Assyrian Kingdom Research Articles

Mitanni - Hittite Treaties During the Period (1480-1270 BC)

This research deals with the Mitanni - Hittite treaties during the period (1480-1270 BC), those treaties that had a great impact on the political and economic situation on the two kingdoms, especially the Mitanni kingdom. Where the Mitanni were at the beginning of the formation of their kingdom and during the period of the treaties, in a position of power so that it can be said that this type of treaties between two parties takes the form of equivalent treaties. However, the political conditions of the Mitanni kingdom have changed and its conditions have become bad as a result of the internal divisions between the ruling family, which in turn led to the pursuit of each of its princes wishing to ascend the throne to search for an ally against the other princes, in order to reach power. Therefore, treaties were made with neighboring powers hostile to the Mitanni kingdom, such as the Hittite kingdom as well as the Assyrian kingdom. The result of these treaties was that the Mitanni kingdom lost its complete independence and became subject to dependency. The final result was that it was completely eliminated by the Assyrians .

The attitudes of bad behavior by some of the owners of power and influence in the Assyrian Kingdom and the role of society in deterring it

The research, as it appears from the title, aims at shedding light on one aspect of the blatant and inappropriate behavior practiced by some members of power and influence in the Assyrian Kingdom. It is certain that by extrapolating from the terms of the Assyrian treaties and sales and analyzing their true dimensions, we seek and understand the care of the kings and their growing concern to compel the citizens of the Kingdom to have good character towards them, represented by protection, sacrifice, honesty, sincerity, advice, loyalty, respect, honesty and rejection of any ill-manners such as treachery, Conspiracies, intrigues, defamation, witchcraft, sorcery, etc. As much as the Assyrian society has enjoyed the virtues and virtues inherent in many of its members, we find that the manifestations of malaise were also prominent in many Assyrian textual evidence, especially the administrative messages, which are often embodied in the behavior of some power and influence Against the citizens of the Kingdom such as abuse and cruelty, taking bribes and assaults on the property of others and the injustice of people and mistreatment and ridicule and vice, as well as deception and cunning and greed and jealousy and defamation and meet people with two faces and deny the beautiful.

ON SOME FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC POLICY ISSUES OF MIDDLE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

The article focused on the issues of the conquest of Assyria by the Kingdom of Mittani, and expressed an opinion that Mittanian supremacy over the Aššur was not long-lasting. Based on the construction work of Aššūr-bēl-nīšēšu (1407-1399 B.C.) and the fact of the treaty concluded between Karaindaš I, king of Babylon, it is evident that the king of Aššur was acting as an independent ruler. We assume that hardly being under the domination of the Kingdom of Mittani, he could have established diplo- matic relations with a third country and to the resolve border issues. Thus, proceeding from the above, it can be clearly stated that the chronological problems of Mittanian domination over Aššur need to be revised. And the Middle Assyrian Kingdom should be dated to the reign of Aššūr-bēl-nīšēšu. Among the Middle-Assyrian kings' well-known inscriptions the first record of deportation in the area of Assyria we meet during the reign of Arik-dēn-ili (1307-1296 B.C.), and then in the reign of his son Adad-nīrāri I (1295-1264 B.C.). Kings of the Middle Assyria, mostly destroyed and plundered of conquered territories. Only in the inscription of Aššūr-bēl- kala (1074-1057 B.C.) for the first time we meet one of the earliest manifestations of the king's use of deportation and resettlement. It should also be noted that before the reign of Tukultī-apil-Ešarra (Tiglath-pileser) III (745-727 B.C.) this policy was not included in the agenda of the state policy, so the taking and transfering prisoners to the land of Assyria or any other country cannot be regarded as a mass deportation.

