A Companion to Assyria

by Eckart Frahm

  Figure 10.1 Sites of the Late Assyrian to Arsacid periods mentioned in the text. Map by S. R. Hauser based on a topographical map by M. Grosch, SFB 586.

  Source: Reproduced with permission of S. R. Hauser.

  The assumption that there was a significant breakdown of civilization in the region seems to be supported by numerous archaeological surveys carried out between the 1970s and 2000s in Northern Iraq, Syria, and southeast Anatolia. They consistently show that there was a dramatic increase in the number of sites and the overall settlement area of them towards the later Neo‐Assyrian period (Jasim 1988; Bernbeck 1993; Wilkinson and Tucker 1995; Ball 1996; Lyonnet 1996; Barbanes 1999; Morandi Bonacossi 2000; Wilkinson et al. 2005; Anastasio 2007; Altaweel 2008), occasionally in connection with an extension of new or existing canal systems (e.g. Ur 2005; Morandi Bonacossi 1999), and a push of the settled areas beyond their former limits far into the steppe (Bernbeck 1993; Wilkinson 1995). But throughout the area only very few sites have been assigned to the Neo‐Babylonian and Achaemenid periods. The preliminary reports on the recently unfolding archaeological activities in Iraqi Kurdistan closely mirror this picture (e.g. Ur et al. 2013). The situation is in sharp contrast to the remarkably rich and varied architectural and textual evidence from many traditional Babylonian cities, e.g. Babylon, Sippar, Kiš, Uruk, and Ur, which prospered in the Neo‐Babylonian and Achaemenid periods (Baker 2012 with references).

  Explaining the evidence

  It is commonly assumed that the drop in the number and size of settlements in the countryside reflects a massive change in population comparable to the abandonment of the capital cities. But these phenomena need further discussion and explanation. First of all, we should question the material data. A major obstacle is the difficulty of identifying the pottery of the post‐imperial period. It is clear that no Neo‐Babylonian ceramics were introduced from the south. Seals in Babylonian or Achaemenid style, which have been attested at many places throughout the region (e.g. Bregstein 1996; Garrison 2000; Kaptan 2002; Fuensanta and Crivelli 2010) and could have been used for dating purposes, are likewise rare in Assyria (Curtis 2005).

  In recent years evidence is mounting that a number of pottery forms on which the dating of survey sites relies are not restricted to the imperial period, but persisted into later times. This continuity of pottery forms was first observed by D. Oates (see Oates and Oates 2001: 256–8) and confirmed by Curtis (1989), who in an important excavation in the Eski Mosul Dam area at Khirbet Qasrij identified a work area around a pottery kiln. The pottery resembled Neo‐Assyrian examples, but lacked vegetable temper and featured some new forms. It was thus dated to the sixth century by the excavator (Curtis 1989: 19–54) and became the standard reference material for surveys in the region. But more recently the idea that there was a change in wares has been challenged (Green 1999; Morandi Bonacossi 1999; and esp. Kreppner 2006). Kreppner (2008: 156) now maintains, based on the huge corpus of pottery from Sheikh Hamad that can be dated with the help of texts, that in Assyria proper “a differentiation of pottery to Iron Age II and Iron Age III or Neo‐Assyrian and ‘Post‐Assyrian’ […] is not a meaningful distinction.” Excavations in the wider hinterland of Carchemish and Til‐Barsip in the middle Euphrates region offer a chance to identify post‐imperial material, seals, and pottery (Deve Hüyük: Moorey 1980; Til‐Barsip: Jamieson 1999; Tell Shiukh Fawqani: Luciani 2005, Makinson 2005; on Tilbes Höyük and Hacinebi see Fuensanta and Crivelli 2010). The pottery chronology for these periods in Assyria itself, however, remains still poorly defined, which affects the identification of post‐imperial period sites in surveys and the resulting historical reconstructions.

  If we agree that post‐imperial pottery is nearly indistinguishable from late Neo‐Assyrian pottery, the traditional reconstruction of late seventh to fifth century BCE settlement distribution and history, which largely depends on archaeological surveys, may well need to be revised. Based on the idea that at least some identifiable eighth to seventh century BCE pottery forms were also produced in post‐imperial times, Morandi Bonacossi (2008) assumed that 36 percent of the surveyed Neo‐Assyrian sites on the Lower Khabur possibly or probably survived the fall of the empire and persisted in the post‐imperial period. This concerns mostly (relatively) large sites, which endured due to their economic and political potential, and fortified places or fortresses. Accordingly the region would have become poorer and less densely settled than before, but neither poor nor entirely uninhabited (Morandi Bonacossi 2008: 196–8; cf. Gavagnin 2012 for the Tell Leilan region). There would still have been a strong decline, but no complete devastation and abandonment, although the disappearance of smaller villages indicates a genuine change.

