by Eckart Frahm
Yet even though the transition from the Middle Assyrian to the Neo‐Assyrian era was probably more gradual than is usually assumed, there is no question that the 11th through the first half of the 10th century was a time of crisis that brought about important changes in Assyria. In the 12th century, the collapse of Bronze Age civilization in the ancient Near East, triggered by a mix of ecological and political factors, had led to the disappearance of the Hittite state in Anatolia, the withdrawal of Egyptian forces from Western Asia, and the breakdown of many of the small Hittite and Egyptian vassal states in the Levant. New players, often organized along ethnic‐tribal lines, had begun to take their place: the Philistines and Hebrews in Palestine, the Arabs on the Arabian peninsula, the Neo‐Hittite Luwians in Anatolia and northern Syria, and the West‐Semitic Aramaeans in Syria (Strobel 2011; Galil et al. 2012; Lipiński 2000). Cuneiform, widely used in Western Asia by the political and cultural elites to communicate with one another until then, was replaced in the west by new and simpler alphabetic writing systems.
Assyria was originally only marginally affected by the disruptive events that unfolded in Anatolia and the Levant. Before long, however, the eastward movement of Aramaean tribes began to unravel substantial portions of the Assyrian state. A chronicle describing the last years of the reign of Tiglath‐pileser I shows that the Aramaeans had advanced so far that they were able to conduct raids against the Assyrian core area, temporarily affecting even the capital city Ashur (Glassner 2004: 188).
Since the Aramaeans had no central institutions, their attacks lacked coordination, and so the Assyrians were able to score repeated victories against individual groups of them. These victories are recorded with great fanfare in the inscriptions of Tiglath‐pileser I and Aššur‐bēl‐kala, who both claim that their troops marched to the Mediterranean, passing large stretches of land now inhabited by Aramaeans. But the guerilla tactics the Aramaeans employed, and their ability to quickly withdraw into difficult terrain when they were attacked, prevented the Assyrian armies from defeating them decisively.
A recently published chronicle – and in all likelihood also the inscription on the White Obelisk (see KAL 3: 117–23) – indicate that under Aššurnaṣirpal I (1049–1031), Assyrian troops were still capable of conducting fairly substantial campaigns. From the nearly century‐long period between 1030 and 935, however, we have no Assyrian texts recording military activities whatsoever, and the fact that two long‐ruling kings of this era, Shalmaneser II (1030–1019) and Aššur‐rabi II (1012–972), were remembered in later Assyrian tradition as having suffered painful territorial losses (RIMA 2: 133; RIMA 3: 19) indicates that this cannot simply be ascribed to the chances of discovery. Assyria was, quite clearly, at the nadir of her power in the decades before and after 1000 BCE. Many Middle Assyrian administrative centers in the north and west lay in ruins, and local rulers vied with tribal chiefs for control over the formerly Assyrian territories in this region.
However, not everything was lost. Assyria’s culture and religion survived the disruptions, and despite the aforementioned raids by Aramaean tribes, Assyria’s core area on the middle Tigris – as well as a few strongholds further west – remained fairly firmly under the control of the Assyrian kings, who apparently never ceased to believe in their ability to regain their previous strength. Shalmaneser II and the rulers who followed him during the crisis years and the subsequent “Reconquista” period bore throne names inspired by the names of their powerful Middle Assyrian forebears (a tradition that continued until the eighth century BCE, see Frahm 2005b), which indicates their determination to restore Assyria’s former glory. Thanks to this determination, and due to the geographic remoteness of the Assyrian core area from the Levant, the center of the political storm, Assyria managed to survive the crisis years without suffering the same complete collapse that many of the states around it experienced. In the long run, Assyria profited, in fact, from the chaos that ravaged Western Asia between the 12th and the 10th century. With their old political structures to a large extent shattered, the territories neighboring Assyria became, in the following centuries, easy prey for Assyria’s conquering armies.
The Reconquista Period (934–824)
The period during which Assyria regained her former strength can be divided into two main phases, each roughly half a century long: an initial phase, from the reign of Aššur‐dan II (934–912) to that of Tukulti‐Ninurta II (890–884), that saw the slow and brutal beginnings of Assyria’s reconquest of her lost territories; and a second one under Aššurnaṣirpal II (883–859) and Shalmaneser III (858–824), marked by the move of the royal court to Kalḫu in central Assyria, during which Assyria became the predominant political power in Western Asia (even though without yet enjoying the complete hegemony she gained during the imperial era of the eighth and seventh centuries).
