by Eckart Frahm
Postgate, J.N. 2007. “The Invisible Hierarchy: Assyrian Military and Civilian Administration in the 8th and 7th Centuries BC,” in: J.N. Postgate (ed.), The Land of Assur & the Yoke of Assur: Studies on Assyria, 1971–2005, Oxford: Oxbow, 331–60.
Postgate, J.N. and Mattila, R. 2004. “‘Il‐yada’ and Sargon’s Southeast Frontier,” in: G. Frame (ed.), From the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea: Studies in the History of Assyria and Babylonia in Honour of A K. Grayson, Leiden: NINO, 235–54.
Powell, M.A. 1996. “Wine and the Vine in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Cuneiform Evidence,” in: P.E. McGovern et al. (eds.), The Origins and Ancient History of Wine, Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach Publishers, 97–122.
Pucci, M. 2010. “The Discovery of the City‐canal of Dur‐Katlimmu,” in: H. Kühne (ed.), Dur‐Katlimmu 2008 and Beyond, Studia Chaburensia 1, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 163–74.
Radner, K. 1997. Die neuassyrischen Privatrechtsurkunden als Quelle für Mensch und Umwelt, State Archives of Assyria Studies 6, Helsinki: Neo‐Assyrian Text Corpus Project.
Radner, K. 1999. “Money in the Neo‐Assyrian Empire,” in: J.G. Dercksen (ed.), Trade and Finance in Ancient Mesopotamia, Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch‐Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 127–57.
Radner, K. 2000. “How Did the Neo‐Assyrian King Perceive his Land and its Resources?,” in: R. M. Jas (ed.), Rainfall and Agriculture in Northern Mesopotamia, Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch‐Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 233–46.
Radner, K. 2002. Die neuassyrischen Texte aus Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad, Berichte der Ausgrabung Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad/Dūr‐Katlimmu 6, Berlin: Reimer.
Radner, K. 2003. “Neo‐Assyrian Period,” in: R. Westbrook (ed.), A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law, Handbuch der Orientalistik 72, Leiden: Brill, 883–910.
Radner, K. 2004. “Assyrische Handelspolitik: die Symbiose mit unabhängigen Handelszentren und ihre Kontrolle durch Assyrien,” in: R. Rollinger and C. Ulf (eds.), Commerce and Monetary Systems in the Ancient World: Means of Transmission and Cultural Interaction, Melammu Symposia 5 = Oriens et Occidens 6, Wiesbaden: Steiner, 152–69.
Radner, K. 2006. “Provinz. C. Assyrien,” in Reallexikon der Assyriologie 11/1–2, 42–68.
Radner, K. 2007a. “Abgaben an den König von Assyrien aus dem In‐ und Ausland,” in: H. Klinkott et al. (eds.), Geschenke und Steuern, Zölle und Tribute. Antike Abgabenformen in Anspruch und Wirklichkeit, Leiden: Brill, 213–30
Radner, K. 2007b. “Hired Labour in the Neo‐Assyrian Empire,” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 16, 185–226.
Radner, K. 2008. “The Delegation of Power: Neo‐Assyrian Bureau Seals,” in: P. Briant et al. (eds.), L’archive des Fortifications de Persépolis: État des questions et perspectives de recherches, Persika 12, Paris: de Boccard, 481–515.
Radner, K. 2009. “The Assyrian King and His Scholars: The Syro‐Anatolian and the Egyptian Schools,” in: M. Luukko et al. (eds.), Of God(s), Trees, Kings, and Scholars: Neo‐Assyrian and Related Studies in Honour of Simo Parpola, Studia Orientalia 106, Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 221–38.
Radner, K. 2014. “An Imperial Communication Network: The State Correspondence of the Neo‐Assyrian Empire,” in: K. Radner (ed.), State Correspondences of the Ancient World from the New Kingdom to the Roman Empire, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 64–93.
Radner, K. 2016. “Die beiden neuassyrischen Privatarchive,” in: P. Miglus, K. Radner, and F.M. Stepniowski, Ausgrabungen in Assur: Wohnquartiere in der Weststadt, Teil 1, Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient‐Gesellschaft 152, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 79–133.
Radner, K. and Baker, H. (eds.) 1998–2011. The Prosopography of the Neo‐Assyrian Empire, Helsinki: Neo‐Assyrian Text Corpus Project.
Radner, K. and Schachner, A. 2004. “Schlussbetrachtung,” in K. Radner (ed.), Das mittelassyrische Tontafelarchiv von Giricano/Dunnu‐ša‐Uzibi, Subartu 14, Turnhout: Brepols, 113–19.
