A Companion to Assyria

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

  References

  Adams, R. McC. 1981. Heartland of Cities: Surveys of Ancient Sett
lement and Land Use on the Central Floodplain of the Euphrates, Chicago: Chicago University Press.

  Altaweel, M. 2008. The Imperial Landscape of Ashur: Settlement and Land Use in the Assyrian Heartland, HSAO 11, Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag.

  Altaweel, M. and Hauser, S.R. 2004. “Trade Routes to Hatra according to Evidence from Ancient Sources and Modern Satellite Imagery,” Baghdader Mitteilungen 35, 59–86.

  al‐Tekriti, A.Q. 1960. “The Excavations at Tell ad‐Daim (Dokan),” Sumer 16, 93–109.

  Anastasio, S. 2007. Das obere Ḫabur‐Tal in der Jazira zwischen dem 13. und 5. Jh. v. Chr. Die Keramik des Projektes “Prospection Archéologique du Haut‐Khabur Occidental (Syrie du N.E.),” Florence: Centro editoriale Toscano.

  Anastasio, S. 2008. “La Missione Archeologica Italiana in Mesopotamia del 1933 e lo scavo di Kilizu (Qasr Shemamok, Iraq): i materiali conservati a Firenze,” Annuario della Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene LXXXIII, ser. III, 5, 197–234.

  Andrae, W. 1977. Das wiedererstandene Assur, 2nd edition, revised and enlarged by B. Hrouda, Munich: C.H. Beck.

  Andrae, W. and Lenzen, H. 1933. Die Partherstadt Assur, WVDOG 57, Leipzig: J.H. Hinrichs.

  Baker, H.D. 2012. “The Neo‐Babylonian Empire,” in: Potts (ed.) 2012, 914–30.

  Ball, W. 1996. “The Upper Tigris Area: New Evidence from the Eski Mosul and North Jazira Projects,” in: Bartl and Hauser (eds.) 1996, 415–27.

  Barag, D. 1985. Catalogue of Western Asiatic Glass in the British Museum I, London: British Museum.

  Barbanes, E. 1999. Heartland and Province: Urban and Rural Settlement in the Neo‐Assyrian Empire, PhD Dissertation University of California, Berkeley.

  Bartl, K. and Hauser, S.R. (eds.) 1996. Continuity and Change in Northern Mesopotamia from the Hellenistic to the Early Islamic Period, BBVO 17, Berlin: D. Reimer.

  Bernbeck, R. 1993. Steppe als Kulturlandschaft, BBVO Ausgrabungen 1, Berlin: Reimer.

  Bollati, A. and Messina, V. 2004. Seleucia al Tigri. Le impronte di sigillo dagli Archivi Vol. II: Divinità. Alessandria: Edizione dell’Orso.

  Bregstein, L. 1996. “Sealing Practice in the Fifth Century B.C. Murašu Archive from Nippur, Iraq,” in: M.F. Boussac and A. Invernizzi (eds.), Archives et sceaux du monde hellénistique, Bulletin Correspondence Hellénistique Supplément 29, Athens/Paris: École Française d’Athènes, 53–63.

  Briant, P. 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.

  Briant, P. and Boucharlat, R. (eds.) 2005. L’archéologie de l'empire achéménide. Nouvelles recherches, Persika 6, Paris: De Boccard.

  Brody, L.G. and Hoffman, G. (eds.) 2011. Dura‐Europos: Crossroads of Antiquity. New Haven: Yale University.

  Clarke, G. et al. 2002. Jebel Khalid on the Euphrates, Volume 1: Report on Excavations 1986–1996. Sydney: Meditarch.

  Curtis, J. 1989. Excavations at Qasrij Cliff and Khirbet Qasrij, British Museum Western Asiatic Excavations I, London: British Museum.

  Curtis, J. 2003. “The Assyrian Heartland in the Period 612–539 BC,” in: Lanfranchi et al. (eds.), 157–67.

  Curtis, J. 2005. “The Achaemenid Period in Northern Iraq,” in: Briant and Boucharlat (eds.), 175–96.

  Curtis, J. and Tallis, N. (eds.) 2005. Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia, Berkeley: University of California Press.

  Dalley, S. 1993. “Nineveh after 612 B.C.,” Altorientalische Forschungen 20, 134–47.

  Dirven, L. A. (ed.) 2013. Hatra: Politics, Culture and Religion between Parthia and Rome. Proceedings of the Conference Held at the University of Amsterdam 18–20 December 2009, Oriens et Occidens 21, Wiesbaden: Steiner.

  Dorna Metzger, F. 1996. “Hellenistic and Parthian‐Roman Pottery from the Upper Khabur Survey: A Preliminary Study,” in: Bartl and Hauser (eds.) 1996, 363–75.

  Fiey, J.‐M. 1965/69. Assyrie chrétienne, 3 vols., Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique.

  Fuensanta, J.G. and Crivelli, E. 2010. “Late Iron Age. ‘Post‐Assyrians’ and Persians in Turkish Euphrates: an Archaeological or ‘Historical’ Approach?,” in: P. Matthiae et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th ICAANE, 5 May–10 May 2008, Sapienza, Università di Roma, Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 65–76.

  Galan, R.M. and Olivares‐Pantoja, E. del Castillo 2007. “The Hellenistic Palace of Tell Beydar,” in: M. Lebeau and A. Suleiman (eds.), Tell Beydar: The 2000–2002 Seasons of Excavations, the 2003–2004 Seasons of Architectural Restauration. A Preliminary Report, Subartu 15, Turnhout: Brepols.

