A Companion to Assyria

by Eckart Frahm

  In view of Esarhaddon’s complete lack of success, it is no surprise that his royal inscriptions keep silent about Mugallu. Instead, he figures prominently in prophecy, astrological reports, and magic rituals. An eclipse that seemed to predict Mugallu’s imminent natural death and a lengthy prophecy including a promise of the goddess Ištar to destroy Melid document both the frustration and the wishful thinking of Esarhaddon and his court. In real life, the power and prestige of the loathed enemy only grew. After he had taken over, friendly or not, the kingdom of Tabal, “Mugallu of Melid” became known as “Mugallu of Tabal” in Assurbanipal’s reign.

  Mugallu was, however, wise enough not to try his luck too often. After the conquest of Meliddu, he made no further attempt to expand his territory at Assyria’s expense. Instead, he tried to enter, although in vain, into negotiations with Esarhaddon.

  Then, suddenly, soon after Assurbanipal had ascended the throne, most dramatic events forced even the formidable Mugallu to formally submit to the Assyrians. His change of mind was caused by the Cimmerians, who in the early 660s reappeared on the scene as a threat more deadly than ever. Perhaps their numerous warrior groups, which hitherto had acted independently from each other and were scattered over a vast area stretching from Anatolia deep into western Iran, had joint their forces in central Anatolia.

  Hard‐pressed as they were, the Anatolian rulers turned to Assyria for help as to the only power able to halt the new Cimmerian onslaught. Even an envoy from Lydia, a kingdom far off in western Anatolia, arrived by ship at the Mediterranean coast, with gifts and a nice story: in a dream, so the court at Nineveh was told, the god Ashur had appeared to Gyges, the king of Lydia (Guggu, king of Luddu in the Assyrian sources), promising him instant victory over the Cimmerians as soon as he, Gyges, submitted to Assurbanipal.

  Since the Cimmerians, at least for the time being, abstained from raids against Assyria proper, their frightening presence in Anatolia was a great stroke of luck for Assurbanipal, who took full advantage of his favorable position. He condescendingly accepted the submission of the Anatolian rulers and cashed in their tribute, but he did nothing at all to help them. Assurbanipal’s policy of splendid inactivity worked extremely well for more than twenty years. First cracks appeared in the early 650s, when Gyges broke off his useless relations with Assyria and even supported the efforts of the Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus to throw the Assyrians out of Egypt. But Lydia as such was of no great significance for Assyria. Mugallu of Tabal was much more important, and as an immediate neighbor of Assyria he had no choice but to remain submissive in order to avoid a war on two fronts. In 651, he was still paying his tribute, and when he died, the succession of his son [M]ussi(?) was approved by Assurbanipal.

  In the 640s, however, under the leadership of Dugdamme, the Cimmerians intensified their activities again. Far in the west, Gyges of Lydia lost his life fighting against them, and his son Ardys once again (and again in vain) tried to get help from Assyria. Around 645 BCE, the era of peace and stability along Assyria’s northwestern frontier came to a sudden end, when [M]ussi of Tabal yielded to the Cimmerian pressure and defected to Dugdamme. Tabal, which hitherto had functioned as an effective if unwilling shield against the Cimmerian threat, suddenly became a deployment area for Cimmerian raids against Assyria’s northwestern provinces (Fuchs 2010).

  Unfortunately, the picture of what happened next is blurred by the peculiarities of Assurbanipal’s latest inscriptions and their preference for tales of miracles and divine interventions: the fire god, we are told, “burnt” [M]ussi of Tabal, and when the Cimmerians invaded Assyrian territory, the same fire god fell from heaven “burning” Dugdamme, his warriors, and his camp, whereupon the Cimmerian leader submitted to Assurbanipal. Soon afterwards, however, Dugdamme broke his oath and attacked again, but the gods struck him with a terrible disease, from which he died in agony, shortly before 639. Later on, Dugdamme’s son Sandakurru, unimpressed by his father’s miserable end, resumed the attacks until he too was finished off by Assurbanipal’s gods. These awkwardly distorted stories are the latest news concerning events in central Anatolia that are mentioned in Assyrian texts. According to Greek sources, the Cimmerians were defeated at last by the kings of Lydia, who in the course of the sixth century expanded their kingdom over most parts of central Anatolia.

