Mesopotamian Archaeology / An introduction to the archaeology of Mesopotamia and Assyria

by Percy S. P. Handcock

In the latter part of the first half of this period the power in Babylonia seems to have passed temporarily into the hands of Gungunu, king of Ur and Larsa, who laid claim to rule over the whole of Sumer and Akkad, but his supremacy was of short duration, and Isin soon recovered her position as the paramount power in Babylonia.

Meanwhile the Semitic element in the north was gradually regaining its ascendency, and finally asserted itself as a concrete fact in the establishment of a dynasty by Sumu-abu, at the city of Babylon itself, about 2000 B.C.

At about this time the Elamites established themselves in Southern Babylonia at Ur and Larsa under Kudur-Mabuk and his sons Arad-Sin and Rîm-Sin, and during the earlier part of the dynasty exercised a suzerainty over the whole of that region. Subsequently Rîm-Sin met with a severe defeat at the hands of Khammurabi, the most illustrious king of the dynasty and the Amraphel of the Book of Genesis, while he met with his death at the hands of Samsu-iluna, Khammurabi’s successor. With the death of Rîm-Sin Elamite power in Babylonia came to an end.

Khammurabi consolidated the power of Babylon, and extended his influence on all sides, but his chief title to fame depends upon his codification of Babylonian law. But Babylon’s supremacy in the south was soon to be successfully challenged by Iluma-ilu who founded a kingdom on the shores of the Persian Gulf, and inaugurated the so-called “Second Dynasty” of the lists of the kings.

Iluma-ilu was a contemporary of Samsu-iluna, whose attacks he twice repelled. Abêshu’, the successor of Samsu-iluna on the throne of Babylon, similarly tried to reduce the rebellious “Country of the Sea” beneath his sway, but without success, and from this time on, Southern Babylonia was ruled over by the kings of the “Country of the Sea.”

But Samsu-iluna had another foe to contend with, besides the southern rebels, a foe moreover ultimately destined to subjugate the whole of Babylonia, under whose rule she was governed for several centuries.

The Kassites were a warlike people whose home lay on the east of the Tigris, and to the north of Elam, and they apparently commenced raiding Babylonian territory in the reign of Samsu-iluna, though they do not seem to have materially affected the Babylonian power. About a century later however, the dynasty of Babylon was brought to an end by an invasion of the Hittites of Cappadocia who sacked the city, destroyed the temple of the great city-god, Marduk, and carried off his statue as a trophy. The Hittite conquest must have paved the way for the invasion of the Kassites who established themselves securely on the throne of Babylon for a very long period. At first their sphere of influence would appear to have been confined to the northern half of the plain, but later on they extended their power to the Country of the Sea.

Meanwhile, Assyria in Northern Mesopotamia had emerged as a separate and independent kingdom, and already the signs of her future greatness were visible on the horizon.

The date of the colonization of Assyria is not known, but in any case it must have been before the time of Khammurabi, for the country bore the name of “Assyria” in his time, and was embraced within the limits of his empire. The struggle for supremacy finally ended in a victory for the northerners who under their king Tukulti-Ninib (circ. 1275 B.C.) effected the conquest of Babylonia. In addition to his title “King of Assyria,” Tukulti-Ninib styled himself “King of Karduniash (i.e. Babylon), King of Sumer and Akkad.” From that date down to the destruction of Nineveh (circ. 606 B.C.), and the foundation of the short-lived Neo-Babylonian empire by Nabopolassar, Babylonia takes a subsidiary place in the political history of Western Asia.

The immediate successors of Tukulti-Ninib I appear to have been perpetually engaged in war with the Babylonians, who at no period of their history readily submitted to the Assyrian yoke. Tiglath-Pileser I’s accession to the throne about 1100 B.C. inaugurated a new period in the history of Assyrian expansion. Some of the mountain-tribes who had owed allegiance to former Assyrian monarchs had revolted, and Tiglath-Pileser made it his business to crush them. The northern Moschians who sixty years previously had been the vassals of Assyria, had under the leadership of five kings invaded the territory of Commagene, but they were effectively reduced by Tiglath-Pileser, and the land of Commagene was conquered “throughout its whole extent.”