  Garrison, M. 2000. “Achaemenid Iconography as Evidenced by Glyptic Art: Subject Matter, Social Function, Audience and Diffusion,” in: Ch. Uehlinger (ed.), Images as Media: Sources for the Cultural History of the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean (1st Millennium BCE), Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 175, Fribourg/Göttingen: University Press/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 115–63.

  Gavagnin, K. 2012. “The Neo‐Assyrian and Post‐Assyrian Settlement in the Leilan Region, Northeastern Syria: Some Preliminary Results,” in: R. Matthews et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 7th ICAANE, 12 April–16 April 2010, British Museum and UCL, London, Vol. 1, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 573–92.

  Glassner, J.‐J. 2004. Mesopotamian Chronicles (ed. by Benjamin Foster), Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

  Grayson, A.K. 1975. Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, Locust Valley: Augustin.

  Green, A. 1999. “The Ninevite Countryside: Pots and Places of the Eski‐Mosul Region in the Neo‐Assyrian and Post‐Assyrian Periods,” in: Hausleiter and Reiche (eds.) 1999, 91–126.

  Hauser, S.R. 1994. Chronologische und historisch‐politische Untersuchungen zur östlichen Gˇazīra in vorislamischer Zeit. Berlin: FU Berlin (Microfiche).

  Hauser, S.R. 1998. “Hatra und das Königreich der Araber,” in: J. Wiesehöfer (ed.), Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse, Bericht des Colloquiums Eutin, Juni 1996, Historia Einzelschriften 122, Stuttgart: Steiner, 493–528.

  Hauser, S.R. 2000a. “Babylon in arsakidischer Zeit,” in: J. Renger (ed.), Babylon: Focus mesopotamischer Geschichte, Wiege früher Gelehrsamkeit, Mythos in der Moderne, Colloquien der Deutschen Orient‐Gesellschaft 2, Saarbrücken: SDV, 207–39.

  Hauser, S.R. 2000b. “Ecological Borders and Political Frontiers: the Eastern Jazirah in the Later Preislamic Period,” in: L. Milano et al. (eds.), Landscapes, Territories, Frontiers and Horizons in the Ancient Near East, HANEM 3/2, Padua: Sargon, 187–201.

  Hauser, S.R. 2011. “Assur und sein Umland in der Arsakidenzeit,” in: J. Renger (ed.), Assur – Gott, Stadt und Land, Colloquien der Deutschen Orient‐Gesellschaft 5, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 115–48.

  Hauser, S.R. 2012a. Status, Tod und Ritual. Stadt‐ und Sozialstruktur Assurs in neuassyrischer Zeit, ADOG 26, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

  Hauser, S.R. 2012b. “The Arsacid (Parthian) Empire,” in: Potts (ed.) 2012, 1001–20.

  Hauser, S.R. 2013. “The Final Siege of Hatra: Its Political Implications and Consequences,” in: Dirven (ed.) 2013, 119–39.

  Hauser, S.R. and Tucker, D.T. 2009. “The Final Onslaught. The Sasanian Siege of Hatra,” Zeitschrift für Orient‐Archäologie 2, 106–39.

  Hausleiter, A. and Reiche, A. (eds.) 1999. Iron Age Pottery in Northern Mesopotamia, Northern Syria and South‐Eastern Anatolia, Altertumskunde des Vorderen Orients 10, Münster: Ugarit‐Verlag.

  Heller, A. 2010. Das Babylon der Spätzeit (7.‐4. Jh.) in den klassischen und keilschriftlichen Quellen, Oikumene. Studien zur antiken Weltgeschichte 7. Berlin: Verlag Antike.

  Hopkins, C. 1979. The Discovery of Dura Europos, New Haven: Yale University Press.

  Ibrahim, J.Kh. 1986. Pre‐islamic Settlement in Jezirah, Baghdad: State Organization of Antiquities and Heritage.

  Invernizzi, A. 1989. “Héraclès à Séleucie du Tigre,” Revue Archéologique, 65–113.

  Jakubiak, K. 2013. “A Note on the Inscriptions and Architectural Decorations from the Small Temples in Hatra,” in: Dirven (ed.) 2013, 91–106.

  Jamieson, A.S. 1999. “Neo‐Assyr
ian Pottery from Tell Ahmar,” in: Hausleiter and Reiche (eds.) 1999, 287–308.

  Jasim, S. A.‐A. 1988. Archaeological Survey of Ancient Settlements and Irrigation Systems in the Middle Euphrates Region of Mesopotamia. PhD Dissertation: University of Chicago.

  Jenkins, G.K. 1958. “Hellenistic Coins from Nimrud,” Iraq 20, 158–68.

  Jullien, C. and Jullien F. 2002. Apôtres des confins. Processus missionnaires chrétiens dans l’Empire iranien, Res Orientales 15, Bures‐sur‐Yvette: Groupe pour l’Étude de la Civilisation du Moyen‐Orient.

  Jursa, M. 2003. “Observations on the Problem of the Median ‘Empire’ on the Basis of Babylonian Sources,” in: Lanfranchi et al. (eds.) 2003, 169–79.

  Jursa, M. 2004. “Grundzüge der Wirtschaftsformen Babyloniens im ersten Jahrtausend v. Chr.,” 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, Stuttgart: Steiner, 115–36.

  Kaizer, T. 2000. “The ‘Heracles Figure’ at Hatra and Palmyra: Problems of Interpretation,” Iraq 62, 219–32.

  Kaizer, T. 2013. “Questions and Problems Concerning the Sudden Appearance of Material Culture of Hatra in the First Centuries CE,” in: Dirven (ed.) 2013, 57–72.

  Kaptan, D. 2002. The Daskyleion Bullae: Seal Images from the Western Periphery of the Achaemenid Empire, Achaemenid History 12, Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten.