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Mesopotamian King List/- 2800 - 500 B.C.

Etana, king of Kish (flourished about 2800 BC), was described in a
document written centuries later as the "man who stabilized all the
lands.

Meskiaggasher founded a rival dynasty at Erech (Uruk), far to the
south of Kish. Meskiaggasher, who won control of the region extending
from the Mediterranean Sea to the Zagros Mountains, was succeeded by
his son Enmerkar

[1]Enmerkar, (2750 BC). is the priest-king (en) of Uruk, and as such,
the ritual husband of the Great Goddess Inanna, upon whose favour the
city“s prosperity depends. Enmerkar

has as epithet 'he who build Uruk' and is known from two epics,
[2]Enmerkar and the Lord of Arratta and [3]Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana
There is no known inscription or plaque that bears his name, so there
is no archeological proof of his existence. The texts refer to
commercial/- and military contacts with a city called Aratta (not yet
localized, probably in Iran), where the Sumerian goddess Inanna (later
Akkadian Ishtar) and Dumuzi were also worshiped. These epics are seen
as a proof of trade contacts, e.g. the trade in precious stones, like
lapis lazuli. Enmerkar was the first, according to legend, to write on
clay tablets. According to David Robl:

It is my belief that the original story of the Tower of Babel
describes the building of the last great phase of the temple of Enki
at Eridu. This was begun in the Uruk Period - the archaeological era
which I have argued/- immediately followed the Flood. One of the most
powerful rulers of Uruk at this time was Enmerkar, a mighty king of
the heroic age and second only to Gilgamesh/- in the epic literature.
The Sumerian King List makes Enmerkar the second king of Uruk after
the Flood which would place his reign at the time when the building of
Enki's temple at Eridu reached its apogee.

It was in this era that a massive platform was built over the original
shrine and the erection of a new temple begun on the artificial
mountain. This was the first platform-temple to be built in
Mesopotamia and the prototype of the later stepped platform-temples
which we know as the ziggurats. It towered above the surrounding
countryside and was certainly a major architectural innovation

/-

Robl believes that the biblical king Nimrod, son of Cush was in
fact,Enmerkar. He continues:

/-

Cush (son of Ham and grandson of Noah) fathered Nimrod who was the
first potentate on earth. He was a mighty hunter in the eyes of
Yahweh, hence the saying, 'Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter in the eyes of
Yahweh'. The mainstays of his empire were Babel, Erech and Akkad, all
of them in the land of Shinar.

/-

Shinar is ancient Sumer, Akkad became the capital of the later
Akkadian empire (the city is still to be located), biblical Erech/- is
Uruk, and Babel,/- as we have seen, originally referred to Eridu. But
Nimrod himself has always eluded identification - until now.

/-

The trick was to realise that the element 'kar' in Enmerkar was the
Sumerian word for 'hunter'. Thus the king of Uruk's name consists of a
nomen/- plus epithet - Enmer 'the hunter'. This was precisely the
epithet Genesis uses to describe Nimrod. The next step was
straightforward. Ancient Hebrew was originally written without vowels
(as in the Dead Sea Scrolls). Vowel indications were only added into
the Masoretic manuscripts from the 5th century AD onwards. So, in
early copies of Genesis the name Nimrod would simply have been written
'nmrd'. The name Enmer would also have been transcribed into Hebrew as
'nmr' - identical to Nimrod but for the last 'd'. The Bible is well
known for its plays on words. The Israelite writers often translated
foreign names into familiar Hebrew words which they felt had
appropriate meaning. In this case they changed Sumerian 'nmr' to
Hebrew 'nmrd' because the latter had the meaning 'rebel' - a perfect
description for the king who defied God by building a tower up to
heaven.
[4]http://www.nunki.net/PerDud/TheWorks/Express/TowerBabel.html

/-

[5]Lugalbanda (lugal 'king', banda 'small', so 'junior king') was the
third king in the first dynasty of Uruk, and also featuring in
heroic-epic Sumerian poems, the so-called Lugal banda-epic (two parts,
together 900 lines- [6]Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave and
[7]Lugalbanda and the Anzu bird). Sumerian literary tradition states
that Lugalbanda in his own right was a god-king of the city of Uruk.
He is generally held to be Gilgamesh“s father, and according to the
Sumerian Kings List ruled the city for no fewer than 1200 years.

/-

Enmebaragesi (2700 BC), a king of the Etana dynasty at Kish, became
the leading ruler of Sumer. His outstanding achievements included a
victory over the country of Elam and the construction at Nippur of the
Temple of Enlil, the leading deity of the Sumerian pantheon. Nippur
gradually became the spiritual and cultural center of Sumer.

/-

Agga the last ruler of the Etana dynasty(probably died before 2650
BC), was defeated by Mesanepada, king of Ur

/-

Mesanepada, king of Ur (2670 BC), founded the so-called 1st Dynasty of
Ur and made Ur the capital of Sumer. Soon after the death of
Mesanepada, the city of Erech achieved a position of political
prominence under the leadership of Gilgamesh (flourished about
2700-2650 BC), whose deeds are celebrated in stories and legends.

/-

Gilgamesh is grandson of Enmerkar. His fame spread over a large region
through the Gilgamesh-epic. An Assyrian version is found in the
library of As'<s'<urbanipal (around 650 BCE) and probably dates back
to 1700 BCE. Smaller Sumerian fragments with only a few hundred lines
are dated around 2000 BCE. The spread in time and location indicates
that the epic was known for more than 15 centuries in a large region
up to Anatolia. It is nowadays (as one of the few Mesopotamian epics)
still played on stage. [8]The Gilgamesh epic is further explained
elsewhere on the Web.

/-

Gilgamesh was responsible for the construction of the city walls of
Uruk. Indeed, it appears from archeological records that these walls
were expanded around 2700 BCE with its typical plano-convex type of
bricks. Archeologists take the use of this material as a
characteristic for the start of Early Dynamic-II. There is no
archeological evidence for the existence of Gilgamesh. Although the
oral tale of Gilgamesh could have been attributed to various rulers
over millennia, the story we know is probably attached to a real king.
/- The "... Sumerian king list established a Gilgamesh as fifth in
line of the First Dynasty of kingship of Uruk following the great
flood recorded in the epic, placing him approximately in the latter
half of the third millennium. He was supposed to have reigned a
hundred and twenty-six years. He was known as the builder of the wall
of Uruk, and his mother was said to be the goddess Ninsun, wife of a
god named Lugalbanda, who however was not his father. His real father
was, according to the king list, a high priest of Kullab, a district
of Uruk, from whom he derived his mortality."(Mason, 99)

/-

Lugalanemundu of Adab (2525-2500 BC), extended the Sumerian empire
from the Zagros to the Taurus mountains and from the Persian Gulf to
the Mediterranean Sea.

/-

Mesilim (2500 BC), king of Kish. By the end of his reign, Sumer had
begun to decline.

/-

Eannatum , (E-ana-tum) (2455-2425) Son of Akurgal "he who overrules
the countries"/- He boasts that his territory extends from Kish in the
north, to Mari in the west, Uruk in the south and Elam in the east,
although it is not clear what the 'ruling' over these cities actually
means. He has had a long reign, but after his reign his territory was
reduced again to its original size. He defeated Enakalle of Umma, who
he made a tributary. He commemorated the victory by having the Stele
of the Vultures made, which is the oldest historical document ever
found. After this, he swept through Sumer, which had been liberated
from the Elamites by Uruk, subduing Uruk, Ur and the other cities, as
well as conquering part of Elam. Next he moved north to conquer Kish,
Nippur and Akshak. Kish was still weak from a defeat at the hands of
En-Shakush-Anna of Uruk. Zuzu, King of Akshak, led the northern
coalition against Lagash. They marched into Lagashite territory, but
were defeated, routed and pursued to the gates of Akshak. Eannatum was
now recognized as supreme King and took the title of King of Kish. His
tributary domains extended to Mari. There was a brief period of peace,
then an attack from Elam which was barely repulsed. Next Kish and
Akshak rebelled and were put down. A short time later the Elamites
invaded again, while at the same time, a northern rebel coalition of
Kish, Akshak, and Mari attacked. Eannatum was able to defeat both
armies. Even though he was almost continually at war, he took the
title of "Prostrater of the lands for Ningirsu". He may have died in a
disastrous battle, because he was succeeded/- by his brother, and
Lagash was never again a great power.

/-

/-

Enannatum I (2425-2405)-Brother/- of Eannatum. Ur-Lumma, Ensi of Umma
attacked with the aid "of the foreigners"/- from the north of Sumer.
He was able to crush the Ummaite army, but this also exhausted his
forces. Into the power vacuum stepped Il, En of Hallab. He attacked
and overran the remnants of Umma, proclaiming himself Ensi. Il then
invaded Lagash but was pushed back. Lagash did however lose the
northern portions of the state to Il.

/-

Entemena (2405-2375)-Son of/- Enannatum. Finally/- overcame Il of
Umma, but only with the help of Lugal-Kinishe-Dudu, King of Uruk and
Ur. He fought the influence of the priests. Entemena was the last
great Ensi of Lagash and his reign ended in peace and prosperity.

/-

Enannatum II (2375-2365)- Son of Entemena.

/-

Enetarzi (2365-2359)-An/- usurper. He was either installed/- by the
priests or he was a priest himself. He fought the Elamites.

/-

Lugalanda (2359-2352)-He was helped to the throne by the priesthood.

/-

Urukagina is the last and pious king of the dynasty in Lagash, also
called uru-inimgina. The name is written with the sign ka 'mouth',
which also stands for inim 'word'. Proper names often do not give
enough context to know the correct reading of the sign. He was the
last king of the first dynasty of Lagash, and introduced many reforms
('social reforms of Uru-inimgina') and enacted edicts related to the
problem of enslavements which were caused by running up debts. High
extortionate rates of the interest on capital (often 33.3 percent) had
to be paid by enslaving one's children until the debts were paid off.
Uru-inimgina remits the debts by decree.

Some translations spell his name Uruinimgina. He was an usurper. The
previous rulers of Lagash, especially the two usurpers installed by
the priesthood, had terribly oppressed the people, both economically
and militarily. There were excessive taxes on such occasions as
weddings and funerals and land was "bought" by officials at far below
market value. He claimed to have been chosen by the god Ningirsu to
end the oppression of the poor. He destroyed much of the old
bureaucracy. To the priests, he cut their income and ended their
influence. He created a near idyllic state, but in so doing, weakened
Lagash to the point that it could (or would) no longer defend itself
from its mortal enemies, the Ummaites. Lugalzaggessi of Umma sacked
Lagash and burned all of its holy temples. The priests of Lagash may
have aided him. Urukagina fled to the town of Girsu, a possession of
Lagash that did not seem to have fallen to Umma. Here he disappears
from history. His documents proclaiming his reforms are the oldest in
history to speak of freedom.

/-

/-

Lugalzaggesi. King Lugalzaggesi, the ensi of Umma, offered a prayer
after his soldiers had made him Sumer's master./-He ruled for
twenty-four years until overthrown by Sargon I.