Hetiidi impeeriumi ja Assüüria suurriigi suhted u 1365-1180 eKr

Keywords: Ancient Near East, Hittite Empire, Assyria, Middle Assyrian kingdom, war, conflict. This article addresses the complicated issues of Hittite-Assyrian relations and military conflicts from the second half of Middle Assyrian period (ca. 1365–1180 BCE) until the fall of the Hittite Empire (ca. 1180 BCE). The article is based on the analysis of Akkadian and Hittite cuneiform texts. We have some historical records (cuneiform texts) like treaties, letters, legal documents, etc., which show quite clearly the relations between the kings of Hatti and Assyria. The key events of these relations are mentioned in Hittite-Assyrian international correspondence (diplomatic letters), royal inscriptions, and annals. The article aims to reconstruct possible Hittite-Assyrian relations at the end of the Late Bronze Age on the basis of remaining written sources from this period. This is of course only a hypothetical image or mosaic that was proposed by the author; other reconstructions and hypotheses are also possible. In this article, some issues related to the establishment of the power of the Middle Assyrian kingdom during the fourteenth to thirteenth centuries BCE, and at the beginning of Assyrian expansion into northern Mesopotamian and North Syrian regions. These events caused several Hittite-Assyrian diplomatic crises and military conflicts and even wars between these two superpowers of the Late Bronze Age, during the thirteenth century. It seems that Assyrian-Hittite wars and military conflicts had begun already at the beginning of the first decades of the thirteenth century BCE, when Assyrian kings, including Adadnarari I and Salmanassar I, conquered and destroyed the powerful kingdom of Khanigalbat, which belonged to the Hurrians and had been for several years a satellite state of the Hittites. Before this event Khanigalbat was partly conquered by the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I in the fourteenth century BCE. The aim of this state (it was turned into a vassal state) was to be a zone for protection of the Hittite empire’s territories from possible foreign invasions from southern and northern Mesopotamia. During the thirteenth century, Assyrians destroyed the remains of the kingdom of Khanigalbat (Mitanni), conquered it, and the Middle Assyrian kingdom got a border with the powerful Hittite empire, which controlled Anatolia and North Syria. This became the reason for many diplomatic and military conflicts between these two great powers during the thirteenth century BCE, until the Middle Assyrian kingdom weakened after the death of despotic Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta (1242–1206 BCE). At the same time, the weakened Hittite empire collapsed – it was conquered by invaders from the Aegean region, so-called “Sea Peoples”. This event took place in ca. 1190–1180 BCE. Struggles and conflicts between the Hittite empire and the Middle Assyrian kingdom during the thirteenth century BCE were partly documented (international correspondence, royal inscriptions, etc.), but there are not enough written sources from this period and this is a serious issue for reconstruction of Hittite-Assyrian relations. These relations were not strictly hostile, as we know from records that some of the period’s Assyrian and Hittite kings communicated as equal and probably friendly partners. There was also active trade and other relations (diplomatic, dynastic, etc.) between the Hittites and Assyrians. Vladimir Sazonov (b. 1979) is an Associate Professor at the Estonian National Defence College and a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Oriental Studies, University of Tartu.

Rebellion and disobedience in the Neo-Assyrian Kingdom (911-612 BC)

The military expansion of the Neo Assyrian period was different impulsive and reasons, the mass deportation of the peoples from the conquered countries and settling them as groups in side Assyria and in other countries which retained their ethnic unity in Assyria. the endless orders of these kings, all these factors had their great effect in creating a kind of rebellious behaviors of a sector of population in Assyrian kingdom. These rebellious movements against the king's authority and his influence which affected all the aspects of life in the kingdom. This rebellion bothered most of the Assyrian kings who thought that it is an indication to the kingdom weakness and its exhaustion politically and economically, so they tried through their different policies control that situation and put an end to it. The present research aims at shedding the light on the characteristics of that rebellion and knowing its reasons and the ways followed by the Assyrian kings to prevent it.

The Development of the Middle Assyrian Provinces

In this paper, a description of the Middle Assyrian provincial system arranged geographically, beginning with the heartland and continuing to the west, north and east, and chronologically, from the 13th to the 11th centuries BC, is undertaken. The expansion of this system was directly linked to the territorial expansion of the Middle Assyrian kingdom. Whereas most of the provinces can be followed from the 13th to the 11th century, some of them appear only for a shorter, limited period of time. According to present evidence, it seems that the term ḫalzu (district) was substituted by the concept pāḫutu (province) at the end of the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233–1197 BC) or shortly after his death.

