The earliest evidence of direct contact between the Assyrians and the land of Urartu which we at present possess dates from the reign of Ashur-nasir-pal, and in the reign of his son Shalmaneser II three expeditions were undertaken against the people of Van. The name of the king of Urartu at this time was Arame, and his capital city, Arzasku, probably lay to the north of Lake Van. On all three occasions the Assyrians were victorious, forcing Arame to abandon his capital and capturing his cities as far as the sources of the Euphrates. Subsequently, in the year 833 B.C., Shalmaneser II made another attack upon the country, which at that time was under the sway of Sarduris I. Under this monarch the citadel of Van became the great stronghold of the people of Urartu, for he added to the natural strength of the position by the construction of walls built between the rock of Van and the harbour. The massive blocks of stone of which his fortifications were composed are standing at the present day, and they bear eloquent testimony to the energy with which this monarch devoted himself to the task of rendering his new citadel impregnable. The fortification and strengthening of Van and its citadel was carried on during the reigns of his direct successors and descendants, Ispui-nis, Menuas, and Argistis I, so that when Tiglath-pile-ser III brought fire and sword into the country and laid siege to Van in the reign of Sarduris II, he could not capture the citadel.
It was not difficult for the Assyrian king to assault and capture the city itself, which lay at the foot of the citadel as it does at the present day, but the latter, within the fortifications of which Sarduris and his garrison withdrew, proved itself able to withstand the Assyrian attack. The expedition of Tiglath-pileser III did not succeed in crushing the Vannic empire, for Rusas I, the son and successor of Sarduris II, allied himself to the neighbouring mountain races and gave considerable trouble to Sargon, the Assyrian king, who was obliged to undertake an expedition to check their aggressions.
It was probably Rusas I who erected the buildings on Toprak Kala, the hill to the east of Van, traces of which remain to the present day. He built a palace and a temple, and around them he constructed a new city with a reservoir to supply it with water, possibly because the slopes of Toprak Kala rendered it easier of defence than the city in the plain (beneath the rock and citadel) which had fallen an easy prey to Tiglath-pileser III. The site of the temple on Toprak Kala has been excavated by the trustees of the British Museum, and our knowledge of Vannic art is derived from the shields and helmets of bronze and small bronze figures and fittings which were recovered from this building. One of the shields brought to the British Museum from the Toprak Kala, where it originally hung with others on the temple walls, bears the name of Argistis II, who was the son and successor of Rusas I, and who attempted to give trouble to the Assyrians by stirring the inhabitants of the land of Kummukh (Kommagene) to revolt against Sargon. His son, Rusas II, was the contemporary of Esarhaddon, and from some recently discovered rock-inscriptions we learn that he extended the limits of his kingdom on the west and secured victories against Mushki (Meshech) to the southeast of the Halys and against the Hittites in Northern Syria. Rusas III rebuilt the temple on Toprak Kala, as we know from an inscription of his on one of the shields from that place in the British Museum. Both he and Sarduris III were on friendly terms with the Assyrians, for we know that they both sent embassies to Ashur-bani-pal.
By far the larger number of rock-inscriptions that have yet been found and copied in the mountainous districts bordering on Assyria were engraved by this ancient Vannic people, and Drs. Lehmann and Belck have done good service by making careful copies and collations of all those which are at present known. Work on other classes of rock-inscriptions has also been carried on by other travellers. A new edition of the inscriptions of Sennacherib in the gorge of the Gomel, near the village of Bavian, has been made by Mr. King, who has also been fortunate enough to find a number of hitherto unknown inscriptions in Kurdistan on the Judi Dagh and at the sources of the Tigris. The inscriptions at the mouth of the Nahr el-Kelb, “the Dog River,” in Syria, have been reexamined by Dr. Knudtzon, and the long inscription which Nebuchadnezzar II cut on the rocks at Wadi Brissa in the Lebanon, formerly published by M. Pognon, has been recopied by Dr. Weissbach. Finally, the great trilingual inscription of Darius Hystaspes on the rock at Bisutun in Persia, which was formerly copied by the late Sir Henry Raw-linson and used by him for the successful decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, was completely copied last year by Messrs. King and Thompson.[[3]]
[3] Messrs. King and Thompson are preparing a new edition of this inscription.