The period of reconsolidation began for Assyria with the reign of Aššur‐dan II (934–912).3 As stated before, Aššur‐dan was the first king who, after a long period of silence, left again a substantial number of inscriptions describing military activities. His campaigns focused on the northeastern and northwestern borderlands of Assyria’s core territory. Among the victories he claimed for himself was the defeat of the small kingdom of Katmuḫu, situated towards the east of the Khabur triangle. During the Middle Assyrian period, Katmuḫu had been an Assyrian province, but at some point during the crisis years of the 11th and 10th century, it had gained independence. Aššur‐dan reconquered Katmuḫu, plundered and destroyed the royal palace in its capital, brought its king to Arbela, and, after flaying and executing him, displayed his skin on the wall of one of his cities. Rather than implementing direct rule, however, Aššur‐dan put another local dignitary on Katmuḫu’s throne, thus turning it into a vassal state that had to provide tribute and troops on a regular basis (RIMA 2: 133–4).
Aššur‐dan’s approach towards Kathmuḫu remained a model for Assyrian foreign politics for quite some time. Only repeated opposition on the part of local populations and the strategic importance of specific places prompted the Assyrian kings to annex foreign territories and turn them into provinces during the early phase of the Reconquista period. This saved resources, but it also meant that the Assyrians had to keep up a fairly high threat level in order to keep their vassals in line, as is illustrated by the numerous references in early Neo‐Assyrian royal inscriptions to acts of violence committed by the Assyrian conquerors.
To his credit, Aššur‐dan also took a number of more benign measures to recreate Assyria’s former glory. In his inscriptions, he claims that, in order to strengthen the urban centers, agricultural base, and infrastructure of his realm, he “brought back the exhausted [people] of Assyria [who] had abandoned [their cities … in the face of] … famine and [had gone up] to other lands …; constructed [palaces in] (various) districts …; and [hitched up] plows …, [piling up] more grain than ever before” (RIMA 2: 134–5). Aššur‐dan’s three successors on the Assyrian throne boast of very similar achievements in their inscriptions, indicating that Assyria’s rise from the ashes during the early Neo‐Assyrian period was not only based on state‐run protection rackets against foreign rulers, but also on pursuing a systematic policy of internal development.
Military and civil operations alike profited during the early Neo‐Assyrian period from the increasing availability of iron, mostly from sources in southern Anatolia and Lebanon, and from improvements in metalwork technology. Slowly, iron began to replace bronze in the manufacture of weapons, agricultural implements, and construction tools, a process that initiated the era dubbed the Iron Age in historical archaeology (Fales 2010a: 101–4).
Aššur‐dan’s politics paved the way towards more sustained efforts to expand Assyria’s influence. These began with his successor Adad‐nirari II (910–891), whose res gestae form a fairly substantial corpus.4
Of great strategic consequence were Adad‐nirari’s forays beyond the Lower Zab into regions southeast of Assyria’s core a
rea, which had been under Babylonian control until then. At one point, an Assyrian army advanced as far as the city of Der close to the Elamite border. Adad‐nirari had to withdraw later from these far‐away regions, but managed to keep possession of the important city of Arrapḫa (Kirkuk) and the area around it. In the following centuries, Arrapḫa served as starting point for numerous Assyrian campaigns to the east (Fuchs 2011: 262–4). According to the “Synchronistic History,” Adad‐nirari was able to secure the newly drawn borders between Assyria and Babylonia by prompting the Babylonian king Nabû‐šumu‐ukin to sign a peace treaty with him. The two kings sealed their agreement by marrying each other’s daughters (Glassner 2004: 180–1).
Adad‐nirari rebuilt the city of Apku, situated half‐way between Nineveh and the Sinjar mountain, and converted it into an administrative center. Apku was one of the cities that had fallen into ruins during the period of unrest around 1000 BCE (RIMA 2: 149). Further west, in the Khabur triangle, the king continued to put pressure on the small states that had emerged there after Assyrian control of the region had collapsed at the end of the Middle Assyrian period. After protracted battles, a number of local rulers were either replaced by pro‐Assyrian puppet‐kings (such as in 896 in Naṣibina, modern Nisibis) or became vassals (such as in Guzana, modern Tell Halaf). In the end, Adad‐nirari was able to undertake a long march down the Khabur river and then eastwards along the Euphrates, during which he collected tribute from numerous local rulers without facing any opposition (RIMA 2: 153–4).