  In the late imperial period the expansion of many settlements, often accompanied by new irrigation projects, must have been the result of central planning, aimed at maximizing annual yields by agricultural intensification to support the hypertrophic cities. This system was prone to overexploitation of resources in its often marginal areas or to failure, especially in arid years. The system’s resilience must have been put to test already before the Assyrian empire’s defeat, and its dissolution was most likely the result of the twenty years of unrest and war in the late seventh century BCE. That only larger sites and fortresses along the river survived, while the sites in the steppe and countryside were given up (e.g. Bernbeck 1993; Wilkinson and Tucker 1995: 67), indicates profound changes in the agricultural organization that must have resulted from the political developments. We should expect that the landowning Assyrian grandees related to the court lost their landholdings. Even more important for the collapse of the agricultural organization in the countryside was the abandonment of the capital cities, which led to the decline of the market for agricultural products. With the loss of many of its former consumers (demand), the whole supply system, including facilities like canals, became obsolete.

  The question remains why and whereto the former inhabitants vanished. Parts of the population might have died through warfare or its indirect consequences, such as malnutrition and diseases. Other people were probably deported to Babylonia as indicated by a text that reports on groups from the provinces of Naṣibina and Raṣappa that were brought to the Babylonian king at Nineveh (Babylonian Chronicle 3, 47–9). Former deportees, forced laborers, and immigrants from other regions of the empire might have wished to leave Assyria. Some might have moved to Babylonia, where we observe a long‐lasting steady growth of settlements and a tremendous intensification of irrigation agriculture during the Neo‐Babylonian, Achaemenid, and also later periods up to Late Sasanian times (e.g. Adams 1981). The growth of settlements and prosperity in Babylonia might have been caused to some extent by population movement towards the south.

  In Assyria the loss of markets, changes in land rights, weakened control and missing central maintenance of infrastructure together with enhanced instability must have driven farmers from their fields. The disintegration of the economic system might have encouraged parts of the population to seek their livelihood in a (re)turn to nomadism, which in turn could have forced others in unprotected areas to leave their land as well. Sites probably needed a certain size to be self‐sufficient and survive. In connection with the existence of fortresses (identified by Morandi Bonacossi 2008), which are needed in periods of disturbances and insecurity, we might interpret this tableau as representing a fragile situation in which the new rulers showed limited interest in settlement growth and economic development.

  We cannot yet fully explain all the changes that occurred, but there is no question that they were part of the fundamental, all‐encompassing reversal of social and economic structures in Assyria from imperial to post‐imperial times. Despite the continuing existence of some settlements and some short‐term administrative continuity (e.g. at Dur‐Katlimmu), we can say that what happened was a collapse (see Renfrew 1984: 367–9 on criteria; Middleton 2012 on causes of the phenomenon). This collapse is visible in the (probably forced) large‐scal
e abandonment of capital cities, palaces, and other public buildings, the loss of cuneiform literacy, the disappearance of a centralized economy, the dissolution of the large‐scale management of the Assyrian countryside, and the strong decline in population. Throughout the Neo‐Babylonian and Achaemenid periods, the satrapy of “the land of Ashur,” the return of the statue of Assur notwithstanding, remained a sparsely populated, marginal region.

  Restructuring and Revitalization: The Seleucid and Arsacid Periods

  A brief political and geographical survey

  After the dissolution of the Achaemenid empire and the death of its conqueror Alexander, Assyria became part of the Seleucid empire. Although we possess royal letters and treaties recorded by contemporary historians and later Roman authors, and despite its geographically central position within the early Seleucid realm, which for a brief period in the early third century BCE stretched from the “Upper Satrapies” in modern Afghanistan and Iran to Asia Minor, we hear little about Assyria in the extant textual sources. The economic and political centers of the Seleucid empire were Babylonia with its large traditional cities and the new eastern capital Seleucia‐on‐the‐Tigris, and Syria with the new western capital Antioch. While most eastern satrapies of the empire were largely identical with those of the Achaemenid period, we encounter a number of smaller new political entities north of Assyria such as Gordyene, Sophene, and Mygdonia, which later became part of Armenia. Diodorus Siculus, describing consecutive distributions of satrapies among Alexander’s former generals, mentions the satrapy of Mesopotamia for 323 BCE (Diod. 18.3.3) and Mesopotamia and Arbelitis for 320 BCE (Diod. 18.39.6). This indicates a new division of the territory along the Tigris.