/-

May the lands lie peacefully in the meadows. May all mankind thrive
like plants and herbs; may the sheepfolds of An increase; may the
people of the Land look upon a fair earth; the good fortune which the
gods have decreed for me, may they never alter; and unto eternity may
I be the foremost shepherd.

/-

By/- Lugalzaggesi's time the nearest Semites were serving as
mercenaries in the Sumerian armies. These people called their central
Mesopotamian home Akkad, so they are known to us as Akkadians. One of
them, Sargon I, would rise from humble beginnings to become the first
emperor the world had seen since Nimrod.

/-

Sargon of Akkad (2371-2315BC)

Around 2350 BCE an important change took place: the conversion from
local competing city states to the first regional state, an empire in
Mesopotamia. It was a change of political power, with more emphasis on
the northern parts in the plains of Mesopotamia. Trade contacts are
purposely centralized with the newly found city Akkad as its center.
In art people are now depicted more naturalistic as well proportioned
man with anatomic details.

/-

Sargon, in Akkadian arru k`nu, the 'true/lawful king' is a Semitic
king and founder of a dynasty of Akkad (Sumerian Agade). The exact
location of this city is unknown, but probably not far from Kish. It
is newly founded around 2350 BCE. Sargon establishes an empire
consisting of the entire region of southern Mesopotamia and the region
along the Euphrates in northern Mesopotamia, possibly extending to
Lebanon. It is the first real empire in Mesopotamia. The dynasty of
Akkad lasts until 2200 BCE and consists of five rulers.

The actual spelling of his name was Sharru-Kin. Originally he was
royal cup-bearer to Ur-Zababa, King of Kish. Ur- Zababa was defeated
in battle by Lugalzaggessi and Kish was occupied. Sargon moved to
Agade to build his power base. He either built Agade, or more
probably, rebuilt or fortified it. After consolidating his power he
attacked Uruk and razed its walls. He next defeated a coalition of 50
Ensis, probably all of Sumer, along with the remaining Urukite army.
It is at this point that Lugalzaggessi returned with his army, as he
had been away campaigning. Sargon defeated him and brought
Lugalzaggessi in chains to Nippur. He then quickly conquered Ur and
the rest of Sumer. When he reached the Persian Gulf, he ritually
washed his weapons in it. He called himself the "Great Ensi of Enlil"
to show that he respected Sumerian traditions. Next he marched on
Assyria, Mari, Iarmuti, and Ebla, conquering them all. His western
conquests brought him "to the cedar Forests and the silver mountains",
that is Lebanon and the Taurus mountains. Finally, he subjected Elam,
Barakhshi, and western Iran. The war with the Elamites was tough.
Eventually they were defeated and Susa made the capital of the
Akkadian viceroy and Akkadian was imposed as the new language of Elam.
Sargon called himself "King of the Lands" and "King of the Four
Quarters". He was not only a great military leader, but also an
ingenious administrator. He appointed Semites to high administrative
offices and posted all-Akkadian garrisons in the major cities. He
appointed his daughter Enheduanna as chief priestess of Nanna of Ur
and as a ritual representative of Inanna of Uruk. According to legend
he also sent expeditions to Anatolia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and India, but
this is not proven, and in the case of Ethiopia and India, highly
doubtful. Although in the case of India, the Indus (or Harrapan)
civilization did trade with Agade and sent ships to dock there. A
later Babylonian legend says that "all the Land" revolted against him
late in his reign and besieged him in Agade, but he was victorious.
His reign was the first time that texts were written entirely in
Akkadian. From his reign, a new kind of political ideal began to
evolve, one that was different from the city-state concept.

/-

Legend about Sargon. Sargon --the first in this dynasty-- came from
Kish and had a high position in service of the court of Kish. He was
an usurper (someone who unlawfully seizes the throne, often a
general). After Sargon seized power in Kish he chose not to stay in
the capital Kish, but to build a new capital Akkad.

/-

In epics written many centuries later (7th cent. BCE) it is told he
was humble born. His father was unknown and his mother was a
priestess. As newly born baby he was sent down stream the river in a
basket of rushes (like Mozes so much later) and raised by a gardener
under protection of the goddess Ishtar and eventually became
cup-bearer at the court of Kish. After a military failure of the
current ruler and some confusion about his succession, Sargon seized
power.

At the beginning of his reign most of the south of Mesopotamia (Sumer)
was under control by Lugalzaggesi./- A victory over him meant a
significant expansion of Sargon's territory. Subsequently he directed
his attention to the north of Mesopotamia.

/-

An important part of Sargon's policy and reason for his success, was
to appoint members of his family to important posts.. His daughter
Enheduanna became priestess in the city Ur for the city deities
Inanna/- (Akkadian Ishtar) and An (Akkadian Anum). It was one of the
most important positions in the south of Mesopotamia. Enheduanna is
one of the few scribes in those times known by name (she wrote the
'exaltation of Inanna'). She was eventually dislodged by the local
priests, showing this appointment to be against the will of the
locals.

/-

Another factor in Sargon's success of a central government are the
written orders and in general his changes on an administrative level.
He decreed a standing army of 5400 man, according to the texts. It was
the first professional army. Trading was centralized in Akkad. Coastal
ships from the Persian Gulf were obliged to call at the port and
quaysides of Akkad.

/-

Rimush (2315-2306BC)-Son of Sargon. Upon ascension he put down
rebellions in Ur, Umma, Adab, Der, Lagash, and Kazallu in Sumer, and
Elam and Barakhshi in Iran but he probably lost Syria. Palace intrigue
led to his assassination, possibly by supporters of his brother. He
was assassinated by having his head bashed in by a clay tablet.

/-

Manishtusu /-(2306-2291BC) Either Rimush's older brother or his twin.
The power of the Empire continued to wane. He had to put down a
coalition of 32 rebel kings. However, he did retain control of Assyria
and Sumer and he invaded the Oman region and defeated the local kings.
Court documents record him buying land from private citizens, so the
Kings were not absolute and they did not control all the land. An
inscription was found during the reign of the Assyrian king
Shamshi-Adad I that stated that Manishtushu founded the famous temple
of Ishtar in Nineveh. He died in a palace revolt.

/-

Naram-Sin (2291 2254 BC), Son of Manishtushu. H defeated a rebel
coalition in Sumer and re- established Akkadian power. Naram-Sin
pushed the boundaries of the Empire to the Zagros mountains. He
re-conquered Syria, Lebanon, and the Taurus mountains, destroying
Aleppo and Mari in the process. The Oman area revolted and Naram-Sin
had to invade and defeat their King , Mandannu. He also invaded
Armenia as far as Dierbakir. He called himself the "King of the Four
Quarters" and the "God of Agade". He is the proto-typical Oriental
Monarch, and the first Mesopotamian king to declare himself divine. He
appointed daughters as priestess' and sons as governors. Even with all
this military expansion and glory, he did have to continually put down
rebellions. In fact, the Lullubi, a people of the Zagros mountains,
successfully pushed out the Akkadians under their king Annubanin a
short time after Naram-Sin had subjugated them. Gutians invaded at the
end of his reign and caused destruction and the break down of
communications. The invasion was said by the Sumerians to be divine
judgement for Naram-Sin's destruction of Enlil's temple at Nippur. The
only account of this desecration is from hundreds of years after the
fact. Did his reign end in disaster? A text called the "Cuthean Legend
of Naram-Sin" shows the king "bewildered, confused, sunk in gloom,
sorrowful, exhausted" from an overwhelming invasion. The legend is
from a later period, so it is suspect. However, he was the last great
Akkadian King and the Gutians were beginning to invade the land.

/-

Shar-Kali-Sharri (2254-2230 BC) Son of Naram-Sin. He tried to shore up
the Empire and undo the damage caused by his father. Shar-Kali-Sharri
fought well to preserve the realm and he won numerous battles,
including one against the Amorites in Syria. Texts from his reign are
the first to mention Babylon and the Amorites. He is called "the
builder of the Ekur, the house of Enlil", a confirmation of
Naram-Sin's destruction? The governor of Elam declared independence,
threw off the Akkadian language and declared himself the "King of the
Universe". He continually had to fight the Lullubi, Amorites, and
Gutians. The Hurrians also contested with him for Assyria and northern
Syria. Sumer exploded in revolt. The Empire disintegrated under
rebellion and invasion. He ended up ruling only the city of Agade and
its environs. He is called the King of Agade, instead of earlier
grandiose claims and he was killed in a palace revolt. His reign
signaled the end of the Empire.

/-

/-

Gutians The Gutians were a tribe from the Zagros region of Iran. Most
of the kings seem to have only reigned for one to three years, with
the longest being seven years. They were never numerous and they seem
to have only occupied a few strategic locations like Nippur. Imta,
Inkishush, Sarlagab, Shulme, Elulumesh, Inimbakesh, Igeshaush,
Iarlagab, Ibate Unnamed(tablet damaged), Kurum, Unnamed (tablet
damaged),Unnamed (tablet damaged),Irarum, Ibranum, Hablum, Puzur-Sin,
Iarlaganda, Unnamed (tablet damaged), Tiragan-Overthrown by Utuhengal
of Uruk. He was brought before Utehengal so that he could have his
foot put upon his neck.

/-

Ur-Bau (Ur-Baba) (2155-2142)-Some/- translations/- spell/- his name
Ur-Baba. He founded the "pro- Gutian" dynasty and he also controlled
Ur. He was followed/- by three sons-in-laws.

/-

Gudea (circa 2142-2122 BC), Son-in-law of Ur-Bau. an extraordinarily
pious and capable governor. Gudea attempted to restore classical
Sumerian civilization in spite of Gutian domination. He had trade
relations with the whole known world and had Elamite craftsmen to help
build his temples. He defeated Anshan, Elam's neighbor to the south,
possibly at the behest of Gutium. He also controlled Ur. Because
numerous statues of Gudea have been recovered, he has become the
Sumerian best known to the modern world.

Ur-Ningirsu (2122-2118)-Son/- of Gudea. Last vassal of Gutium.

/-

Ugme (Pirig-Me) (2117-2115)-Some/- translations/- spell his name
Pirig-Me. Brother of Ur- Ningirsu. Vassal of Uruk

/-

Utuhegal, king of Erech (reigned about 2120-2112 BC), won a decisive
victory later celebrated in Sumerian literature. He rebelled against
and defeated the Gutians, and had the last of their kings, Tiragan,
brought before him so that he could put his foot upon his neck. He
managed to bring much of Sumer under his control and establish a
semblance of stability. He may have died accidentally/- as a text
states that "his body was carried off by the river". Some texts do
allude to him being assassinated though.