Adad‐nirari’s son and successor Tukulti‐Ninurta II (890–884) continued the policies of his father.5 Some of Tukulti‐Ninurta’s early campaigns, about which we are poorly informed, were aimed at strengthening Assyrian control over the eastern lands of Kirruri, Ḫubuškia, and Gilzanu, the latter of which supplied Assyria with horses. In 885, Tukulti‐Ninurta repeated his father’s march through the territories of his western vassals, but in reverse direction. According to a long description of this show of strength, known from three clay tablets from Ashur (RIMA 2: 163–88; KAL 3: 49–53), the Assyrian army went down the Wadi Tharthar to Dur‐Kurigalzu and Sippar and then up the Euphrates, where, among others, the leader of Suḫi, a state with close historical ties with Babylon, sent tribute to Tukulti‐Ninurta. In Terqa, in the vicinity of the mouth of the Khabur river, the Assyrian king left an inscription on a locally produced stela (Tournay 1998). The campaign continued along the Khabur up to Naṣibina, from where the Assyrians moved westwards to Ḫuzirina on the Baliḫ and then northwards to fight the Mušku in Cappadocia. On several occasions during the campaign, the king went on hunting expeditions.
Besides being a passionate soldier and hunter, Tukulti‐Ninurta apparently also had certain intellectual interests. This is suggested by the fact that he is the first Assyrian king whom the “Synchronistic King List” associates with a chief scholar, a certain Gabbu‐ilani‐ereš, who was the ancestor of an influential family of scribes and royal advisors (RlA 6, 119, iii 16–17; PNA 1/II, 414 (H. Hunger and K. Radner)).
The reign of Tukulti‐Ninurta’s son Aššurnaṣirpal (Assyrian: Aššur‐nāṣir‐apli) II (883–859) marks the beginning of the second phase of the Reconquista period, during which Assyria established herself irrevocably as the most powerful state in Western Asia.6 Aššurnaṣirpal was a relentless warrior, who described his military actions at great length in numerous royal inscriptions. In the east, he conducted three campaigns against Zamua in the Zagros mountains; in the north, he fought repeatedly against Nairi and Urartu, with the city of Tušḫan on the Upper Tigris serving as his local headquarters; and in the west, he was engaged almost continually in battles with several Aramaic and Neo‐Hittite kingdoms, which, perhaps prompted by the persistent Assyrian pressure, had morphed into well‐organized states by the time of his accession (Fales 2011). The Assyrian king acted with great brutality, liberally described in his inscriptions. In an often quoted account about the conquest of the city of Tela in the Upper Tigris region in 882, Aššurnaṣirpal reports (RIMA 2: 201):
I captured many troops alive. From some I cut off their arms and hands; from others I cut out off their noses, ears, and extremities … I hung their heads on trees around the city. I burnt their adolescent boys and girls. I razed, destroyed, burnt and consumed the city.
The kingdom of Bit‐Adini, with its capital Til‐Barsip on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, proved a particularly dangerous enemy to Aššurnaṣirpal, repeatedly stirring up trouble in the lands along the Khabur and the Middle Euphrates. It took several years of warfare before its king, Aḫuni, accepted Assyrian hegemony and became a vassal. Aḫuni’s submission – which was not final – meant that, for the first time since the reign of Aššur‐bel‐kala, the lands west of the Euphrates were again open to Assyrian attacks, and Aššurnaṣirpal seized the opportunity to show his strength. In the course of his ninth campaign, he marched to the Mediterranean, collecting tribute from many of the kingdoms his army passed. Carchemish, Patina, and the Phoenician cities Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and Arwad paid large amounts of silver and other precious metals to keep the king from assaulting them (Bagg 2011: 192–4). But to gain full control of the region, many more campaigns were in store for the Assyrians. After rebellions by Bit‐Adini and Carchemish, Aššurnaṣirpal spent the last years of his reign on fruitless attempts to bring them back into the fold.