ILISU BARAJI İNŞAAT SAHASINA RASTLAYAN DİCLE VADİSİNİN TUNÇ VE DEMİR ÇAĞLARI'NDAKİ YERLEŞİM SİSTEMLERİ VE KÜLTÜR TARİHİ

The field surveys carried out at the construction area of the Ilisu Dam, located on a small plain formed by the Tigris River between the Mardin Massive and the Eastern Taurus zone, revealed 65 ancient places used since the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period (Okse vd 2006). Surface material dating to the 3rd-1st millennia BC is obtained from 15 sites. The surveyed area is 1600 ha in extend, situated on both banks of the river. The Early Bronze Age material is collected at three sites on the eastern bank - one large, one middle-sized and one small site close to each other. The sparseness of settlements is comparable with the contemporary settlements of the Upper Khabur and Upper Tigris regions. The material is composed by incised and painted Ninevite-V ware, orange ware, Dark Rimmed Orange Bowls and the Jezirah Grey Ware belonging to the Northern Mesopotamian culture dating to the 3rd millennium BC. One shard belonging to the Early Transcaucasian Ware points to the presence of the Northern Highland Culture during the last centuries of the millennium. The Middle Bronze Age material is found on two large and one middle-sized site on the western bank and one large and two middle-sized sites on the eastern bank, pointing to a dense settlement pattern of villages and hamlets/farmsteads, most probably based on rain-fed agriculture. The surface finds include the Monochrome Standard Ware, the Red Brown Wash Ware and the Khabur Painted Ware. Comparable settlement systems with similar ceramic assemblages determine the cultural parallelism of the region with the Upper Tigris and the Upper Khabur regions during the 19th-16th centuries BC. Late Bronze Age is represented by Mitannian and Middle Assyrian wares collected at one large and one small site on the eastern bank. This pattern points to a dramatic decrease in sedentary population within the surveyed region during the Mitannian and Middle Assyrian supremacy in the 15th-11th centuries BC. The hand-made Early Iron Age Pottery of Eastern Anatolia and the Upper Tigris region is collected on two large and two middle-sized sites on the western bank and on one large, two middle-sized and two small sized sites on the eastern bank. The frequency of sites and characteristics of material culture is comparable with the dense seasonal settlements of pastoralists in the Upper Tigris region as well as in Eastern Anatolia, so, the mobile pastoralists of the Northern Highlands seem to have lived also in the Mardin region during the weak period of the Assyrian Kingdom between the 11th-9th centuries BC. New Assyrian standard pottery is found on one large, two middle-sized and three small sites on the western bank and two large and six small sites on the eastern bank. This pattern points to a dense occupation determining a rural settlement hierarchy of farmsteads belonging to villages, similar to those established in Northern Jezirah during the 9th-6th centuries BC. The Late Iron Age is not represented by surface finds, since the material culture did not change so much in rural sites during the Late Babylonian and Persian Periods.

Ancient Archives and Archival Traditions: Concepts of Record-Keeping in the Ancient World

1. Ancient Archives and Concepts of Record Keeping: An Introduction 2. Archival Record-keeping at Ebla 2400-2350 BC 3. Archival Practices in Third-millennium Babylonia 4. Private and Public: The Ur-Utu Archive at Sippar-Amnanum (Tell Ed-Der) 5. Archives of Old Assyrian Traders 6. Documents in Government Under the Middle Assyrian Kingdom 7. Local Differences in Arrangements of Ration Lists on Minoan Crete 8. 'Archives' and 'Scribes' and Information Hierarchy in Mycenean Greek Linear B Records 9. Reflections on Neo-Assyrian Archives 10. Aramaic Documents of the Assyrian and Achaemenid Periods 11. Record-keeping Practices as Revealed by teh neo-Babylonian Private Archival Documents 12. Reconstructing an Archive: Account and Journal Texts from Persepolis 13. Cuneiform Arcgives in Hellenistic Babylonia: Aspects of Contents and Form 14. They Did Not Write on Clay: Non-Cuneiform Documents and Archives in Seleucid Mesopotamia 15. Greek Archives: From Record to Monument 16. Tomoi Synkollesimoi

Dams, reservoirs and irrigation channels of the Van plain in the period of the Urartian kingdom

The citadel of Van (Tushpa) was the main settlement of the Urartian kingdom, which dominated the regions of eastern Anatolia, Caucasia and northwestern Iran between the ninth and sixth centuries BC. Lake Van borders the site on the west, while to the south is the eastern extension of the Taurus mountains, stretching east to west and reaching 3000-3500m in height. These steep mountains, rising like a natural wall between the Urartian city and its greatest enemy the Assyrian kingdom to the south, provided an advantageous defensive feature. The capital city Tushpa, which is 1.5km east of Lake Van, and the Van plain itself are bordered on the east by the 3200m high Erek mountain. Erek mountain surrounds the east of the plain like a crescent, halting the cold winds as well as providing the water supply for agriculture in the Van plain from its rich water sources. Although the soil of the Van plain, which is 1750m above sea level, is agriculturally fertile, for many crops it is barely possible to conduct successful agriculture without irrigation. The Van plain, 9km wide and 17km long, is poor in water resources, as is well known. The water sources around Erek mountain, amongst the richest in the east Anatolian region, were used effectively in the period of the Urartian kingdom for the first time. Almost all the irrigation structures built on and around Erek mountain were built in order to irrigate the Van plain to the east of Lake Van. Most of the constructed dams and reservoirs, totalling more than ten, are still in use today, with minor restoration, despite being more than 2,700 years old. If we consider that few irrigation facilities were constructed at other water sources in the east Anatolian region, it underlines the importance of these water sources at Erek mountain and its slopes for the plain of Van. It seems that the rich water sources around Erek mountain constituted another positive condition for the foundation of the capital city of the Urartian kingdom in the Van plain.