/-

Ur-Nammu (r. 2113-2095 BC), founded the 3rd Dynasty of Ur. In addition
to being a successful military leader, he was also a social reformer.
He was appointed military governor of Ur by Utuhengal. Upon the death
of the king/- of Uruk, Ur-Nammu declared himself King of Ur, seized
Uruk, and attacked and killed Namhani, the traitor of Lagash. He ruled
all of Sumer and much of Assyria and Elam. Syria, including Ebla, paid
tribute and may well have been part of the Empire. Even Phoenician
Byblos was forced to pay. Thus we can divide the empire into two
sections. The first was the Empire proper: he ruled Mesopotamia
outright and imposed the State's will over all the cities. The second
section could be called the dependencies or tributaries: The foreign
lands who were forced, either by military conquest or threat to send
tribute to the Ur III State. He called himself the "King of Ur, King
of Sumer and Akkad". He initiated many building programs and promoted
the Sumerian "way of life". Ur-Nammu "freed the land from thieves,
robbers, and rebels", restoring order and peace. He re-fortified the
towns of Sumer against any future unrest. It was long thought that he
wrote the oldest known law code, but many scholars now think that his
son Shulgi actually did. He died fighting the Gutians, who continued
to remain a problem.

/-

Shulgi (r. 2095-2047 BC), son of Ur-Nammu was a successful soldier, a
skillful diplomat, and a patron of literature. During his reign the
schools and academies of the kingdom flourished. Shulgi ushered in a
period of prosperity. Scholars now think that it was him, and not his
father, who published the oldest known law code. He completed
Ur-Nammu's building projects and re-organized the administration of
the kingdom. The Empire remained largely intact, with the Ensi's
becoming provincial governors but with no military power. The local
garrison's were put under the control of royally appointed military
commanders so as to lessen the chances of revolt. He had considerable
trouble pacifying the Assyrian territories, which called for yearly
campaigns beginning in the 24th year of his reign. He finally
succeeded in turning the northern area, with its Hurrian, Subartian,
and Assyrian populations into a province in 2051 after twenty years of
war. He also led punitive campaigns against the Amorites. The Gutians
overran Elam, causing a greater state of anarchy there than had
previously existed in Sumer. He wed his daughters to the rulers of
Warshe and Anshan and then invaded, occupied Susa, and installed a
Sumerian governor. He later had to put down a revolt in Anshan.
Elamites were recruited into a "Foreign Legion"-type army. In c.2055,
he lead an army into Palestine to punish the locals for not sending
tribute. He may have tried to emulate Naram-Sin, for he took the title
of "King of the Four Quarters" and had himself deified. He was a great
patron of everything Sumerian, even though he married a Semite,
Abisimti. She was to remain as dowager under her sons. Shulgi had more
than 50 children.

/-

/-

Amar-Sin (2047-2038)-Son of Shulgi. He waged numerous campaigns
against the Amorites. His time was divided between building projects
and wars in Assyria against the Hurrians. He may have lost the Syrian
and Elamite tributaries. He had himself deified and called the "God
who gives life to the Country" and the "Sun-God [i.e. judge] of the
Land". He died of an infection, which is ironic, since illness was
seen as a sign of the displeasure of the gods.

/-

Shu-Sin (2038-2029)-Brother of Amar-Sin. He also had himself deified.
More wars were fought with the Amorites. He lost Assyria and erected a
huge wall between the Tigris and the Euphrates a little north of
Babylon in order to help contain the Amorites. The wall was 270 km
long and breached the banks of both rivers. He also campaigned in the
Zagros and defeated a coalition of Iranian tribes. He had extensive
trade relations with the Indus Valley civilization.

/-

Ibbi-Sin (2029-2004 BC). Son of Shu-Sin. The last king of Ur. New
attacks by Elamites and Amorites forced the erection of new walls
around Ur and Nippur. His situation was insecure and even pathetic
throughout much of his reign. The realm began to disintegrate almost
immediately. Much of the time he was confined to Ur itself. Eshnunna
broke away in 2028 and Elam the next year. The Ensis of most of his
cities deserted him and fended for themselves against the Amorites who
were ravaging Sumer. He put a servant, Ishbi-Erra, in charge of Nippur
and Isin. Ishbi-Erra in turn extended his sway along the rivers from
Hamazi to the Persian Gulf. He took prisoner Ibbi- Sin's Ensis and
installed his own. He did all of this while Ibbi-Sin was still on the
throne. Severe famine and economic collapse ensued. Finally the
Elamites sacked Ur, taking him prisoner, and ending the Empire. He
died in Elam.

/-

Isin and Larsa

/-

During the collapse of Ur III, Ishbi-Erra established himself in Isin
and founded a dynasty there that lasted from 2017 to 1794. His example
was followed elsewhere by local rulers, as in Der, Eshnunna, Sippar,
Kish, and Larsa. In many localities an urge was felt to imitate the
model of Ur; Isin probably took over unchanged the administrative
system of that state. Ishbi-Erra and his successors had themselves
deified, as did one of the rulers of Der, on the Iranian border. For
almost a century Isin predominated within the mosaic of states that
were slowly reemerging. Overseas trade revived after Ishbi-Erra had
driven out the Elamite garrison from Ur, and under his successor,
Shu-ilishu, a statue of the moon god Nanna, the city god of Ur, was
recovered from the Elamites, who had carried it off. Up to the reign
of Lipit-Ishtar (c. 1934-c. 1924), the rulers of Isin so resembled
those of Ur, as far as the king's assessment of himself in the hymns
is concerned, that it seems almost arbitrary to postulate a break
between Ibbi-Sin and Ishbi-Erra. As a further example of continuity it
might be added that the Code of Lipit-Ishtar stands exactly midway
chronologically between the Code of Ur-Nammu and the Code of
Hammurabi. Yet it is much closer to the former in language and
especially in legal philosophy than to Hammurabi's compilation of
judgments. For example, the Code of Lipit-Ishtar does not know the lex
talionis ("an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"), the guiding
principle of Hammurabi's penal law.

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Sumuabum (1894-1880 BC) An Amorite Sheikh who seized the town and
declared its independence. He began his reign with the construction of
a great city wall, which was still unfinished upon his death.

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Sumulael (1880-1844BC) Sumu-La-El the oldest mention of Marduk in a
royal inscription is from the 21styear of his reign. He sacked Kish.

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Sabium (1844-1830BC) He defeated and killed Silli-Adad of Larsa in
battle.

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Apil Sin/- (1830-1812BC)

Sin-Muballit (1812-1792BC) Rim-Sin of Larsa defeated him in battle. He
was the last king of the dynasty to have an Akkadian name.

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Hammurabi (1792-1749 BC) Upon ascension he controlled only a small
area-Babylon, Sippar and the region around them. He spent most of the
first 29 years of his reign establishing internal stability and
prosperity. In 1787 he did invade the south and capture Isin, although
he failed to take Uruk. He formed a coalition with Larsa and Mari from
c.1779-1764 to wage war against Ashur, Elam and the mountain peoples.
In the mid-1770's he, along with troops from Mari and Elam, sacked
Eshnunna. In 1764 he crushed an invading army comprised of Elamites,
Assyrians, Gutians and Eshnunnians. The next year he attacked Larsa
after being encouraged by an oracle to do so. He captured Larsa and
swept through all of Sumer. He defeated another coalition of Elam,
Eshnunna, Assyria and Gutium, captured Eshnunna and reached the
Assyrian frontier. At this time he turned on his good friend Zimri-Lim
and made Mari a vassal. Two years later Mari revolted and he returned
and utterly destroyed the city. Between C.1760-1755 he waged war
against Assyria and made them a vassal. The city state of Yamhad and
its allies repulsed any and all Babylonian advances into Syria. He
took the title "King of Sumer and Akkad, King of the four Quarters of
the World". He promulgated his famous law code later in his reign.

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Samsuiluna (1749-1711BC) -Son of Hammurapi. He took control before the
death of his father, who was ill. An outburst of revolts followed the
death of Hammurapi, which led to the disintegration of the empire.
Although he fought vigorously, he lost all but Babylonia proper.
Revolution was popular because of the ancient tradition of local
independence, the heavy-handed policies of Babylon, and the economic
drain to the capital. He fought an adventurer who called himself
Rim-Sin II of Larsa for five years. Most of the fighting took place on
the Elam/Sumer border before he was captured and executed. Eshnunna
sided with him and it's ruler Anni was also captured and strangled in
Babylon. During the war, he pulled down the walls of Ur, set fire to
the temples and partially destroyed the city. He did the same to Uruk.
Elam then invaded and sacked them, taking away a statue of Inanna from
Uruk. A few years later (c.1732) Iluma-Ilu, pretending to be a
descendent of Damiq-Ilishu, the last King of Isin, raised the flag of
independence over Sumer. He ultimately gained the freedom of Sumer
south of Nippur and founded the Dynasty of the Sealand (the Babylonian
name for the southern Sumer region). At about the same time Assyria
rebelled and gained their independence. In c.1715 he crushed an
invading Kassite army.

To make up for the lost revenue from the lost provinces, merchants
became bankers and loaned to the small shopkeepers and farmers. They
in turn could not repay the loans, so they overworked their lands in
order to try. In the process they ignored the rule of fallow and the
land became increasingly salinized. Thus by c.1600, Babylon went from
political dissent to economic disruption to ecological disaster.

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Abieshu (1711-1683 BC) Son of Samsu-Iluna. He defeated a Kassite
attack, but allowed the peaceful settling of Kassites in Babylonia as
agricultural workers. He damned the Tigris in an unsuccessful attempt
to capture Iluma-Ilu, who had fled to the swamps.

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Ammiditana (1683-1646BC)/- He was able to regain Uruk, Isin and Larsa
in the south, which Babylon held until the fall of the Dynasty.

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Ammisaduqa.(1646-1625BC) He was famous for his "Edict of Justice"
which instituted reforms, including suspending some taxes for a few
years and the abolition of imprisonment for debt. He tried to halt the
economic slide but was unable to.

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Samsuditana (1625-1595 BC) There are no documents from his reign
except for a list of year names. He was overthrown when the Hittites
under Mursilis I sacked Babylon.

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Hittites were the earliest known inhabitants of what is now Turkey.
They began to control the area about 1900 B.C. During the next several
hundred years, they conquered parts of Mesopotamia and Syria. By 1500
B.C., the Hittites had become a leading power in the Middle East.
Hittite culture and language were Indo-European, but scholars do not
know whether the Hittites came from Europe or from central Asia.

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Way of life. Many elements of Hittite architecture, art, literature,
and religion were influenced by neighboring peoples. The Hittites'
system of government was more advanced than that of many of their
neighbors. Their legal system was fair and humane, and their law code
emphasized compensation for a wrong, rather than revengeful
punishment. The Hittites established peaceful and profitable relations
with the peoples they conquered. Their military superiority resulted
from several innovations. The Hittites were among the first to smelt
iron. They also built the lightest and fastest chariots of their time.

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The Hittites used the Akkadian language written in cuneiform for their
international correspondence. For their own royal and religious
writings, they used the Hittite language recorded either in Hittite
hieroglyphic writing or in cuneiform script borrowed from the
Mesopotamians. Scholars deciphered the cuneiform in the early 1900's.
But the scholars could not definitely decipher the hieroglyphs until
1947, when they found lengthy statements in both the Phoenician
language and Hittite hieroglyphs. These bilingual documents provided
scholars with the key for translating Hittite hieroglyphs.