Aššurnaṣirpal used the booty and tribute amassed by his predecessors and himself to sponsor building activities in various Assyrian cities, including Nineveh, Ashur, and Imgur‐Enlil (Balawat). His most ambitious construction project, however, took shape in Kalḫu, a dilapidated town on the east bank of the Tigris in central Assyria (Oates and Oates 2001). Having decided in 879 that Kalḫu should henceforth serve as the main residence of the Assyrian kings, Aššurnaṣirpal employed thousands of Assyrian corvée workers and deportees to build several massive palaces and temples in the city and fortify its citadel. Gigantic bull colossi made of stone were placed as guardians in the entrances of the king’s new Northwest Palace, and long rows of stone orthostats with depictions of military and religious scenes lined its walls. Both the colossi and the orthostats are today considered as emblematic of Neo‐Assyrian monumental art, even though they seem to have had Neo‐Hittite and Middle Assyrian predecessors (on the influence of Neo‐Hittite culture on Assyria, see Novák et al. 2004; on possible Middle Assyrian “forerunners,” Orlamünde and Lundström 2011).
In 864, Aššurnaṣirpal celebrated the completion of the palace by inviting, according to one of his inscriptions, no fewer than 69,574 guests, among them 16,000 citizens of Kalḫu and 5,000 foreign dignitaries, and providing them over a period of ten days with 10,000 pigeons, 10,000 jugs of beer, and 10,000 skins of wine, along with numerous other foods and beverages (RIMA 2: 288–93; Finet 1992). Even though the city of Ashur remained the religious heart of Assyria – the place where the Assyrian kings stayed for several weeks in the spring to participate in important religious festivals and where they were buried after they died (see RlA 11: 146–52 (P. Miglus); Maul 2000; Lundström 2009) – and despite the fact that the kings also spent considerable amounts of time in Nineveh, the royal court and the central institutions of the Assyrian government were now primarily situated in Kalḫu, and remained there for the next 150 years.
Aššurnaṣirpal may have had two main reasons for the revolutionary step of creating a new Assyrian capital. First, Kalḫu was situated in the middle of the “Assyrian triangle” formed by Ashur, Nineveh, and Arbela, a much more central location than that of Ashur in the far south (Radner 2011). And second, by moving to Kalḫu, Aššurnaṣirpal may have hoped to become more independent from the great families of Ashur, who had been quite influential until then. Revealingly, the king made a eunuch, a certain Nergal‐apil‐kumu’a, overseer of Kalḫu, and not a member of the old aristocracy. Eunuchs were deemed to be devoted to the king alone and not to their own families. They became increasingly powerful in the course of the next 250 yea
rs, serving as generals, provincial governors, drivers of the royal chariot, royal cooks, bakers, cup‐bearers, palace guards, scribes, diplomats, and in many other functions (Deller 1999).
Another possible sign of the diminished influence of the traditional elites is that several queens of later Assyrian kings bore West Semitic names, suggesting that they did not originate from old Assyrian families. In contrast, Aššurnaṣirpal’s own principal wife, Mullissu‐mukannišat‐Ninua, was the daughter of an Assyrian aristocrat, Aššur‐nirka‐da”in, who served as the king’s Chief Cupbearer; her richly furnished tomb has been discovered at Kalḫu (PNA 2/III: 767 (H. D. Baker)).
Shalmaneser (Assyrian: Salmānu‐ašarēd) III (858–824), Aššurnaṣirpal’s son and successor, continued the aggressive military politics of his father and managed to considerably widen Assyria’s geopolitical horizons.7 The territories on the Khabur and the Middle Euphrates were now firmly under Assyrian control, but Aḫuni of Bit‐Adini, who enjoyed the support of various other states in northern Syria, continued to offer fierce resistance. It took several campaigns before, in the winter of 857/56, Til‐Barsip, Bīt‐Adini’s capital, finally surrendered. Shalmaneser visited the city the following summer, named it Kar‐Salmanu‐ašared (“emporium of Shalmaneser”), settled Assyrians in it, and made it the center of a new Assyrian province placed under the command of his Chief Marshal. Provinces administered by Assyrian “magnates” were also created in other sectors of the Assyrian frontier that were vulnerable to attack.
