur already then played a role in this trade. We know from inscriptions that the Old Akkadian king Naram‐Sin (ca. 2275 BCE) made his presence felt in northern Mesopotamia, in Nineveh and in Nagar (Tell Brak) in the Jezira, and penetrated all the way to the sources of the Euphrates and Tigris and to the city of Ḫaḫḫum (near Samsat), where caravans used to cross the Euphrates (Veenhof 2008b: 122–3).3 But it is not warranted to use the later epic tale “King of Battle” (Westenholz 1997: 102–39), about a campaign by Sargon of Akkad to help traders in the central Anatolian city of Burušḫanda, as proof of early commercial penetration, let alone colonial settlement in Anatolia. It may reflect memories of early trading contacts, but seems to be construed on the basis of the realities of the later Old Assyrian commercial penetration into Anatolia, when Burušḫanda harbored an important Assyrian colony. Ashur may have played a role in the trade in tin and textiles under the Ur III Empire, to which it belonged, but we have no sources on Ashur’s economy during that period, and a venture trade into Anatolia or its borderland by caravans visiting market towns and emporia at particular times, without colonial settlement, is difficult to trace without relevant texts.
The inscriptions of Ilušuma and Erišum I show that Ashur’s early rulers took measures to attract foreign traders and to facilitate the exchange of goods. Written evidence for the trade, however, only becomes available during the last decades of the 20th century BCE, in the form of texts preserved in the archives of kārum Kaniš. The oldest dated contract we know of is from ca. 1933 BCE, excerpted in a memorandum on unpaid debts (AKT 6, 1: 24–9); the oldest preserved contract is six years later, and in general we have not many dated records before ca. 1900. This may be due to an initially more limited commercial activity and colonial settlement, which produced fewer dated records (usually debt‐notes), to the removal of old records, or perhaps to the fact that the first city where the traders settled was not Kaniš, but perhaps the more southern Ḫaḫḫum. Still, Assyrian colonial presence in Anatolia must have started early, because broken envelopes with impressions of the seal of Erišum I were found in kārum Kaniš, presumably from letters to Assyrians living there (Veenhof 2003a: 41–2). Erišum I clearly was an important ruler in the early phase of the trade, as is demonstrated by his above‐mentioned inscription, and by the fact that the institution of līmum, the director of the City Hall (the financial and economic center of the city, see below), started with his accession.