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History. The Hittites penetrated what is now central Turkey shortly
after 2000 B.C. They conquered the local people and set up a number of
city-states. The most important of these was Hattusas, located just
east of the present Turkish capital, Ankara. When the city-states
formed the Hittite empire, about 1650 B.C., Hattusas became the
capital.

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The Hittites conquered Babylon about 1595 B.C. They also gained
control of northern Syria. The widow of an Egyptian pharaoh, probably
Tutankhamen,/- asked the Hittite emperor to send one of his sons to be
her husband and pharaoh of Egypt. But a group of Egyptians who did not
like this arrangement murdered the son before the marriage.

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One of the greatest battles of ancient times took place about 1285
B.C. at Kadesh on the Orontes River, north of Palestine. Mutwatallis,
the Hittite leader, fought an indecisive battle against Egyptian
forces under Ramses II, who barely escaped alive. The Hittites did not
conquer Egyptian territory. They concluded a peace that was sealed by
the marriage of a Hittite princess to Ramses. See Ramses II.

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Shortly after this, allies of the Hittites in both east and west
revolted. Tribes migrated from their homes around the Aegean Sea into
the western part of the Hittite empire to escape the growing power of
the Greeks. They burned Hattusas in about 1200 B.C. Hittite
city-states continued to exist for another 500 years, but they were
not very powerful. Carchemish came to be considered the eastern
capital of the Hittites. But Sargon II of Assyria captured it in 717
B.C. This marked the end of a distinct Hittite government.

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The Hittites are mentioned several times in the Old Testament. Abraham
bought the field and cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite as a
burial place for his wife Sarah. Abraham's grandson, Esau, married two
Hittite wives. As late as the time of David, certain people of Israel
were called Hittites. David had Uriah the Hittite killed in battle so
that he could marry Uriah's wife, Bathsheba.

[9]http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/worldbook/atozhistory/h/25
8020.html

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The following are Hittite Kings who ruled Babylon from 1620-1200 B.C.)
Not much is known about them.

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King Mursilis/- I (1620-1590 B.C.), Labarnas' grandson by adoption,
brought down the Old Kingdom of Babylon - Hamurabi's dynasty. This
expanded realm, also stretching to Anatolia's west coast, proved to
susceptible to internal power struggles.

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Hantili/- (1590-1560 B.C.)assassin and brother-in-law of Mursili I/-/-

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The Kassites, the Mitanni, and the rise of Assyria

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About 150 years after the death of Hammurabi, his dynasty was
destroyed by an invasion of new peoples. Because there are very few
written records from this era, the time from about 1560 BC to about
1440 BC (in some areas until 1400 BC) is called the dark ages. The
remaining Semitic states, such as the state of Ashur, became minor
states within the sphere of influence of the new states of the
Kassites and the Hurrians/Mitanni. The languages of the older
cultures, Akkadian and Sumerian, continued or were soon reestablished,
however. The cuneiform script persisted as the only type of writing in
the entire area. Cultural continuity was not broken off, either,
particularly in Babylonia. A matter of importance was the emergence of
new Semitic leading classes from the ranks of the priesthood and the
scribes. These gained increasing power.

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The Kassites in Babylonia

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The Kassites had settled by 1800 BC in what is now western Iran in the
region of Hamadan-Kermanshah. The first to feel their forward thrust
was Samsuiluna, who had to repel groups of Kassite invaders.
Increasing numbers of Kassites gradually reached Babylonia and other
parts of Mesopotamia. There they founded principalities, of which
little is known. No inscription or document in the Kassite language
has been preserved. Some 300 Kassite words have been found in
Babylonian documents. Nor is much known about the social structure of
the Kassites or their culture. There seems to have been no hereditary
kingdom. Their religion was polytheistic; the names of some 30 gods
are known.

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The beginning of Kassite rule in Babylonia cannot be dated exactly. A
king called Agum II ruled over a state that stretched from western
Iran to the middlepart of the Euphrates valley; 24 years after the
Hittites had carried off the statue of the Babylonian god Marduk, he
regained possession of the statue, brought it back to Babylon, and
renewed the cult, making the god Marduk the equal of the corresponding
Kassite god, Shuqamuna. Meanwhile, native princes continued to reign
in southern Babylonia. It may have been Ulamburiash who finally
annexed this area around 1450 and began negotiations with Egypt in
Syria. Karaindash built a temple with bas-relief tile ornaments in
Uruk (Erech) around 1420. A new capital west of Baghdad, Dur
Kurigalzu, competing with Babylon, was founded and named after
Kurigalzu I (c. 1400-c. 1375). His successors Kadashman-Enlil I (c.
1375-c. 1360) and Burnaburiash II (c. 1360-c. 1333) were in
correspondence with the Egyptian rulers Amenhotep III and Akhenaton
(Amenhotep IV). They were interested in trading their lapis lazuli and
other items for gold as well as in planning political marriages.
Kurigalzu II (c. 1332-c. 1308) fought against the Assyrians but was
defeated by them. His successors sought to ally themselves with the
Hittites in order to stop the expansion of the Assyrians. During the
reign of Kashtiliash IV (c. 1232-c. 1225), Babylonia waged war on two
fronts at the same time--against Elam and Assyria--ending in the
catastrophic invasion and destruction of Babylon by Tukulti-Ninurta I.
Not until the time of the kings Adad-shum-usur (c. 1216-c. 1187) and
Melishipak (c. 1186-c. 1172) was Babylon able to experience a period
of prosperity and peace. Their successors were again forced to fight,
facing the conqueror King Shutruk-Nahhunte of Elam (c. 1185-c. 1155).
Cruel and fierce, the Elamites finally destroyed the dynasty of the
Kassites during these wars (about 1155). Some poetical works lament
this catastrophe.

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Letters and documents of the time after 1380 show that many things had
changed after the Kassites took power. The Kassite upper class, always
a small minority, had been largely "Babylonianized." Babylonian names
were to be found even among the royalty, and they predominated among
the civil servants and the officers. The new feudal character of the
social structure showed the influence of the Kassites. Babylonian town
life had revived on the basis of commerce and handicrafts. The
Kassitic nobility, however, maintained the upper hand in the rural
areas, their wealthiest representatives holding very large landed
estates. Many of these holdings came from donations of the king to
deserving officers and civil servants, considerable privileges being
connected with such grants. From the time of Kurigalzu II these were
registered on stone tablets or, more frequently, on boundary stones
called kudurru s. After 1200 the number of these increased
substantially, because the kings needed a steadily growing retinue of
loyal followers. The boundary stones had pictures in bas-relief, very
often a multitude of religious symbols, and frequently contained
detailed inscriptions giving the borders of the particular estate;
sometimes the deserts of the recipient were listed and his privileges
recorded; finally, trespassers were threatened with the most
terrifying curses. Agriculture and cattle husbandry were the main
pursuits on these estates, and horses were raised for the light war
chariots of the cavalry. There was an export trade in horses and
vehicles in exchange for raw material. As for the king, the idea of
the social-minded ruler continued to be valid.

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The decline of Babylonian culture at the end of the Old Babylonian
period continued for some time under the Kassites. Not until
approximately 1420 did the Kassites develop a distinctive style in
architecture and sculpture. Kurigalzu I played an important part,
especially in Ur, as a patron of the building arts. Poetry and
scientific literature developed only gradually after 1400. The
existence of earlier work is clear from poetry, philological lists,
and collections of omens and signs that were in existence by the 14th
century or before and that have been discovered in the Hittite capital
of Hattusa, in the Syrian capital of Ugarit, and even as far away as
Palestine. Somewhat later, new writings appear: medical diagnoses and
recipes, more Sumero-Akkadian word lists, and collections of
astrological and other omens and signs with their interpretations.
Most of these works are known today only from copies of more recent
date. The most important is the Babylonian epic of the creation of the
world, Enuma elish . Composed by an unknown poet, probably in the 14th
century, it tells the story of the god Marduk. He began as the god of
Babylon and was elevated to be king over all other gods after having
successfully accomplished the destruction of the powers of chaos. For
almost 1,000 years this epic was recited during the New Year's
festival in the spring as part of the Marduk cult in Babylon. The
literature of this time contains very few Kassitic words. Many
scholars believe that the essential groundwork for the development of
the subsequent Babylonian culture was laid during the later epoch of
the Kassite era.

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"Mesopotamia, history of"/-Encyclopędia Britannica

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=115356

[Accessed July 1, 2002].

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Zidanta I/-/-/- (1560-1550 B.C,) son-in-law of
Hantili/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

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Ammuna /-(1550-1530 B.C.) son of
Hantili/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

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Huzziya I/- (1525-1500 B.C.) son of Ammuna?

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Telipinu (1525-1500 B.C.) son of Zidanta I?/brother-in-law of Ammuna

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Tahurwaili?

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Alluwamna /-son-in-law of Huzziya I

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Hantili II/- (1500-1450 B.C) son of
Alluwamna/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

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Zidanta II?

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Huzziya II ?

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Muwatalli I?

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Tudhaliya II son of Huzziya II? (1450-1420 B.C.)

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Arnuwanda I (1420-1400 B.C.) son-in-law of Tudhaliya II

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Tudhaliya III/- (1400-1380 B.C.) son of Arnuwanda I

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Tudhaliya /-(1380?) son of Tudhaliya III/-

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Hattusili II?

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Suppiluliuma I/- (1380-1340 B.C.) son of Tudhaliya III or Hattusili
II/-

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Arnuwanda II/- (1340-1339) son of Suppiluliuma
I/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

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Mursili II/-/- (1339-1306 B.C.) son of Suppiluliuma
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Adad-narari (1307 B.C.)/- establishes the first Assyrian empire, which
lasted until approximately 1235 B.C.

Tukulti-Ninurta (1235-1198 BC), Assyria began its first conquests, in
this case the conquest of Babylon. During the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta
I, Assyria captured the greatest prize in all of Mesopotamia, Babylon.
As a trophy of war, Tukulti-Ninurta return to Assyria with the
Babylonian king and the statue of the Babylonian chief god, Marduk.
Marduk soon became a significant part of the Assyrian worship system,
a fact that eventually lead to Tukulti-Ninurta's downfall when forces
sympathetic to Marduk assassinate him, causing an instability in
Assyria that stunted the growth of their empire.

Tiglath-Pileser, (1116-1090 became king of Assyria and set about
rebuilding Assyria's agricultural economy, resulting in a strong, more
unified Assyria. During his reign he fought and defeated the Mushki
from Anotalia and Naira tribes from the Zagros mountains, as well as
fighting through the aggressive Aramaeans to the south-west to
establish trade links with the Phoenician city-states on the shores of
the Mediterranean. Tiglath-Pileser wrote that he "crossed the
Euphrates twenty eight times...in pursuit of the Aramaeans," though
after his death the Aramaeans quickly retook his hard won gains./- He
extended Assyrian dominance to Syria and Armenia and/- greatly
expanded Assyrian territory./- Tiglath-Pileser was not only a military
man, but also a sportsman. Upon reaching the Mediterranean, he took
the time, he tells us, to go dolphin hunting. He also established
several zoos in Assyria, as he had a fascination with foreign animals.