Röllig, W. 2014. Die aramäischen Texte aus Tall Šeḫ Ḥamad/Dur‐Katlimmu/Magdalu, Berichte der Ausgrabung Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad/Dūr‐Katlimmu 17, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Saggs, H.W.F. 1984. The Might that Was Assyria, London: Sidgwick and Jackson.
Snell, D.C. 1997. Life in the Ancient Near East, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Ur, J. 2005. “Sennacherib’s Northern Assyrian Canals: New Insights from Satellite Imagery and Aerial Photography,” Iraq 67, 317–45.
Wilkinson, T.J. and Barbanes, E. 2000. “Settlement Patterns in the Syrian Jazira During the Iron Age,” in: G. Bunnens (ed.), Essays on Syria in the Iron Age, Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement 7, Leuven: Peeters, 397–422.
Further Reading
Postgate 1979 remains the classic survey of the economic underpinnings of the Assyrian empire; most of what was unknown then is still unclear. Müller 2004 is an attempt to trace the development of prices and interest rates in the seventh century BCE, while duly emphasizing the problematic nature of the available source material.
There is no comprehensive analysis of Neo‐Assyrian society. Chapter 5 in Snell 1997 gives an overview, with helpful references in the notes to the (often conflicting) opinions of distinguished specialists such as van Driel, Fales, Garelli, Liverani, and Postgate on the matter. Radner 1997 collects the available data from private legal documents. Machinist 1993 discusses the views of “Assyrians on Assyria” and is a good introduction to self‐perceptions of Assyrian society.
Accessible surveys of “society and customs,” “the domestic scene,” “agriculture, animal husbandry and trade,” and “natural resources” can be found in Saggs 1984, chapters 9–12.
Note
1 My thanks go to the building’s excavator Peter Miglus for these figures.
CHAPTER 10
Post‐Imperial Assyria
Stefan R. Hauser
Introduction
The conquest of the Assyrian cultic and political capitals Ashur and Nineveh in 614/612 BCE by Medes and Babylonians sent shock waves through the entire former Assyrian realm and far beyond. It prompted a restructuring of political power, economical organization, and trade relations from the Mediterranean to Persia while intensifying the trend towards unprecedented growth and prosperity in Babylonia (see Adams 1981; Jursa 2004). The change appears particularly profound in the former core of the empire itself. While written and material sources from the Neo‐Assyrian period abound, the next three centuries of Babylonian and Achaemenid rule over the region are characterized by a remarkable scarcity of sources. Because of the limited textual and archaeological evidence the period is often described as a “Dark Age” and simply referred to as “post‐Assyrian.” While this is meaningful in a chronological sense, it should be noted that Assyria continued to be perceived as a distinctive geographic, administrative, and (at least retrospectively) to some extent also as a cultural entity in emic and etic perceptions. Thus the term “post‐Assyrian” should be replaced by “post‐imperial.”
Local written sources remain exceptionally rare until the first century AD, when Aramaic inscriptions begin to appear in Hatra and Ashur. At the same time archaeological finds show a general recovery of the region.
This chapter attempts to describe the historical/archaeological evidence for the various periods of post‐imperial Assyria until the Sasanian conquest of the area between AD 226 and 241, which for various reasons provides a compelling end point for Assyrian history.
The Early Post‐imperial Period
The Neo‐Babylonian and Achaemenid periods according to written sources
It could be argued that it was the destruction of the temple of the god Assur in his like‐named city (and of the tombs of earlier kings) in 614 BCE that put an end to the Assyrian empire, as it lost its legitimating core through these acts (Hauser 2012a: 108–10). After the conquest of the royal capital Nineveh in 612 BCE, Nabopolassar’s army plundered Assyria up to Naṣibina (Nusaybin), while the king remained in the former capital (Babylonia
n Chronicle 3, see Grayson 1975: 94–5; Glassner 2004: 222–3). It is clear that some of the faces on the palace reliefs at Nineveh were destroyed at some point after the city had been taken, but a longer Babylonian and Median presence at Nineveh is not archaeologically confirmed. Some Assyrians continued their resistance from Ḫarran until the city fell in 610 BCE. It has long been debated whether Assyria, or at least its northern part towards the Taurus mountains, was afterwards controlled by Medes (e.g. Curtis 2003). The Babylonian chronicles suggest that in the years after the conquest of Ḫarran the Babylonian army continuously operated in northern and northwestern Syria (called Ḫatti) and in the southern districts of Urartu, which probably implies a Babylonian occupation of Assyria (Kuhrt 1995: 231); but the situation is difficult to reconstruct.