The main facts of the history of Assyria under her later kings and of Babylonia during the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods were many years ago correctly ascertained, and recent excavation and research have done little to add to our knowledge of the history of these periods. It was hoped that the excavations conducted by Dr. Koldewey at Babylon would result in the recovery of a wealth of inscriptions and records referring to the later history of the country, but unfortunately comparatively few tablets or inscriptions have been found, and those that have been recovered consist mainly of building-inscriptions and votive texts. One such building-inscription contains an interesting historical reference. It occurs on a barrel-cylinder of clay inscribed with a text of Nabopolassar, and it was found in the temple of Ninib and records the completion and restoration of the temple by the king. In addition to recording the building operations he had carried out in the temple, Nabopolassar boasts of his opposition to the Assyrians. He says: “As for the Assyrians who had ruled all peoples from distant days and had set the people of the land under a heavy yoke, I, the weak and humble man who worshippeth the Lord of Lords (i.e. the god Marduk), through the mighty power of Nabû and Marduk, my lords, held back their feet from the land of Akkad and cast off their yoke.”
It is not yet certain whether the Babylonians under Nabopolassar actively assisted Cyaxares and the Medes in the siege and in the subsequent capture of Nineveh in 606 B.C. but this newly discovered reference to the Assyrians by Nabopolassar may possibly be taken to imply that the Babylonians were passive and not active allies of Cyaxares. If the cylinder were inscribed after the fall of Nineveh we should have expected Nabopolassar, had he taken an active part in the capture of the city, to have boasted in more definite terms of his achievement. On his stele which is preserved at Constantinople, Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian empire, who himself suffered defeat at the hands of Cyrus, King of Persia, ascribed the fall of Nineveh to the anger of Marduk and the other gods of Babylon because of the destruction of their city and the spoliation of their temples by Sennacherib in 689 B.C. We see the irony of fate in the fact that Cyrus also ascribed the defeat and deposition of Nabonidus and the fall of Babylon to Marduk’s intervention, whose anger he alleges was aroused by the attempt of Nabonidus to concentrate the worship of the local city-gods in Babylon.
Thus it will be seen that recent excavation and research have not yet supplied the data for filling in such gaps as still remain in our knowledge of the later history of Assyria and Babylon. The closing years of the Assyrian empire and the military achievements of the great Neo-Babylonian rulers, Nabopolassar, Nerig-lissar, and Nebuchadnezzar II, have not yet been found recorded in any published Assyrian or Babylonian inscription, but it may be expected that at any moment some text will be discovered that will throw light upon the problems connected with the history of those periods which still await solution. Meanwhile, the excavations at Babylon, although they have not added much to our knowledge of the later history of the country, have been of immense service in revealing the topography of the city during the Neo-Babylonian period, as well as the positions, plans, and characters of the principal buildings erected by the later Babylonian kings. The discovery of the palaces of Nebuchadnezzar II on the mound of the Kasr, of the small but complete temple E-makh, of the temple of the goddess Nin-makh to the northeast of the palaces, and of the sacred road dividing them and passing through the Great Gate of Ishtar (adorned with representations of lions, bulls, and dragons in raised brick upon its walls) has enabled us to form some conception of the splendour and magnificence of the city as it appeared when rebuilt by its last native rulers. Moreover, the great temple E-sagila, the famous shrine of the god Marduk, has been identified and partly excavated beneath the huge mound of Tell Amran ibn-Ali, while a smaller and less famous temple of Ninib has been discovered in the lower mounds which lie to the eastward. Finally, the sacred way from E-sagila to the palace mound has been traced and uncovered. We are thus enabled to reconstitute the scene of the most solemn rite of the Babylonian festival of the New Year, when the statue of the god Marduk was carried in solemn procession along this road from the temple to the palace, and the Babylonian king made his yearly obeisance to the national god, placing his own hands within those of Marduk, in token of his submission to and dependence on the divine will.