by Eckart Frahm
The development of the regions in the steppe and south of Jebel Sinjar was enabled by political stability and probably helped by favorable climatic conditions. The entire settlement system of several tiers finds its center in Hatra, situated 3 km west of the middle course of the Wadi Tharthar, 50 km west of Ashur and 90 km southwest of Nineveh, i.e. in the steppe south of the modern margins of arable land. Because of a high groundwater table and its closeness to the Wadi, this place had served as a meeting point for pastoralists for a long time and probably generated some settlement (Ibrahim 1986: 92–4; Venco Ricciardi and Peruzzetto 2013). Inscriptions by its mrj’ attest to major building activities in the central temenos of the city since the later first century AD (Hauser 1998; Kaizer 2013). The main god worshipped was the sun‐god, Šamaš – on coins the city called itself ḥṭr’ dšmš, “the enclosure of the sun (god).” In the second century AD the city encompassed 310 ha. Hatra, with its huge central temenos and many minor cultic buildings (Safar and Mustafa 1976; Jakubiak 2013), developed into a religious center for political and economic exchange between nomads and sedentary people, especially after its ruler was awarded the rank of “King of the Arabs” by the Arsacid King of Kings (Hauser 1998). At this time the main route between Ctesiphon and the eastern Roman empire no longer passed Adiabene, but Hatra (Altaweel and Hauser 2004). Because of its strategic importance, Trajan (in AD 117) and Septimus Severus (in AD 197 and 199) made attempts to conquer the city. The high numbers of settlements in its hinterland, and some of the more than 500 Aramaic inscriptions from Hatra, indicate a substantial process of sedentarization and point to the successful integration of nomadic and sedentary people into the Arsacid empire, with Hatra as arbitrator between state and tribes (Hauser 1998).
The situation at Hatra is in line with the fact that the Arsacid period in general shows an extraordinary density of settlement, partly encouraged by enormous irrigation projects and a generally high level of international exchange and prosperity throughout the empire (Hauser 2012b). Literary sources, like Cassius Dio’s (78.1.2) report on the devastation of the local Adiabenian dynasty’s tombs by Caracalla in AD 216, lead us to expect the same for the Kingdom of Adiabene and its capital. And indeed, preliminary reports on recent surveys indicate that the high density of Arsacid period settlement west of the Tigris is mirrored all across modern Iraqi Kurdistan (e.g. Ur et al. 2013).
In addition, Arbela became one of the first centers of Christianity. According to the Chronicle of Arbela, a bishopric was already established around AD 100, but the Chronicle’s reliability is disputed (Kawerau 1985; Jullien and Jullien 2002: 133–6). It is certain, however, that Arbela and Karkha d‐Beth Slōk, administrative center of Beth Garmaï, served as important bishoprics throughout the Sasanian and later Islamic periods (see Fiey 1965/1969).
Unfortunately, very little is known archaeologically about these cities and their wider territory. In the 1920/30s excavations within the confines of Adiabene unearthed Seleucid and Arsacid period domestic architecture and burials in glazed sarcophagi at Kilizu (Kakzu; new excavations since 2011) and Yorgan Tepe (Nuzi) (Anastasio 2008; Potts 1996). More important is the evidence from Nineveh, which clearly experienced a phase of extensive settlement. The Assyrian Nabû temple was re‐used as a temple for Nabû‐Apollo. The throne room of the South‐West palace was transformed into a temple, possibly for Heracles‐Nergal, a god who was revered also at Ashur, Hatra, and Europos Dura (Invernizzi 1989; Kaizer 2000). The discovery of a temple for Hermes and an altar north of Nebi Yunus indicate that the settlement was not confined to the Assyrian palace and temple area, but that Kuyunjik served as an akropolis for Ninos, which at least at one point in the first century AD was governed by a strategos and epistates with the Greek name Apollonios (Reade 1998; Merkelbach and Stauber 2005: 98).
Epistates might be the equivalent to the title mrj’, which was used between the first and the third century AD in Hatra and in Ashur. During this time the eponymous city of Assyria thrived for the last time. Public and private buildings, usually built around an iwan facing north, cover two‐thirds of the area of the former Neo‐Assyrian city. The so‐called “Parthian Palace,” a large complex around a court framed by four iwans, a new architectural feature probably first introduced in this area, is considered the seat of the local administrators. But the most spectacular feature at Arsacid Ashur was the temple complex on the cliff overlooking the Tigris River. A number of temples, including one for Heracles‐Nergal and one in western Greek peripteral style, was surrounded by a temenos wall that enclosed an area of 4 ha. Exactly on top of the traditional, three‐thousand years old temple of Assur, a tripartite temple complex of iwans was discovered (Figure 10.2). The temple agrees in size and layout with the Great Iwans at Hatra and must have been impressive at its time (Andrae and Lenzen 1933). In the late second and early third century, Aramaic graffiti and votive inscriptions were scratched into the floor. They prove that the gods venerated in the temple were Aššur (now rendered “Asor”) and his wife Seru’a. Furthermore, the dates of the inscriptions agree with the two main religious festivals of the traditional Assyrian calendar, the Akītu (New Year) festival in the month of Nisan and the parak šīmāte, a festival held between the 20th and 26th Šebat. The temple and its inscriptions, as well as the rebuilding of Sennacherib’s Akītu‐temple outside the city walls and the frequent use of traditional theophoric elements in personal names, clearly indicate that more than 800 years after the violent destruction of Ashur at the end of the Neo‐Assyrian empire, the most important Assyrian gods were still worshipped (Hauser 2011).
Figure 10.2 The sacred precincts of Ashur and Hatra in the first centuries AD.
Source: Reproduced with permission of S. R. Hauser.
In several respects the later Arsacid period thus resembles the Neo‐Assyrian. For the first time since the depopulation of Assyria around 600 BCE the entire region is intensively populated again. The high settlement density and overall prosperity continue to some extent during the Sasanian period (Simpson 1996), although we observe a shift in settlement towards the west of the Tigris (Hauser 2000b). On the other hand, the entire society and its culture were completely transformed. This concerns not only the change in languages and material culture or the introduction of new, western artistic traditions, but also the social and political situation, especially with regard to the political integration of nomadic and sedentary populations within the “Kingdom of the Arabs” and the role of the “King of Kings” at Ctesiphon. Other important changes, inspired by Greek, tribal, and monotheistic religious concepts, affected the local cults. They were soon to replace the ancient deities, including Assur, who had just made a remarkable comeback.
The final sack of Ashur
In AD 220 Ardashir, descendant of Sasan, rebelled against the Arsacid ruling family, and in AD 226 he seized the capital Ctesiphon. Armenia and Hatra were the last stands of the Arsacids. Hatra’s king and his allies warded off the first attacks on Hatra, in AD 228/9. But in AD 240/241, after a two‐year long siege, Hatra was finally conquered by the Sasanians (Hauser 2013), leaving behind the largest known siege‐works of Near Eastern history (Hauser and Tucker 2009). The Sasanian campaigns not only destroyed Hatra, but depopulated its hinterland and moved the sedentary population to new settlements further north, towards the frontier with the Roman empire, while Hira became the new center for the administration of nomadic populations. Already during their first attack on Hatra in AD 228/9 the Sasanians subjugated the city of Ashur and annihilated the temple of its main god, which was never rebuilt again. From the foundation of their religious capital and throughout the various stages of their history, the Assyrians had always been ultimately focused on their god, and so this final destruction of his temple at the end of the Arsacid period, 842 years after the Median conquest of the city, was the definitive end of the might that Ashur had been for so long.4
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