  As a consequence of the internal conflicts between various Seleucid pretenders to the throne, the satrapies east of Syria were conquered by the Arsacid (Parthian) ruler Mithridates I. between 148 and 141 BCE and soon formed the new economic and political heart of the Arsacid empire. The process and the date of the appropriation of the formerly Assyrian territories by the Arsacids is still uncertain. They had certainly conquered the entire area up the northwestern section of the Euphrates when in 96 BCE the Parthian envoy, Orobazes, met the Roman propraetor of Cilicia, Sulla, on the Euphrates to declare the river the border of their respective spheres of interest. The Seleucids continued to officially govern Syria until Pompey converted their state into a Roman province in 64 BCE. Assyria, in the form of two administrative units, the Kingdom of the Arabs based at Hatra and the Kingdom of Adiabene based at Arbela, remained an integral part of the Arsacid Empire until its takeover by the Sasanian ruler Ardashir between AD 226 and 241.

  In accordance with the ancient Seleucid administrative terminology, Roman authors used the term “Assyria” (or “Aturia”) mostly for areas east of the Tigris. According to Pliny (NH 5.13) Assyria was the older name of Adiabene, the Greek/Latin name (derived from Aramaic Hdyab; Syriac Ḥɘḏayyaḇ) for one of the dependent kingdoms within the Arsacid and Sasanian empires. The kingdom of Adiabene was based at Arbela and centered between the Upper and Lower Zab, but certainly included other territories east of the Tigris as well (see Figure 10.1). Accordingly both names were employed by Roman authors with varying geographical latitude (Strabo 16.1.1–3 and 19; Pliny, NH 6.16.41). In Ptolemy’s Geography (6.1) Adiabene is considered only the central region of Assyria. Assyria’s limits are marked by the Tigris in the west, beyond which (in Seleucid tradition) we find “Mesopotamia” up to the Euphrates, and the mountains of Media in the east. In the north Assyria borders on Armenia, and its southernmost district Sittakene (listed as a separate region by Pliny, NH 6.29) extends to the Susiana. Among the districts of Assyria Ptolemy mentions Kalakene, Arbelitis and the land of the Garamaioi (Beth Garmaï in later Christian literature), i.e. the area around Kerkuk (Charax or Karka d‐Beth Slokh, the Assyrian Arrapḫa; see Figure 10.1).

  While the king of Adiabene resided in Arbela, local officials are attested in the first century at Nineveh and Ashur (Reade 2001: 190; Hauser 2011). Their relation to the rulers at Arbela, who converted to Judaism in the first century AD (Neusner 1964), is not known. West of the Tigris a number of building inscriptions document the existence of another mrj’ (“lord”) at Hatra from the mid‐first century AD onwards. After the Arsacids lost the Kingdom of Osrhoene to the Romans in 165/166, Hatra’s ruler became the “King of the Arabs” (Hauser 1998). His territory stretched from the Tigris to the Khabur and from the Euphrates in the south in all likelihood to the foothills of Jebel Sinjar. As in the Seleucid period Assyria was thus split into two kingdoms situated east and west of the river Tigris. In later times, the term “Assyria” was often used for most of modern Iraq (Amm. Marc. 16.6; 23.6), probably reflecting the situation of the early Sasanian period with the three main provinces of Asorestan (south), Adiabene (east of the Tigris, in some cases called “Athuria”), and Arbayestan (in the northwest; see Morony 1982: 3. 6–17).

  Seleucid resettlement

  The transition from Achaemenid to Seleucid rule had little immediate impact on Assyria. The area remained in the shadow of Babylonia, where we observe intense population growth connected with huge irrigation systems. A new canal, the Nahr Malkha, was dug from the Euphrates to the Tigris. At its mouth the new capital Seleucia‐on‐the‐Tigris was built. Its foundation was part of early Seleucid attempts to restructure their empire with the help of new administrative structures, increased monetization of the economy, and an ambitious program of urbanization, especially in Syria (Cohen 2006).