Human Feelings and their reflection on the official speech in the Assyrian Kingdom

Since the creation of God human being deposited in the secrets of his creation of the feelings and feelings of the advantage of his creativity all the phenomenon of his behavior and his impressions and emotional reactions to others. Despite the diversity of affiliations in humans and differentiation in their attitudes and the nature of their religions and beliefs and languages ​​and their countries, but they share their emotions and feelings, Feelings reflect the images of events and people on the psyche of the human being, as he faces what pleases him and what makes him sad and those who relax him and those who upset him and what pleases him and what angers him in the features of his face and through his conversations, making him more active and active in the organization of community relations In view of the importance of feelings in expressing the man's desires and the thoughts he has in determining the truth of his actions towards others, we have studied the types of feelings embodied in the official personality of the individual in the Assyrian Kingdom expressed in his tongue or represented in his actions in a way that contributes to knowledge of nature And the truth of the types of sentiments expressed by the Assyrians in their blogs, whether through the identification of terms or vocabulary that it, or through the analysis of the content of the text

Statements of Time-Spans by Babylonian and Assyrian Kings and Mesopotamian Chronology

The statements of time-spans (Distanzangaben) were thoroughly investigated by scholars discussing the problem of Mesopotamian chronology in the second millennium B.C., and were recently the subject of a detailed article. Some of these statements are no more than approximate estimates (e.g. all the statements of time-spans in Nabonidus' inscriptions) and are of no help for the establishment of an exact chronological scheme. Other statements reflect the efforts of the scribes to base their calculations on available data, thus becoming an important source for the study of chronology.The publication of the Assyrian King-Lists (henceforth AKL) accelerated the investigation and understanding of the statements of Distanzangaben of the Assyrian kings. Poebel, who believed that the AKL supplies all the necessary data for the establishment of an exact Assyrian chronology, tried to fit the statements of time-spans into his kinglists-based chronological scheme. Soon afterwards, Weidner took the same line of enquiry. Later on, Landsberger demonstrated that there is a major chronological gap in the tradition of the AKL following the reign of Isme-Dagan (son of Samsi-Addu I) and that it is impossible to establish an exact chronological scheme just by combining all the available numbers of regnal years. Landsberger proposed that in the time of the Middle Assyrian kingdom there had still existed an “ungekurzte Rezension der Konigliste”, and that this recension had served as basis for the calculations of time-spans by Shalmaneser I and Tiglath-pileser I. By calculating these time-spans backwards he tried to overcome the gaps existing in the tradition of the AKL in its present form, and this approach was accepted by subsequent scholars.

Aspects of Freedom and Despotism in the central Administration Systems in the ner-Assyriam Kingdom

As it apsearse , This research aims at shedding light on reality of the administrative work In the ner- Assyrian Kingdom(911-612 B.C) among concept of expression about their ideas ,defence of their attitudes , taking decisions within the tasks and powers entrusted to them on one hand , and obstacles of their carring out on optimum loved represented by the aspects of domination and despotism on the other. thus ,the central administration adopted by. The Assyrian kings to administer their kingdom has secreted in their tendency to giving power for a category of officials of the palace whose nature of their works was diversified ,and at the same time the tasks they weres entrusted by the palace , were numerous that caused to intervention in the power with other officials , therefore some of them utilized those pivileges given to them by the king Directly or indirectly in exercising a certain kind of domination and despotism , that this reality created a kind of obstacles in the Administrative work in directing affairs of the kingdom and citizens represented by the aspects of: disdaining ,haughtiness ,and law-breaking etc ….. Finally ,this matter reached at the unjust ices and appeals which were submitting by officials of the Kingdom either to the King or to his Crown Prince subsequently .

Fragments of Historical Texts from Nineveh: Middle Assyrian and Later Kings

A Number of the historical texts excavated by R. Campbell Thompson at Nineveh belong to the period of the Middle Assyrian kingdom, or to the first two centuries of the first millennium B.C. They attest the activity of successive Assyrian rulers in structural works on the mound of Kouyunjik, although the buildings themselves have been demolished, or remain undiscovered. Moreover, they add information on the history of that age, known mainly from texts unearthed at Ashur. All the pieces studied here are catalogued in the Second Supplement to the Catalogue of Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum (1968) where details of provenance and physical appearance are given. They are published by permission of the Trustees.The series of clay knobs (‘bosses’) recording the history of the Temple of Ishtar was edited by R. Campbell Thompson and he had a presentation of some other texts in hand at the time of his death, in 1941. His notes and copies were made available by courtesy of the Keeper of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities, but the tablets have been baked and cleaned recently, so new copies have been drawn. One of the texts, an important tablet of Tiglath-pileser I, has been edited by E. F. Weidner (see below, n.2), the remaining fragments of historical content are given now, and some related pieces added for the information they add in this respect. Although these are but scraps, and many are unidentified, they merit publication as records of a poorly documented era.