  References

  Fuchs, A. 2000. “Māt Ḫabḫi,” in: J. Marzahn and H. Neumann (eds.), Assyriologica et Semitica. Festschrift für Joachim Oelsner anläßlich seines 65. Geburtstages am 18. Februar 1997, AOAT 252, Münster: Ugarit‐Verlag.

  Fuchs, A. 2010. “Gyges, Assurbanipal und Dugdammē/Lygdamis: Absurde Kontakte zwischen Anatolian und Ninive,” in: R. Rollinger (ed.), Interkulturalität in der Alten Welt: Vorderasien, Hellas, Ägypten und die vielfältigen Ebenen des Kontakts, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 409–27.

  Fuchs, A. 2012. “Urarṭu in der Zeit,” in: Kroll et al. (eds.) 2012, 135–61.

  Hawkins, J.D. 2000. Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, Studies in Indo‐European Language and Culture Neue Folge, New Series 8.1, Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.

  Hellwag, U. 2012. “Der Niedergang Urartus,” in: Kroll et al. (eds.) 2012, 227–41.

  Kroll, S., Gruber, C., Hellwag, U., Roaf, M., and Zimansky, P. 2012. Biainlili‐Urartu, The Proceedings of the Symposium Held in Munich 12–14 October 2007. Tagungsbericht des Münchner Symposiums 12.‐14. Oktober 2007, Acta Iranica 51, Leuven: Peeters.

  Leichty, E. 2011. The Royal Inscriptions of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (680–669 BC), The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo‐Assyrian Period Vol. 4, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

  Radner, K.2012. “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Muṣaṣir, Kumme, Ukku and Šubria – the Buffer States between Assyria and Urarṭu,” in: Kroll et al. (eds.) 2012, 243–64.

  Salvini, M. 1995. Geschichte und Kultur der Urartäer, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

  Salvini, M. 2008. Corpus dei testi Urartei, Documenta Asiana 8, Rome: CNR.

  Tadmor, H. and Yamada, S. 2011. The Royal Inscriptions of Tiglath‐pileser III (744–727 BC) and Shalmaneser V (726–722 BC), Kings of Assyria, The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo‐Assyrian Period Vol. 1, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

  Veenhof, K.R. and Eidem, J. 2008. Mesopotamia, The Old Assyrian Period, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 160/5, Fribourg – Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht.

  Zimansky, P.E. 1985. Ecology and Empire: The Structure of the Urartian State, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 41, Chicago: Oriental Institute.

  Further Reading

  Salvini 1995 and Kroll et al. 2012 provide excellent overviews of the Assyrian empire’s relations with the territories to its north, especially Urartu. Radner 2012 discusses the buffer states located between Urartu and Assyria.

  CHAPTER 12

  Assyria and the East: Western Iran and Elam

  Andreas Fuchs

  To the east, Mesopotamia is bounded by what we call today the Zagros mountains. To the Assyrians, who used no such name, these were simply “the mountains,” šadû. Running parallel to the river Tigris, the Zagros range is a most formidable geographical barrier that effectively separates Mesopotamia from the lands further east. Quite a number of paths wind their ways through valleys and gorges, over passes and streams, eventually allowing access to the world beyond, but most of them are difficult to use. The Assyrians were especially impressed by the highest ranges of the Zagros, which are found along the watershed running along the modern border between Iraq and Iran. A particularly awe‐inspiring peak somewhere to the east of the modern city of Sulaimaniye they even identified with the mythical Mount Nimuš, on which once the boat of Utnapištim, the Mesopotamian Noah, had run aground when the waters of the Deluge receded (George 2003: 516).

  In ancient Near Eastern times the highlands east of Mesopotamia formed two regions, which differed in virtually every respect, in cultural, linguistic, political as well as in economic terms. In the south, in modern Khuzestan and Fars, the land of Elam rep
resented one of the great civilizations of the ancient world. In constant exchange with Mesopotamia, the Elamites had developed a distinctive culture of their own. In all material and practical aspects of life as highly developed as their contemporary Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian neighbors, the Elamites worshipped their own gods, and many of their customs differed from those in Mesopotamia. They had adopted the Mesopotamian cuneiform script, but used it to write their own language. In the field of international politics, the kings of Elam were major players – in the second half of the second millennium they were on par with the rulers of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Hatti.