  The creation of new cities did not cause the traditional Babylonian cities to decline right away. On the contrary, especially Babylon, which featured a sizeable Greek/Macedonian community, remained a metropolis until the later Arsacid period (Hauser 2000a; van der Spek 2009). The cult of Marduk remained important, and his priests continued their daily astronomical observations (Sachs and Hunger 1988; 1989; 1996), to some extent supported by the Seleucid rulers. On the other hand, the foundation of new cities and military settlements in Syria and Babylonia provided opportunities for many soldiers and other immigrants from the west. With them Greek deities, often depicted on official coins and seals (Bollati/Messina 2004), and a number of other Hellenic cultural features found their way into Babylonia.

  In the early third century, all along the Euphrates new cities emerged, from Zeugma in the north to Neapolis at the head of the Royal Canal in Babylonia. Placed at irregular intervals, all of them were designed to control the river traffic, major Euphrates crossings, and other economically and strategically important geographical points, like the entries of the Baliḫ (controlled by Nikephorion, later Raqqa) and the Khabur, and to monitor nomadic movements. The best known of these fortress cities, and the one closest to Assyria, was Europos Dura, in the Seleucid province of Parapotamia, which overlooked the steppe southeast of the Khabur (Hopkins 1979; Brody and Hoffman 2011). A comparable site is Jebel Khalid, situated on the west bank of the Euphrates in northern Syria. In both cases a strongly fortified city with large representative buildings on higher plateaus displays strong Western influence on public buildings, including a peristyle court and a Doric temple (Clarke et al. 2002). In the case of Europos Dura the usual grid plan and fortifications probably belong to an enlargement of the mid‐second century BCE that occurred in connection with the Arsacid conquest of Babylonia (Kosmin 2011). At about this time a small palace was also erected to the north of Assyria at Tell Beydar (Galan and Olivares‐Pantoja 2007). It was probably abandoned early in the first century BCE, like Jebel Khalid, while Europos Dura remained an important administrative stronghold first with the Arsacids and after ca. AD 165 as a Roman military site.

  In Assyria proper we have little evidence for Seleucid royal policy. Several levels of Seleucid period occupation, which ends at the time of the presumed Arsacid conquest of the region in ca. 141 BCE, were already excavated in the 1950s in Nimrud (Oates and Oates 1958; Jenkins 1958). Numerous Seleucid coins and pottery demonstrate the beginning resettlement of the l
ower city of Ashur (Hauser 2011). An impressive array of characteristic pottery types, including fishplates and bowls with incurved rims, well‐known from western Syria and the Mediterranean, also allows the identification of Seleucid period sites in surveys. Contrary to the preceding period we find clear evidence for widespread, although not dense resettlement in form of dispersed villages in nearly all surveys, especially in the north and east of the Tigris. Although Greek cultural influence is less obvious than in Babylonia, handles of amphorae, e.g. at Nimrud and Ashur, indicate close contact and economic exchange with more western areas of the empire. Greek settlers might have come to Nineveh, where we find sculptures of Hermes and Heracles (who was identified with Nergal) and inscriptions with Greek names, although the latter date to the Arsacid period (Reade 1998; 2001).

  Prosperity and reorganization: the Arsacid period

  The slow recovery of Assyria in Seleucid times continued in the early Arsacid period. It eventually resulted in a most remarkable return of prosperity during the last 200 years of Arsacid rule. Across Assyria, on both sides of the Tigris, surveys prove an enormous density of settlement, only comparable to the Neo‐Assyrian period. This holds true for the region north of Nineveh towards the Taurus (Wilkinson and Tucker 1995; Ball 1996) and throughout the Khabur triangle (Dorna Metzger 1996). Intensified settlement took place along the lower Khabur (Kühne 2005) and especially all over the plains south of Jebel Sinjar and Tell Afar as well as along the Wadi Tharthar (Ibrahim 1986; Hauser 2000b). Even in the steppe between the Wadi Tharthar, the Khabur, and the Euphrates, in an area that receives less than 200 mm annual precipitation, we find an unprecedented number of (semi‐permanent?) settlements. Along the Euphrates previously existing villages and cities expanded. A major point of reference for the material culture, although outside of Assyria proper, is Europos Dura. Excavations there unearthed richly decorated temples for diverse deities, a Jewish synagogue, and a Christian chapel dating to the early third century AD, indicating the religious complexity of this frontier region between the Roman and Arsacid empires (Brody and Hoffman 2011).