Even though Neo‐Babylonian royal inscriptions and official texts are neither as numerous nor as detailed as the Assyrian sources from the Neo‐Assyrian period, a certain continuity of governmental and administrative structures, even within Assyria, can be conjectured (Jursa 2003: 175–6). The earliest evidence comes from the largest settlement on the Khabur, Dur‐Katlimmu (modern Tell Sheikh Hamad), in the province of Laqê. In a large palatial structure there, the so‐called “Red House,” archaeologists unearthed up to three floor levels post‐dating the Assyrian empire. On the floor of the first of these levels, four cuneiform documents were found that were written by individuals bearing Assyrian names and using Assyrian formulas and language, even though the texts are dated to the second and fifth year of king Nebuchadnezzar (i.e. 605 and 602 BCE) (Radner 2002: 61–8). The documents are proof of the survival of some genuinely Assyrian administrative practices into the early Neo‐Babylonian period.
Two Neo‐Babylonian texts from Sippar (one of them probably written in 559 BCE) mention Babylonian governors in the regions formerly ruled by Assyria: at Guzana (Tell Halaf), where, in addition, letters possibly dating to the Neo‐Babylonian period were found (Dalley 1993: 137), and at Ashur (Jursa 2003: 173). At other places it may have taken some time until political order was reestablished. The return of a cult statue to Arrapḫa (Kerkuk) by Neriglissar (Dalley 1993: 136) points to attempts to revive that city. At Arbela, the settlement and probably also the temple of Ištar are known to have thrived in the later Neo‐Babylonian period. The restoration of the temple of the moon god Sîn at arran is confirmed by a number of inscribed bricks, a cuneiform tablet, and three stelae of the last Babylonian king Nabonidus (556–539 BCE) (Yardımcı 1986; Schaudig 2001). In contrast, the cult statue of Assur remained in the Esagil temple in Babylon and was not returned to the city of Ashur before the time of Cyrus (Schaudig 2001: 3.3a col. X 32’–51’).
Sources for the Achaemenid period are equally limited. A first Persian incursion into Assyrian territory occurred in 547 BCE, when the founder of the empire, Cyrus II, crossed the Tigris south of Arbela marching against Urartu.1 Assyria was probably incorporated into the Achaemenid empire in 539 BCE (see Kuhrt 1995). In Achaemenid royal inscriptions from the royal tombs at Naqsh‐i Rustam, Bisotun, and Susa, “Athuria” is consistently mentioned as one of the provinces of the empire next to, but distinct from Babylonia.2 In the tomb reliefs from Darius I (521–486 BCE) to Artaxerxes III (358–338 BCE) the images of Assyrians show them among the ethnoi supporting the kings. They are depicted with rich hair ending in curls and full beards, clad in a knee‐length belted tunic, and with laced boots and a dagger carried in the waist‐belt.
Little is known about the internal organization of Assyria and its major cities during this time. Officials at Lair (Assyrian Laḫiru on the Diyala river), Arzuḫin (Arzuḫina), Arbela, Ḫalzu, and Matalubaš (Ubaše) are mentioned in an Aramaic letter sent by the governor of Egypt, whose estate manager Nakhthor travelled in the area in the late fifth century BCE (Porten and Yardeni 1986: TAD VI.9; Kuhrt 1995: 244; Curtis 2005). The rare text points to a certain level of administrative organization within ancient Assyrian cities. The information is supplemented by excavations at Tell ed‐Daim on the Lower Zab, northeast of Kirkuk. On top of the tell a substantial building of 26 by 22 meters with walls accentuated by reinforcing protrusions was unearthed (al‐Tekriti 1960: fig. 2). Bronze wall‐plaques with floral motifs adorned some of the sixteen rooms organized around a central courtyard of what may have been the fortified palace for a local official (Curtis 2005: 189). Although missing the typical Achaemenid columns the palace fits well into the general picture of such “sites of local officialdom” throughout the Achaemenid realm (Khatchadourian 2012: 970–2).