  Further west, in contrast, many of the petty kingdoms of the region between the parallel chains of the Zagros mountains separating Mesopotamia from the highlands of Iran never reached a level of complexity that required the use of a script, even in the first millennium BCE. Notable exceptions were the areas along the segment of the Great Khorasan Road between modern Sar‐e Pol‐e Zohab, Kermanshah, and Hamadan. Connecting the lowlands east of the Tigris with the Iranian plateau, this region was always in close contact with Mesopotamia. Further east, the Iranian plateau, more or less isolated from the core areas of the ancient Near Eastern civilizations by the formidable chains of the Zagros, was a cultural backwater. In general, outside Elam proper not a single settlement comparable in size or importance to the great urban centers of Mesopotamia or Syria seems to have existed in Iran.

  During the third and second millennia, occasional invaders from the Zagros, the Gutians, the Turukkeans, and the Kassites, had a considerable impact on Mesopotamian history, but no political entity of more than local significance emerged within the mountains proper. In the first millennium, according to the Neo‐Assyrian sources, most parts of the Zagros and the Iranian plateau were politically fragmented to the extreme. The sudden rise of the Medes to the rank of a great power at the very end of the seventh century, and the decisive part they played in Assyria’s downfall, was without precedent and came as a complete surprise.

  The Babylonians and the Assyrians had a strong negative bias towards their eastern neighbors. Since the end of the third millennium, when the Gutian invaders had caused considerable turmoil in parts of southern Mesopotamia, the name of this group was used to sum up indiscriminately all eastern mountain dwellers. Thus, the term “Gutian” stood for the dangerous, uncivilized, and bone idle barbarian from the mountains as such. As long as these people posed no imminent threat, the Mesopotamians did not care much about them.

  From time immemorial, however, the lowlanders had considerable economic interests in the eastern highlands. These mountains abounded in natural resources, including sheep, metals, and timber, and they were crossed by trade routes that provided access to precious goods from even more distant lands, like the famous lapis lazuli coming from as far away as Afghanistan. In the mid‐second millennium, when the use of horses became a decisive factor in warfare, the economic and strategic value of the Zagros and the Iranian plateau increased dramatically. The armies of the Neo‐Assyrian empire depended on a steady supply of horses, which were bred by the people of western Iran.

  What follows is a very short overview of the interactions between Assyria and the lands of the East.

  The Assyrian Expansion in the East

  Efforts in the Middle Assyrian period to subject the inhabitants of the mountains north and east of the Assyrian core region to Assyrian rule met with no lasting success. As for the Zagros mountains, most military operations at that time were still confined to the areas west of the chaîne magistrale. In 1112 BCE, Tiglath‐pileser I led his army right through the lands of Nairi up to the city of Melid, but his epic campaign was of no lasting consequence (Grayson 1991: 20ff. iv 40–v 41).

  Since the reign of Assurnaṣirpal I (1049–1031) at the latest, Assyria was in contact with the kingdom of Gilzanu (Grayson 1991: 255, 4´; Frahm, KAL 3: 117–23). For the next two hundred years this small kingdom south of Lake Urmia functioned as an emporium where horses from more distant regions further east could be acquired in considerable quantities. At the end of the 10th century, the Neo‐Assyrian kings started to expand into the mountain areas west of the chaîne magistrale, but as long as Assyria’s symbiotic relationship with Gilzanu remained unchallenged, there was no need to expand into western Iran.

  In the late 860s, however, Gilzanu came under attack from the rising power of Urartu. Unable to solve this problem effectively, Assyria was now in need of a second supply line from the Iranian plateau, which had to be out of Urartian reach, and the need became even more urgent when Gilzanu fell prey to the Urartians in the 820s. Since 843 serious efforts, focused on the Khorasan road and the kingdom of Namri (around modern Kermanshah), were made to establish a permanent foothold beyond the chaîne magistrale, but local resistance proved to be much stronger than anticipated, and the first attempts of conquest came to nothing accordingly. Only after the devastation of Babylonia’s power by Šamši‐Adad V had cleared the way, the Assyrians finally managed to annex Namri, probably in 797.

  In the second half of the eighth century the Assyrian expansion in Iran made two more leaps eastward along the Khorasan road. In 744 Tiglath‐pileser III set up the provinces of Parsua and Bit‐Ḫamban (north and east of Namri), and in 716 Sargon II added the provinces of Kišesim and Ḫarḫar (both east of Bit‐Ḫamban). To these provinces some minor conquests were added later on, and it was the city of Ḫarḫar (not localized) that became Assyria’s most important stronghold in western Iran.

  For centuries the whole area annexed by Assyria between 797 and 716 had been under Babylonian influence – right into the 10th century it had even been part of the Babylonian kingdom. Accustomed to rule and taxation, first by Babylonian kings and then by local rulers, but politically fragmented and with no shared identity, the area met perfectly the requirements to establish direct Assyrian rule. In contrast, for various reasons the lands beyond were much less suited to be incorporated into the empire.

  Around 700 BCE direct contact with the most important horse breeding regions was firmly established, and with the supply lines leading there as safe as they could be, Assyria’s mission in Iran was accomplished and her eastward expansion ended. The Assyrian kings began to shift their attention elsewhere: Sennacherib’s eastern campaign of 702 was probably the last one led by an Assyrian king in person – afterwards Sennacherib and his successors delegated all military operations in Iran to trusted subordinates. For most of the seventh century, the situation in Assyria’s eastern provinces was more or less stable. They lived through their own share of troubles and witnessed occasional raids from unfriendly neighbors, but these were isolated and comparatively harmless events, none of which warranted the entire army to be brought into action.

  In the reign of Sîn‐šarru‐iškun, the situation suddenly changed, and in 615 at the latest, all of Assyria’s Zagros provinces had been overrun by the Medes. But it is still unclear how all this happened and when the Medes had begun to unite against the Assyrians.

  Western Iran beyond Assyria’s Provinces

  In western Iran the territory held by Assyria since 716 bordered on four regions of different size, each of them inhabited by people completely different from each other in language, culture, and political organization:

  North of the Assyrian province of Parsua, the Manneans inhabited large parts of what is now Iranian Azerbaiğan. Assyrian and Urartian sources seem to use the terms “Mannaya” and “Mana” somewhat differently. To the Assyrians, they applied primarily to the king ruling in the city of Izirtu, i.e. the ruler of the Mannean polity nearest to Assyria. This, however, was a gross oversimplification. According to Urartian sources many Mannean lands existed east of Izirtu and were independent from it.

  Occasionally, Assyrian sources mention these other Mannean kingdoms and rulers as well, indicating that they were fierce enemies of the kings of Izirtu and even surpassed them in power. But only the history of the kingdom of Izirtu can be reconstructed to some extent. I
n the ninth century, Izirtu was just one among several petty kingdoms in the region around the modern town of Saqqez. The role ascribed in the Assyrian sources to its first attested king, Udaki, was far from impressive. In 827 he fled to the safety of the mountains, when an Assyrian army approached the city of “Zirta,” i.e. Izirtu.

  In the first half of the eighth century, “Mana” was invaded by the Urartians time and again, but the repeated efforts of Išpueni, Minua, Argišti I and Sarduri II to expand their power into the lands east and south of Lake Urmia met with no lasting success. Surprisingly, in these very same times of trouble and turmoil, the kings of Izirtu not only managed to survive, they even succeeded in increasing their own power considerably. Somehow they brought most of their neighboring rulers under their control and transformed their kingdom into a local power both the Urartians and Assyrians had to reckon with.

  If both of these “superpowers” were active at the same time, as in the second half of the eighth century, the kings of Izirtu used one of these to fend off the other. In 744 king Iranzu made his choice and met Tiglath‐pileser III in person. Since Iranzu’s kingdom Mannaya/Izirtu was perfectly suited to protect the Assyrian provinces in Iran against Urartian raids from the north, both kings quickly came to terms and forged an alliance.