Ashur-bel-kala 1074-1057), who tells us that the Arameans were
penetrating deep into Assyrian territory, including Tur Abdin, Harran
and Khabur.. For the next century Assyria declined, the Aramean
disruptions being the principal cause. It was not until 934 BC, by
which time the Aramaeans had settled into a more stable kingdom in
Syria, that Assyria began to re-emerge.

Ashur-dan II would concentrate on rebuilding Assyria within its
natural borders, from Tur Abdin to the foothills beyond Arbel. He
built government offices in all provinces, and as an economic boost,
provided ploughs throughout the land, which yielded record grain
production.

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Ashur-dan II establishes the Neo-Assyrian empire. The Empire unifies
the Middle East, from Egypt to the Caspian Sea, under one rule and by
so doing lays the foundation for the subsequent rise of the Persians,
Hellenism, Christianity, and Islam. Great advances in science,
technology, philosophy, medicine, and government are made. The
Assyrian conquests spread civilization to formerly savage lands. This
aspect of the Neo- Assyrian empire is often overshadowed by scholars'
baffling preoccupation with the Assyrian military machine and its
so-called "barbaric behavior". The Assyrians never conquered and
destroyed, they conquered and civilized, teaching their subjects the
art of the highest civilization then in existence. The cultural
unification of the middle east is a subtle point to grasp, yet it must
be understood that this was the greatest achievement of the Assyrians.
Other achievements in that period are to numerous to list fully. Some
examples are: paved roads, postal system, magnifying glass, electric
battery, plumbing (with flush toilet), the first use of iron, the
first chariots, the first aqueduct (which was in use until 1996 A.D.),
the first library, the first system of musical notation.

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Adad-nerari II (911-891 B.C) left detailed accounts of his wars and
his efforts to improve agriculture. He led six campaigns against
Aramaean intruders from northern Arabia. In two campaigns against
Babylonia he forced Shamash-mudammiq (c. 930-904) to surrender
extensive territories. Shamash-mudammiq was murdered, and a treaty
with his successor, Nabu-shum-ukin (c. 904-888), secured peace for
many years. He provided the final solution to the Aramean problem. He
defeated the paramount Aramean chief at Nisibin and, marching up and
down the Khabur, he obtained formal submissions from a series of
Aramean controlled cities.

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Tukulti-Ninurta II, (890-884/- B.C) the son of Adad-nirari II,
preferred Nineveh to Ashur. He fought campaigns in southern Armenia.
He was portrayed on stelae in blue and yellow enamel in the late
Hittite style, showing him under a winged sun--a theme adopted from
Egyptian art.

Ashur-nasir-pal II, (883-859 BC) brings under Assyrian control the
area from south Lebanon to the Zagros mountains, with loose control
over the Taurus region. Diyarbekr was under direct Assyrian control.
His major accomplishment was the consolidation of the conquests of his
father, Tukulti-Ninurta II, leading to the establishment of the New
Assyrian Empire. Although, by his own testimony, he was a brilliant
general and administrator, he is perhaps best known for the brutal
frankness with which he described the atrocities committed on his
captives. The details of his reign are known almost entirely from his
own inscriptions and the splendid reliefs in the ruins of his palace
at Calah (now Nimrud, Iraq).

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The annals of Ashurnasirpal II give a detailed account of the
campaigns of his first six years as king and show him moving from one
corner of his empire to another, putting down rebellions, reorganizing
provinces, exacting tribute, and meeting opposition with calculated
ruthlessness. In the east, Ashurnasirpal early in his reign publicly
flayed the rebel governor of Nishtun at Arbela (modern Irbil, Iraq),
and, after brief expeditions in 881-880 BC, he had no further trouble
there.

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In the north, he thwarted Aramaean pressure on the Assyrian city of
Damdamusa by storming the rebel stronghold of Kinabu and ravaging the
land of Nairi (Armenia). He organized a new Assyrian province of
Tushhan to control the border, and there he received tribute from his
father's former opponent Amme-ba'ali. In 879 BC, however, the tribes
in the Kashiari hills revolted and murdered Amme-ba'ali. The Assyrian
revenge was swift and ruthless. In the west, he subdued the Aramaeans,
extracting submission from the powerful state of Bit-Adini, and
subsequently marched unopposed to the Mediterranean Sea by way of
Carchemish and the Orontes River, receiving tribute along the way and
from the cities of Phoenicia.

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Ashurnasirpal used the captives from his campaigns to rebuild the city
of Calah, which had been founded by Shalmaneser I (reigned c. 1263-c.
1234 BC) but was then only a ruin. By 879 BC the main palace in the
citadel, the temples of Ninurta and Enlil, shrines for other deities,
and the city wall had been completed. Botanic gardens and a zoologic
garden had been laid out, and water supplies were assured by a canal
from the Great Zab River. The inscriptions and reliefs from this city,
to which the king moved from Nineveh, are the principal historical
source for the reign. In 1951 a stela was discovered at the site
commemorating a feast lasting 10 days for 69,574 persons to celebrate
the city's official opening when the king moved there from Nineveh in
879 BC.

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Shalmaneser III. (858-824 BC) conquered all of Syria and Palestine,
all of Armenia, and, the prize of prizes, Babylon and southern
Mesopotamia. The Assyrian conquerors invented a new policy towards the
conquered: in order to prevent nationalist revolts by the conquered
people, the Assyrians would force the people they conquered to migrate
in large numbers to other areas of the empire. Besides guaranteeing
the security of an empire built off of conquered people of different
cultures and languages, these mass deportations of the populations in
the Middle East, Mesopotamia, and Armenia, turned the region into a
melting pot of diverse cultures, religions, and languages. Whereas
there would be little cultural contact between the conquered and the
conquerors in early Mesopotamian history, under the Assyrians the
entire area became a vast experiment in cultural mixing

Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727); king of Assyria who inaugurated the
last and greatest phase of Assyrian expansion. He subjected Syria and
Palestine to his rule, and later (729 or 728) he merged the kingdoms
of Assyria and Babylonia.

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Sargon II, (721-705 BC) one of Assyria's great kings during the last
century of its history. He extended and consolidated the conquests of
his presumed father, Tiglath-pileser III. Sargon is the Hebrew
rendering (Isaiah 20:1) of Assyrian Sharru-kin, a throne name meaning
"the king is legitimate." The name was undoubtedly chosen in
reminiscence of two former kings of Assyria, particularly in
commemoration of Sargon of Akkad (flourished 2300 BC).

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Although Sargon's ancestry is partly veiled in mystery, he was
probably a younger son of Tiglath-pileser III and consequently a
brother of his predecessor Shalmaneser V, who may have died
ignominiously or may have been deposed. It was for Sargon to resume
the conquests and to improve the administration of the empire his
father had begun to assemble.

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Upon his accession to the throne, he was faced immediately with three
major problems: dealing with the Chaldean and Aramaean chieftainships
in the southern parts of Babylonia, with the kingdom of Urartu and the
peoples to the north in the Armenian highlands, and with Syria and
Palestine. By and large, these were the conquests made by
Tiglath-pileser III. Sargon's problem was not only to maintain the
status quo but to make further conquests to prove the might of the god
Ashur, the national god of the Assyrian empire.

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When Sargon succeeded to the Assyrian throne, Marduk-apal-iddina II
(Merodach-Baladan of the Old Testament), a dissident chieftain of the
Chaldean tribes in the marshes of southern Babylonia, committed the
description of his victory over the invading Assyrian armies (720 BC)
to writing on a clay cylinder, which he deposited in the city of Uruk
(biblical Erech; modern Tall al-Warka'). The presence of this record
obviously did not suit Sargon. After having discharged other
commitments, he uncovered Marduk-apal-iddina's record and removed it
to his own residence, then at Kalakh (modern Nimrud), substituting
what has been described as an "improved" version that was more to his
liking.

/-

The extant texts reveal little about Sargon himself. With few
exceptions, ancient Mesopotamian rulers have left no documents from
which to write an actual biography. No personal documents have
survived from Sargon's reign; but it seems fair to assume that
phraseologies uncommon in the inscriptions of other Assyrian kings,
found in his texts, must have met with his approval, even though it is
uncertain whether such phrases--sometimes turning into what is
obviously poetry--were in fact conceived by Sargon himself or ascribed
to him by his historiographers. The discovery, at Nimrud, of a series
of omens, the texts of which are written in cuneiform on beeswax
encased in ivory and walnut boards and marked as being the property of
the palace of Sargon, perhaps also throws some light on Sargon the
man. Although he may not have introduced the method of recording
cuneiform texts on wax, this novel method of committing texts to
writing apparently took his fancy. This assumption tallies well with
the interest he took in the engineering projects undertaken in cities
he conquered. Sargon's palace at Khorsabad was dedicated in 706 BC,
less than a year before he died.

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An unparalleled record of Sargon's eighth campaign (714 BC)--in the
form of a letter to the god Ashur--has been recovered. According to
this letter, Sargon, in 714, led the Assyrian armies from Kalakh,
which at the time was still his residence, into the areas around
modern As-Sulaimaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan and into the highlands of
the Zagros range beyond. His purpose was to come to the aid of allies
of the Assyrian realm who were threatened by Rusa I, a king of Urartu
and a bitter enemy of Assyria. During the progress of this campaign,
the author of the account visualized, or anticipated, the reactions of
his adversary as, from a mountain, he watched the approach of the
Assyrian armies. The passage, like many others in this unique text,
constitutes an ingenious stylistic device unparalleled in Assyrian
historical literature. The phraseology employed by the author is
original by Mesopotamian standards as they are known today: inventive,
resourceful, testifying to a fertile mind, and clearly deviating from
the commonplace platitudes that mostly characterize the standard
accounts of Assyrian kings. Whether or not Sargon himself is
responsible for the wording of this narrative, it is to his credit
that an account of this nature emerged from his chancery, with his
approval and endorsement. Sargon is assumed to have died in battle in
705.

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Sennacherib, (705-681 BC) was the son and successor of Sargon II, from
whom he inherited an empire that extended from Babylonia to southern
Palestine and into Asia Minor. Before his accession he served, with
ability demonstrated by his extant reports, as a senior administrator
and diplomat in the north and northwest of the empire. The main
problem of his reign was in Babylonia, where the growth of the power
of the Chaldean and Aramaean tribes seriously disturbed the old urban
centres, whose interests in commerce and need for safe trade routes
made them usually pro-Assyrian. Political instability was worsened by
the interference of Elam (southwestern Iran), so that between 703 and
689 Sennacherib had to undertake six campaigns in that area; his
attitude toward the capital city, Babylon, changed from acceptance of
native rule to hostility.

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The peace was broken in 703 by a tribal insurrection under the
Chaldean Merodach-Baladan (Marduk-apal-iddina), with Elamite military
assistance. By skillful generalship Sennacherib recovered northern
Babylonia and appointed a native Babylonian, Bel-ibni, as subking. His
army devastated the tribal areas in southern Babylonia, though he
spared major Babylonian cities, except for a few that had gone over to
the tribesmen. Elamite interference in Babylonia probably dictated a
campaign in 702 against the petty kingdoms of the Zagros Mountains,
vassals of Elam, to forestall a possible Elamite thrust by that route
toward eastern Assyria.

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In 701 a rebellion, backed by Egypt, though probably instigated by
Merodach-Baladan (2 Kings 20:12-18; Isaiah 39:1-7), broke out in
Palestine. Sennacherib reacted firmly, supporting loyal vassals and
taking the rebel cities, except for Jerusalem, which, though besieged,
was spared on payment of a heavy indemnity (2 Kings 18:13-19:36; Isa.
36:1-37:37). The biblical narrative has been interpreted as implying
two campaigns against Jerusalem, but this receives no support from
Assyrian sources.

/-

Further intrigues by Merodach-Baladan necessitated another Assyrian
campaign into the Chaldean area in 700. Merodach-Baladan thereupon
took refuge in Elam, where he soon died. Sennacherib's hardening
attitude toward Babylon was marked by the introduction of direct
Assyrian rule through the replacement of Bel-ibni by Sennacherib's son
Ashur-nadin-shum. This gave Babylonia a brief period of stability,
during which Sennacherib undertook campaigns in Cilicia and the north.
But continuing Elamite support for disaffected Chaldean tribesmen led
in 694 to a further attack on southern Babylonia, coupled with a
seaborne invasion of Elam across the Persian Gulf. Elam reacted by
raiding northern Babylonia, capturing Ashur-nadin-shum, and installing
a nominee who reigned for 18 months until removed during a fresh
Assyrian attack.

/-

Another Chaldean leader, Mushezib-Marduk, now seized Babylon and, by
opening the temple treasuries, bought massive military support from
Elam. In 691 the Assyrian and Elamite armies met at Halule on the
Diyala, where Sennacherib, though claiming a victory, suffered losses
that left him temporarily impotent. In 689 he returned to besiege
Babylon, capturing it after nine months. Abandoning attempts to
conciliate this great cult centre, Sennacherib systematically sacked
Babylon; a text exists that probably represents a theological
justification for this impiety.

/-

Sennacherib's most enduring work was the rebuilding of Nineveh, his
official residence as crown prince. On his accession he made it his
capital, building a splendid new palace, Shanina-la-ishu ("Nonesuch").
Using prisoners of war for labour, he extended and beautified the
city, laying out streets, restoring and extending public buildings,
and erecting a great inner wall, nearly 8 miles (13 km) long, which
encircled the city, and an outer wall; both walls still stand.

/-

Around his capital he established plantations of fruit trees and parks
of exotic trees and plants; among his introductions was the cotton
plant, described as "the wool-bearing tree." To irrigate the
plantations, for which at times the Tigris and Khosr rivers fell too
low, Sennacherib sought springs and streams in the hills north of
Nineveh and led them by 6 miles (10 km) of canal and a massive stone
aqueduct to feed the Khosr. He also undertook building activities in
other cities, particularly Ashur.

/-

Sennacherib claimed to be "of clever understanding," a boast supported
by his initiatives in technology. He had surveys undertaken for new
sources of alabaster and building stone, and he discovered new stands
of giant timber in mountain forests. He devised a new and less
laborious method of bronze casting and introduced more convenient
equipment for raising water from wells. He showed considerable
logistic ability in his seaborne attack on Elam, in which ships built
in Nineveh were taken by Phoenician sailors down the Tigris, overland
to a canal of the Euphrates, and thence to the Persian Gulf.

/-

Sennacherib died in January 681 by parricide, probably at Nineveh. He
was survived by his principal wife Naqia, mother of his heir
Esarhaddon; her non-Assyrian name suggests that she was of either
Jewish or Aramaean origin.

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Because of his attack on Jerusalem, Sennacherib receives prominence in
the Bible. Isaiah regarded Sennacherib as God's instrument (2 Kings
19:23-28; Isa. 37:24-29); the prophet did not condemn the king's
military activities as such, though punishment was decreed for his
arrogance in not acknowledging the divine source of his power.

/-

In The Story of Ahikar (a pre-Christian Oriental work), Sennacherib is
portrayed as a king of apparently good repute, under whom the sage
Ahikar served; where this same story is alluded to in the Old
Testament apocryphal book of Tobit, however, the king is cast in an
evil role. A similar ambivalence is shown in Jewish Talmudic
tradition, where Sennacherib, though called an evil man, is regarded
as the ancestor of the teachers of the celebrated Rabbi Hillel.

/-

Classical tradition retained a memory of Sennacherib's activities not
only in Babylonia but also in Cilicia, where the building of Tarsus,
on the plan of Babylon, was attributed to him. He was also credited
with building a temple at Athens. Herodotus' story of an attempted
invasion of Egypt frustrated by mice eating the Assyrian bowstrings
and quivers may reflect a plague epidemic during Sennacherib's
Palestinian campaign; this possibly underlay the story (in 2 Kings
19:35; Isa. 37:36) of the decimation of the Assyrian army by God's
destroying angel, which inspired Lord Byron's poem "The Destruction of
Sennacherib."

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Esarhaddon, (681-668 BC) conquered Egypt. Although he was a younger
son, Esarhaddon had already been proclaimed successor to the throne by
his father, Sennacherib, who had appointed him governor of Babylon
some time after Sennacherib sacked that city in 689. Sennacherib was
murdered (681) by one or more of Esarhaddon's brothers, apparently in
an attempt to seize the throne. Marching quickly from the west,
Esarhaddon encountered the rebel forces in Hanigalbat (western
Assyria), where most of them deserted to him, and their leaders fled.
Esarhaddon continued on to Nineveh, where he claimed the throne
without opposition.

/-

In southern Babylonia, meanwhile, the leader of a Chaldean tribe took
advantage of the revolt and attacked the Assyrian governor at Ur. When
Esarhaddon sent troops against the chieftain, he fled northeastward,
expecting to find asylum in Elam. Instead the new Elamite king
summarily executed him. The rebel's brother, however, escaped to
Assyria and submitted to Esarhaddon, who appointed him a local ruler
in his dead brother's place. This rare instance of Assyrian mercy bore
rich dividends, for he remained loyal throughout Esarhaddon's reign.

/-

The cities of northern Babylonia, which had suffered severely under
Sennacherib, were shown particular favour under Esarhaddon. He
restored land to displaced citizens who could make good their claims,
and in 678 he took military action against a Chaldean tribe that had
encroached on the lands of Borsippa and Babylon.

/-

Farther north the pressure of Cimmerians and Scythians was being
increasingly felt. Esarhaddon is said to have made a marriage alliance
with the Scythians to strengthen his position there. The pressure of
the Cimmerians continued, however, and Esarhaddon finally lost control
of much of the northwestern provinces of Cilicia and Tabal.

/-

When Egypt inspired a revolt of the Phoenician city of Tyre,
Esarhaddon attacked Egypt (675); he had little success until 671, when
he seized Memphis and defeated the Egyptian king Taharqa, who fled
south, leaving the entire country to Esarhaddon. For the first time a
Mesopotamian ruler included "king of Egypt" among his royal titles.
After the withdrawal of the Assyrian army, Taharqa emerged and
attracted a considerable following. Esarhaddon was marching to put
down the rebellion in 669 when he died. In 672 Esarhaddon had
proclaimed detailed instructions for the succession of two of his sons
to the thrones of Assyria and Babylonia, and at his death the
successions were carried out smoothly.

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/-

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Ashurbanipal (668-626 BC), the last of the great Assyrian kings,
subdued Elam, east of Mesopotamia, and extended the empire to its
greatest size. He ruled from then on in relative peace until his death
in 626 BC where the Assyrian empire started to fracture..Roads were
built to enable the Assyrian armies to subdue rebels quickly. A highly
organized mail service carried messages from the court to faraway
governors.

Ashurbanipal's first concern was to quell a revolution in Egypt, where
Taharqa (Tarku; biblical Tirhaka), an Egyptian king, had invaded the
Nile Delta and won support. Swift Assyrian military action forced
Taharqa's withdrawal, and Ashurbanipal appointed local princes
supported by Assyrian garrisons. Some of the princes intrigued with
Taharqa, and the Assyrians deported them to Nineveh. Keeping to his
plan to have native administrators, Ashurbanipal chose Necho I as
supreme ruler of the delta and made a treaty with him. Further
pressure from Taharqa's successor, Tanutamon (Tandamane), led to
another Assyrian intervention in 664-663, when the Assyrians seized
control of Memphis and sacked Thebes. When Necho died in 663,
Ashurbanipal held to his policy and accepted the succession of another
local ruler, Psamtik (Psammetichus I); he was rewarded by a peace that
enabled him to campaign elsewhere. In 654 BC the Assyrian garrisons
were expelled from Egypt, but trade continued so that this loss
resulted in little weakening of his position.

/-

He next turned to the Phoenician city of Tyre, which had supported
both Egyptian and Lydian bids for independence. A successful siege of
Tyre led to the resubmission of the rulers of Syria and Cilicia and to
a request for Assyrian help from Gyges of Lydia against Cimmerian
intruders. Because Lydian mercenaries had assisted Egypt, this help
was refused. A swift display of military might against the Mannaeans
and an alliance with Madyes, the Scythian chief, repulsed Cimmerian
advances and left Ashurbanipal free to attend to Babylonia, his
southern neighbour.

/-

Ashurbanipal had confirmed his half-brother Shamash-shum-ukin as local
ruler of Babylonia, but with restricted powers. Assyrian garrisons and
officials there continued to report to the Assyrian king, and he
continued to appoint governors both in the Sealand (Persian Gulf) and
in Ur. Babylonians petitioned him directly and received land grants.
For 16 years, relations with his brother were peaceful. When
Tept-Humban, a usurper in Elam, entered Assyrian territory and was
killed, the Assyrian action was primarily in support of the Elamite
princes Humbanigash and Tammaritu, who were given specific regions in
Elam with no attempt at direct Assyrian rule. Ashurbanipal's actions
probably aimed also to assist his own brother, whom he still trusted.
Ashurbanipal received a deputation of Babylonians about this time, and
he punished the Gambulu tribe for complicity in the Elamite affair.

/-

Shamash-shum-ukin's long stay in Babylon had imbued him with the
traditional local spirit of nationalism and resistance. He may have
interpreted his brother's policy of appeasement as weakness and as an
opportunity for him to increase his own status. In any event, he
contrived a coalition with other outlying peoples of the Assyrian
Empire--Phoenicia, Judah, Elam, Egypt, Lydia, and the Arab and
Chaldean tribesmen--and had these groups risen simultaneously Assyria
would have fallen. When Ashurbanipal discovered the plots, he appealed
directly to the Babylonians and perhaps tested their loyalty by
imposing a special tax; only upon their refusal did he take military
action. He seemed to move in ways that avoided direct danger to his
brother, and he worked more through siege warfare than through direct
action; the Babylonian Chronicle records that for three years "the war
went on and there were perpetual clashes." Elam, suffering from
internal dissension, was unable to help the rebels; and gradually,
through starvation, the Arabs who had retreated into Babylon deserted
as the famine became intense. Shamash-shum-ukin committed suicide in
his burning palace in 648 BC. Ashurbanipal's own feelings toward the
city are shown by his work of restoration and by his appointment of a
Chaldean noble, Kandalanu, as his viceroy there.

/-

Ashurbanipal had to take further action to quell the rebellion.
Raiding the Arab tribes, he defeated the Nabataean Uate and his allies
and isolated the Qadar tribe. The struggle with Elam was harder; war
there dragged on until 639 BC, when the Assyrians sacked Susa. That
year Ashurbanipal celebrated his triumph; he had "the whole world"
under his sway, and four captive kings drew his chariot in the
procession.

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The military action required to maintain order must not overshadow
Ashurbanipal's ability as an administrator. The empire prospered
economically despite the threatened closure of the northern and
eastern trade routes due to Lydian and Median expansions.
Unfortunately, the sources are too scanty to follow his reign after
631 BC. Ashurbanipal's death is nowhere recorded, but it seems that he
followed his father's precedent in bringing his sons Ashur-etel-ilani
and Sin-shar-ishkun into co-regency, each with a separately defined
authority. It is no indictment of his rule that his empire fell within
two decades after his death; this was due to external pressures rather
than to internal strife.

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Ashur-etel-ilani/- and Sin-shar-ishkun (635 -626 B.C.): Ashurbanipal
had twin sons. Ashur-etel-ilani was appointed successor to the throne,
but his twin brother Sin-shar-ishkun did not recognize him. The fight
between them and their supporters forced the old king to withdraw to
Harran, in 632 at the latest, perhaps ruling from there over the
western part of the empire until his death in 627. Ashur-etel-ilani
governed in Assyria from about 633, but a general, Sin-shum-lisher,
soon rebelled against him and proclaimed himself counter-king. Some
years later (629?) Sin-shar-ishkun finally succeeded in obtaining the
kingship. In Babylonian documents dates can be found for all three
kings. To add to the confusion, until 626 there are also dates of
Ashurbanipal and a king named Kandalanu. In 626 the Chaldean
Nabopolassar (Nabu-apal-usur) revolted from Uruk and occupied Babylon.
There were several changes in government. King Ashur-etel-ilani was
forced to withdraw to the west, where he died sometime after 625.
Sin-shar-ishkun, king of Assyria, found death in his burning palace

/-

Nabopolassar/- (630-605 B.C.) became king of the Chaldeans. In 626 he
forced the Assyrians out of Uruk and crowned himself king of
Babylonia. He took part in the wars aimed at the destruction of
Assyria. At the same time, he began to restore the dilapidated network
of canals in the cities of Babylonia, particularly those in Babylon
itself. He fought against the Assyrian Ashur-uballit II and then
against Egypt, his successes alternating with misfortunes. In 605
Nabopolassar died in Babylon.

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Ashur-uballit II (611-609 the commander of the Assyrian army in the
west crowned himself king in the city of Harran, assuming the name of
the founder of the empire, BC). Ashur-uballit had to face both the
Babylonians and the Medes. They conquered Harran in 610, without,
however, destroying the city completely. In 609 the remaining Assyrian
troops had to capitulate. With this event Assyria disappeared from
history. The great empires that succeeded it learned a great deal from
the hated Assyrians, both in the arts and in the organization of their
states.

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Mebuchadrezzar II Nabopolassar had named his oldest son,
Nabu-kudurri-usur, after the famous king of the second dynasty of
Isin, trained him carefully for his prospective kingship, and shared
responsibility with him. When the father died in 605, Nebuchadrezzar
was with his army in Syria; he had just crushed the Egyptians near
Carchemish in a cruel, bloody battle and pursued them into the south.
On receiving the news of his father's death, Nebuchadrezzar returned
immediately to Babylon. In his numerous building inscriptions he tells
but rarely of his many wars; most of them end with prayers. The
Babylonian chronicle is extant only for the years 605-594, and not
much is known from other sources about the later years of this famous
king. He went very often to Syria and Palestine, at first to drive out
the Egyptians. In 604 he took the Philistine city of Ashkelon. In 601
he tried to push forward into Egypt but was forced to pull back after
a bloody, undecided battle and to regroup his army in Babylonia. After
smaller incursions against the Arabs of Syria, he attacked Palestine
at the end of 598. King Jehoiakim of Judah had rebelled, counting on
help from Egypt. According to the chronicle, Jerusalem was taken on
March 16, 597. Jehoiakim had died during the siege, and his son, King
Johoiachin, together with at least 3,000 Jews, was led into exile in
Babylonia. They were treated well there, according to the documents.
Zedekiah was appointed the new king. In 596, when danger threatened
from the east, Nebuchadrezzar marched to the Tigris River and induced
the enemy to withdraw. After a revolt in Babylonia had been crushed
with much bloodshed, there were other campaigns in the west.

/-

According to the Old Testament, Judah rebelled again in 589, and
Jerusalem was placed under siege. The city fell in 587/586 and was
completely destroyed. Many thousands of Jews were forced into
"Babylonian exile," and their country was reduced to a province of the
Babylonian empire. The revolt had been caused by an Egyptian invasion
that pushed as far as Sidon. Nebuchadrezzar laid siege to Tyre for 13
years without taking the city, because there was no fleet at his
disposal. In 568/567 he attacked Egypt, again without much success,
but from that time on the Egyptians refrained from further attacks on
Palestine. Nebuchadrezzar lived at peace with Media throughout his
reign and acted as a mediator after the Median-Lydian war of 590-585.

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The Babylonian empire under Nebuchadrezzar extended to the Egyptian
border. It had a well-functioning administrative system. Though he had
to collect extremely high taxes and tributes in order to maintain his
armies and carry out his building projects, Nebuchadrezzar made
Babylonia one of the richest lands in western Asia--the more
astonishing because it had been rather poor when it was ruled by the
Assyrians. Babylon was the largest city of the "civilized world."
Nebuchadrezzar maintained the existing canal systems and built many
supplementary canals, making the land even more fertile. Trade and
commerce flourished during his reign.

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Nebuchadrezzar's building activities surpassed those of most of the
Assyrian kings. He fortified the old double walls of Babylon, adding
another triple wall outside the old wall. In addition, he erected
another wall, the Median Wall, north of the city between the Euphrates
and the Tigris rivers. According to Greek estimates, the Median Wall
may have been about 100 feet high. He enlarged the old palace and
added many wings, so that hundreds of rooms with large inner courts
were now at the disposal of the central offices of the
empire.Colourful glazed-tile bas-reliefs decorated the walls. Terrace
gardens, called the Hanging Gardens in later accounts, were added.
Hundreds of thousands of workers must have been required for these
projects. The temples were objects of special concern. He devoted
himself first and foremost to the completion of Etemenanki, the "Tower
of Babel." Construction of this building began in the time of
Nebuchadrezzar I, about 1110. It stood as a "building ruin" until the
reign of Esarhaddon of Assyria, who resumed building about 680 but did
not finish. Nebuchadrezzar II was able to complete the whole building.
The mean dimensions of Etemenanki are to be found in the Esagila
Tablet, which has been known since the late 19th century. Its base
measured about 300 feet on each side, and it was 300 feet in height.
There were five terracelike gradations surmounted by a temple, the
whole tower being about twice the height of those of other temples.
The wide street used for processions led along the eastern side by the
inner city walls and crossed at the enormous Ishtar Gate with its
world-renowned bas-relief tiles. Nebuchadrezzar also built many
smaller temples throughout the country.

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Awil-Marduk (called Evil-Merodach in the Old Testament; 561-560), the
son of Nebuchadrezzar, was unable to win the support of the priests of
Marduk. His reign did not last long, and he was soon eliminated.

Nergal-shar-usur (called Neriglissar in classical sources; 559-556),
was a general who undertook a campaign in 557 into the "rough"
Cilician land, which may have been under the control of the Medes. His
land forces were assisted by a fleet. His still-minor son
Labashi-Marduk was murdered not long after that, allegedly because he
was not suitable for his job.

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Nabonidus (Nabu-na`i h c 556-539) from Harran, one of the most
interesting and enigmatic figures of ancient times. His mother,
Addagoppe, was a priestess of the god Sin in Harran; she came to
Babylon and managed to secure responsible offices for her son at
court. The god of the moon rewarded her piety with a long life--she
lived to be 103--and she was buried in Harran with all the honours of
a queen in 547. It is not clear which powerful faction in Babylon
supported the kingship of Nabonidus; it may have been one opposing the
priests of Marduk, who had become extremely powerful. Nabonidus raided
Cilicia in 555 and secured the surrender of Harran, which had been
ruled by the Medes. He concluded a treaty of defense with Astyages of
Media against the Persians, who had become a growing threat since 559
under their king Cyrus II. He also devoted himself to the renovation
of many temples, taking an especially keen interest in old
inscriptions. He gave preference to his god Sin and had powerful
enemies in the priesthood of the Marduk temple. Modern excavators have
found fragments of propaganda poems written against Nabonidus and also
in support of him. Both traditions continued in Judaism.

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Internal difficulties and the recognition that the narrow strip of
land from the Persian Gulf to Syria could not be defended against a
major attack from the east induced Nabonidus to leave Babylonia around
552 and to reside in Taima (Tayma') in northern Arabia. There he
organized an Arabian province with the assistance of Jewish
mercenaries. His viceroy in Babylonia was his son Bel-shar-usur, the
Belshazzar of the Book of Daniel in the Bible. Cyrus turned this to
his own advantage by annexing Media in 550. Nabonidus, in turn, allied
himself with Croesus of Lydia in order to fight Cyrus. Yet, when Cyrus
attacked Lydia and annexed it in 546, Nabonidus was not able to help
Croesus. Cyrus bode his time. In 542 Nabonidus returned to Babylonia,
where his son had been able to maintain good order in external matters
but had not overcome a growing internal opposition to his father.
Consequently, Nabonidus' career after his return was short-lived,
though he tried hard to regain the support of the Babylonians. He
appointed his daughter to be high priestess of the god Sin in Ur, thus
returning to the Sumerian-Old Babylonian religious tradition. The
priests of Marduk looked to Cyrus, hoping to have better relations
with him than with Nabonidus; they promised Cyrus the surrender of
Babylon without a fight if he would grant them their privileges in
return. In 539 Cyrus attacked northern Babylonia with a large army,
defeating Nabonidus, and entered the city of Babylon without a battle.
The other cities did not offer any resistance either. Nabonidus
surrendered, receiving a small territory in eastern Iran. Tradition
has confused him with his great predecessor Nebuchadrezzar II. The
Bible refers to him as Nebuchadrezzar in the Book of Daniel.

/-

Cyrus II, the founder of the Achaemenian Empire, united Babylonia with
his country in a personal union, assuming the title of "King of
Babylonia, King of the Lands."

Cyrus was born between 590 and 580 BC, either in Media or, more
probably, in Persis, the modern Fars province of Iran. The meaning of
his name is in dispute, for it is not known whether it was a personal
name or a throne name given to him when he became a ruler. It is
noteworthy that after the Achaemenian empire the name does not appear
again in sources relating to Iran, which may indicate some special
sense of the name.

/-

Most scholars agree, however, that Cyrus the Great was at least the
second of the name to rule in Persia. One cuneiform text in
Akkadian--the language of Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) in the
pre-Christian era--asserts he was the son of Cambyses, great king,
king of Anshan, grandson of Cyrus, great king, king of Anshan,
descendant of Teispes, great king, king of Anshan, of a family [which]
always [exercised] kingship.

/-

In any case, it is clear that Cyrus came from a long line of ruling
chiefs.

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The most important source for his life is the Greek historian
Herodotus. The idealized biography by Xenophon is a work for the
edification of the Greeks concerning the ideal ruler, rather than a
historical treatise. It does, however, indicate the high esteem in
which Cyrus was held, not only by his own people, the Persians, but by
the Greeks and others. Herodotus says that the Persians called Cyrus
their father, while later Achaemenian rulers were not so well
regarded. The story of the childhood of Cyrus, as told by Herodotus
with echoes in Xenophon, may be called a Cyrus legend since it
obviously follows a pattern of folk beliefs about the almost
superhuman qualities of the founder of a dynasty. Similar beliefs also
exist about the founders of later dynasties throughout the history of
Iran. According to the legend, Astyages, the king of the Medes and
overlord of the Persians, gave his daughter in marriage to his vassal
in Persis, a prince called Cambyses. From this marriage Cyrus was
born. Astyages, having had a dream that the baby would grow up to
overthrow him, ordered Cyrus slain. His chief adviser, however,
instead gave the baby to a shepherd to raise. When he was 10 years
old, Cyrus, because of his outstanding qualities, was discovered by
Astyages, who, in spite of the dream, was persuaded to allow the boy
to live. Cyrus, when he reached manhood in Persis, revolted against
his maternal grandfather and overlord. Astyages marched against the
rebel, but his army deserted him and surrendered to Cyrus in 550 BC.

After inheriting the empire of the Medes, Cyrus first had to
consolidate his power over Iranian tribes on the Iranian plateau
before expanding to the west. Croesus, king of Lydia in Asia Minor
(Anatolia), had enlarged his domains at the expense of the Medes when
he heard of the fall of Astyages, and Cyrus, as successor of the
Median king, marched against Lydia. Sardis, the Lydian capital, was
captured in 547 or 546, and Croesus was either killed or burned
himself to death, though according to other sources he was taken
prisoner by Cyrus and well treated. The Ionian Greek cities on the
Aegean Sea coast, as vassals of the Lydian king, now became subject to
Cyrus, and most of them submitted peacefully. Several revolts of the
Greek cities were later suppressed with severity. Next Cyrus turned to
Babylonia, where the dissatisfaction of the people with the ruler
Nabonidus gave him a pretext for invading the lowlands. The conquest
was quick, for even the priests of Marduk, the national deity of the
great metropolis of Babylon, had become estranged from Nabonidus. In
October 539 BC, the greatest city of the ancient world fell to the
Persians.

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In the Bible (e.g., Ezra 1:1-4), Cyrus is famous for freeing the
Jewish captives in Babylonia and allowing them to return to their
homeland. Cyrus was also tolerant toward the Babylonians and others.
He conciliated local populations by supporting local customs and even
sacrificing to local deities. The capture of Babylon delivered not
only Mesopotamia into the hands of Cyrus but also Syria and Palestine,
which had been conquered previously by the Babylonians. The ruler of
Cilicia in Asia Minor had become an ally of Cyrus when the latter
marched against Croesus, and Cilicia retained a special status in
Cyrus' empire. Thus it was by diplomacy as well as force of arms that
he established the largest empire known until his time.

/-

Cyrus seems to have had several capitals. One was the city of
Ecbatana, modern Hamadan, former capital of the Medes, and another was
a new capital of the empire, Pasargadae, in Persis, said to be on the
site where Cyrus had won the battle against Astyages. The ruins today,
though few, arouse admiration in the visitor. Cyrus also kept Babylon
as a winter capital.

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No Persian chauvinist, Cyrus was quick to learn from the conquered
peoples. He not only conciliated the Medes but united them with the
Persians in a kind of dual monarchy of the Medes and Persians. Cyrus
had to borrow the traditions of kingship from the Medes, who had ruled
an empire when the Persians were merely their vassals. A Mede was
probably made an adviser to theAchaemenian king, as a sort of chief
minister; on later reliefs at Persepolis, a capital of the Achaemenian
kings from the time of Darius, a Mede is frequently depicted together
with the great king. The Elamites, indigenous inhabitants of Persis,
were also the teachers of the Persians in many ways, as can be seen,
for example, in the Elamite dress worn by Persians and by Elamite
objects carried by them on the stone reliefs at Persepolis. There also
seems to have been little innovation in government and rule, but
rather a willingness to borrow, combined with an ability to adapt what
was borrowed to the new empire. Cyrus was undoubtedly the guiding
genius in the creation not only of a great empire but in the formation
of Achaemenian culture and civilization.

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Little is known of the family life of Cyrus. He had two sons, one of
whom, Cambyses, succeeded him; the other, Bardiya (Smerdis of the
Greeks), was probably secretly put to death by Cambyses after he
became ruler. Cyrus had at least one daughter, Atossa (who married her
brother Cambyses), and possibly two others, but they played no role in
history.

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When Cyrus defeated Astyages he also inherited Median possessions in
eastern Iran, but he had to engage in much warfare to consolidate his
rule in this region. After his conquest of Babylonia, he again turned
to the east, and Herodotus tells of his campaign against nomads living
east of the Caspian Sea. According to the Greek historian, Cyrus was
at first successful in defeating the ruler of the nomads--called the
Massagetai--who was a woman, and captured her son. On the son's
committing suicide in captivity, his mother swore revenge and defeated
and killed Cyrus. Herodotus' story may be apocryphal, but Cyrus'
conquests in Central Asia were probably genuine, since a city in
farthest Sogdiana was called Cyreschata, or Cyropolis, by the Greeks,
which seems to prove the extent of his Eastern conquests.

/-

"Cyrus II"/-Encyclopędia Britannica

<http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=28891>

[Accessed July 1, 2002].

/-

Darius I was the son of Hystaspes, the satrap (provincial governor) of
Parthia. The principal contemporary sources for his history are his
own inscriptions, especially the great trilingual inscription on the
Bisitun (Behistun) rock at the village of the same name, in which he
tells how he gained the throne. The accounts of his accession given by
the Greek historians Herodotus and Ctesias are in many points
obviously derived from this official version but are interwoven with
legends.

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According to Herodotus, Darius, when a youth, was suspected by Cyrus
II the Great (who ruled from 559 to 529 BC) of plotting against the
throne. Later Darius was in Egypt with Cambyses II, the son of Cyrus
and heir to his kingdom, as a member of the royal bodyguard. After the
death of Cambyses in the summer of 522 BC, Darius hastened to Media,
where, in September, with the help of six Persian nobles, he killed
Bardiya (Smerdis), another son of Cyrus, who had usurped the throne
the previous March. In the Bisitun inscription Darius defended this
deed and his own assumption of kingship on the grounds that the
usurper was actually Gaumata, a Magian, who had impersonated Bardiya
after Bardiya had been murdered secretly by Cambyses. Darius therefore
claimed that he was restoring the kingship to the rightful Achaemenid
house. He himself, however, belonged to a collateral branch of the
royal family, and, as his father and grandfather were alive at his
accession, it is unlikely that he was next in line to the throne. Some
modern scholars consider that he invented the story of Gaumata in
order to justify his actions and that the murdered king was indeed the
son of Cyrus.

/-

Darius did not at first gain general recognition but had to impose his
rule by force. His assassination of Bardiya was followed, particularly
in the eastern provinces, by widespread revolts, which threatened to
disrupt the empire. In Susiana, Babylonia, Media, Sagartia, and
Margiana, independent governments were set up, most of them by men who
claimed to belong to the former ruling families. Babylonia rebelled
twice and Susiana three times. In Persia itself a certain Vahyazdata,
who pretended to be Bardiya, gained considerable support. These
risings, however, were spontaneous and uncoordinated, and,
notwithstanding the small size of his army, Darius and his generals
were able to suppress them one by one. In the Bisitun inscription he
records that in 19 battles he defeated nine rebel leaders, who appear
as his captives on the accompanying relief. By 519 BC, when the third
rising in Susiana was put down, he had established his authority in
the east. In 518 Darius visited Egypt, which he lists as a rebel
country, perhaps because of the insubordination of its satrap,
Aryandes, whom he put to death.

/-

Having restored internal order in the empire, Darius undertook a
number of campaigns for the purpose of strengthening his frontiers and
checking the incursions of nomadic tribes. In 519 BC he attacked the
Scythians east of the Caspian Sea and a few years later conquered the
Indus Valley. In 513, after subduing eastern Thrace and the Getae, he
crossed the Danube River into European Scythia, but the Scythian
nomads devastated the country as they retreated from him, and he was
forced, for lack of supplies, to abandon the campaign. The satraps of
Asia Minor completed the subjugation of Thrace, secured the submission
of Macedonia, and captured the Aegean islands of Lemnos and Imbros.
Thus, the approaches to Greece were in Persian hands, as was control
of the Black Sea grain trade through the straits, the latter being of
major importance to the Greek economy. The conquest of Greece was a
logical step to protect Persian rule over the Greeks of Asia Minor
from interference by their European kinsmen. According to Herodotus,
Darius, before the Scythian campaign, had sent ships to explore the
Greek coasts, but he took no military action until 499 BC, when Athens
and Eretria supported an Ionian revolt against Persian rule. After the
suppression of this rebellion, Mardonius, Darius' son-in-law, was
given charge of an expedition against Athens and Eretria, but the loss
of his fleet in a storm off Mount Athos (492 BC) forced him to abandon
the operation. In 490 BC another force under Datis, a Mede, destroyed
Eretria and enslaved its inhabitants but was defeated by the Athenians
at Marathon. Preparations for a third expedition were delayed by an
insurrection in Egypt, and Darius died in 486 BC before they were
completed.

References

1. http://faculty.washington.edu/wheelerb/UW/01-02/primary_sources_201.html/emmerkar.html
2. http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/texts/classic/enmerkaratta.htm
3. http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/texts/classic/enmerkar1.htm
4. http://www.nunki.net/PerDud/TheWorks/Express/TowerBabel.html
5. http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/texts/classic/lugalbandacave.htm
6. http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/texts/classic/lugalbandacave.htm
7. http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/texts/classic/lugalanzu.htm
8. http://www.greatdreams.com/gil1.htm