Just a few years after Nakhthor, Xenophon provided an eye‐witness account of the area in his description of the march of 10,000 Greek mercenaries (Anabasis). On their way from northern Babylonia to the Black Sea in 401 BCE they passed Assyria, which Xenophon considered a part of “Media.” Xenophon (Anab. 2–3) describes the area as largely uninhabited south of the Upper Zab, but with many affluent villages close to the Lower Zab and north of Nineveh, particularly in the foothills of the Taurus mountains, probably the plain of Silope. Three cities along the Tigris are mentioned by name. Kainai, “a large and prosperous city” on the western bank (Anab. 2.4.28), has been identified as Ashur, even though Xenophon’s description of the city’s affluence at that time is not supported by archaeology. Further north Larissa is described as a huge, deserted city of 2 parasangs (11–12 km) in circumference (Anab. 3.4.7). 6 parasangs north of it Xenophon (Anab. 3.4.10) passed Mespila, a ruined city still surrounded by a wall of 6 parasangs (33–6 km) in length and 30 m in height. Despite the inexplicable names the identification with Kalḫu and Nineveh has rarely been doubted, although later Greek and Roman geographers and historians were well aware of the location of Nineveh (“Ninos”) and its role as ancient capital of Assyria, and even mention the region around Kalḫu (Nimrud) as “Kalakēne” (Strabo 16.1.1; Ptolemy 6.1.3; Tacitus, Annals 12.13).
The former capital cities are not mentioned by any of the Alexander historians, not even in connection with the decisive battle between Darius III and Alexander at Gaugamela (Tell Gomel?; Reade 2001: 187) in 331 BCE. They claimed instead that it was Arbela that had served as Darius III’s base before the battle and that Alexander followed him there in pursuit (Curtius Rufus 4.9.35; 4.15.61; Arrian, Alexander 3.15).
The post‐imperial void
The very limited textual evidence from the Neo‐Babylonian and Achaemenid periods is not counterbalanced by archaeological finds. While the final siege and destruction of Nineveh (Stronach 1997: 315–18) and Ashur (Miglus 2000: 87–9; Hauser 2012a: 106–8) have left impressive material traces, the post‐imperial developments are difficult to ascertain. There is no indication that the former Assyrian palaces were reused as governmental seats by their successors, although this would appear logical and confirm the evidence from Dur‐Katlimmu. But some evidence of continued occupation or re‐settlement, often termed “squatter occupation,” does exist, even though it is of uncertain date. On the citadel of Kalḫu (Nimrud) mud floors and some repair work were recognized as evidence for a minor re‐occupation in the Northwest Palace, the Burnt Palace, the Nabû Temple, and the houses in TW53. A workshop with kilns for the production of glass in the ruins of the Burnt Palace and partition walls in the Southeast Palace throne room were assigned an Achaemenid date (summarized by Curtis 2003: 158–60; cf. Barag 1985: 108–9). Several walls and floors 1.5 to 2.5 m above the Neo‐Assyrian floor indicate the re‐use of parts of Shalmaneser III’s ekal māšarti (Curtis 2003: 158).
Only few remnants of either Neo‐Babylonian or Achaemenid date are known from Nineveh (Dalley 1993: 137–43, more skeptical Curtis 2003: 160). Examples for post‐612 BCE repairs, floors, and blocked doorways were also noted in Dur‐Šarrukin (Khorsabad) in the Sîn and Nabû Temples, Residences F, K, and Z, and even in the Palace of Sargon (Curtis 2003: 161). Again their date is questionable, also because possibly related Achaemenid‐style bracelets might have been found with even later Alexander coins (Reade 2001: 187; Curtis 2005: 186).
Still elusive archaeological evidence for the post‐imperial period is found at Ashur. Private buildings of uncertain dates were discovered at various places beneath Arsacid period levels (Andrae 1977: 237; Hauser 1994). So‐called “Stülper” burials most probably belong to the Late Achaemenid or Early Seleucid period (Hauser 2011: 126). The most important “post‐imperial” building is the so‐called “Temple A,” which served as a repository for earlier Assyrian building inscriptions (Miglus 1992). This temple within the Assur temple precinct shows the Babylonian design of consecutive transverse rooms for anteroom and cella. It is difficult to date and might be as late as the Seleucid period (Hauser 2011: 122–5). But it could also coincide with a revival of the city at the time when the statue of the god Assur was returned from Babylon by Cyrus.3 All in all, despite the evidence for limited occupation or re‐settlement, we have to assume a nearly complete abandonment of the Assyrian capital cities, which previously covered 700, 360, and 75 ha respectively, and must have had hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.
The restricted material evidence also applies to other Assyrian centers (see Figure 10.1). At Arbela, which features continuously in the textual record, post‐imperial levels predating the Seleucid period have not yet been recognized in excavations (Novácˇek et al. 2008: 276–81). The only site with a clear continuity of settlement and administration, documented by dated texts, is Dur‐Katlimmu, where the Assyrian buildings were still in use with raised floor levels. But this situation might not have lasted for more than a few years, as the last phase of these dwellings is now dated to the turn of the sixth to the fifth century BCE, based on the form of characters found on ostraca from the uppermost floor (Röllig 2003).
