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

by Percy S. P. Handcock

Various other tribes in the north, of whom the Nairi would appear to have been the most important, were similarly brought beneath the Assyrian sway.

In a campaign against Babylonia he was also successful for the moment, and effected the reduction of Babylon, Sippar, Opis and other cities in Lower Mesopotamia. But his triumph here was short-lived, and the Assyrians were expelled by Marduk-nadin-akhê, the king of Babylon, who further invaded Assyria, and carried off the statues of some of the Assyrian gods.

Ashur-bêl-kala, the son and successor of Tiglath-Pileser I, retrieved the fortunes of the Assyrian arms in the south, and forced Marduk-shapik-zêrim the successor of Marduk-nadin-akhê to sue for peace.

But after the reigns of Tiglath-Pileser I’s two sons, Assyria suffered a severe disaster at the hands of the Hittites, and lost the territory gained by Tiglath-Pileser. Northern Syria which had been compelled to acknowledge the suzerainty of Tiglath-Pileser, now asserted her independence, and for some time remained the mistress of her own destinies.

Thus Assyria for the time being lost her position as a world-power, and it was only in the reign of Tukulti-Ninib II (890-885 B.C.) that her fortunes began to revive. The Nairi were again reduced by this king, and apparently the whole of the valley of the Upper Tigris was once more subjugated. Ashur-naṣir-pal (885-860 B.C.) carried on the work of expansion and re-conquest. With the further extension of Assyrian power northwards, the need of a capital occupying a more central position than ancient Ashur was at once realized, and accordingly Ashur-naṣir-pal transferred the seat of his government to Calah (Nimrûd) some forty miles north of Ashur.

Nearly 500 years before, Shalmaneser I had laid the foundations of a town at Calah, but the unsettled circumstances of the time had retarded its growth. Ashur-naṣir-pal demolished what remained of the old town, and founded a new town on the same site, and for at least a century Calah remained the capital of the empire.

Ashur-naṣir-pal also extended his sphere of influence in a westerly direction and made a triumphal march through Northern Syria, but he appears to have cautiously refrained from coming into collision with the powerful king of Damascus.

Ashur-naṣir-pal’s son and successor, Shalmaneser II (860-825) consolidated the work of his father and grandfather and at the same time made fresh conquests himself. His campaigns in the west brought him into contact with the Israelites, and we find Ahab, king of Israel, mentioned as one of the Syrian allies who rebelled against him. Some years later, Shalmaneser became the suzerain of Israel, and received tribute from Jehu, the usurper.

After the reigns of Shalmaneser’s immediate successors, the power of Assyria began temporarily to decline, and the subject nations asserted their independence, but in 745 B.C. Tiglath-Pileser III, or Pul as he is called in 2 Kings xv. 19 and elsewhere, ascended the throne, and restored the influence and authority of Assyria in Western Asia. His wars in Syria meant disaster to Israel and the loss of independence to Judah. Ahaz, king of Judah, had sought the help of Tiglath-Pileser against the allied forces of Rezin, king of Damascus, and Pekah, king of Israel. Tiglath-Pileser at once seized this golden opportunity of interfering with the internal affairs of Palestine, defeated Israel and Damascus, and carried the Israelite tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh into captivity (734 B.C.). Hoshea, assassinator and usurper, purchased the right to the throne of Israel for ten talents of gold and a certain amount of silver, but in the reign of Tiglath-Pileser’s successor, Shalmaneser IV (727-722 B.C.) he became involved in an intrigue with Egypt, which led to his deportation to Assyria where he spent the rest of his days as a prisoner. Meanwhile Samaria, the capital of his kingdom, was beleaguered, and after a two years’ siege was captured by Sargon, who deported the larger half of the population into Assyria. Sargon, “the son of a nobody,” i.e. a usurper, was one of the greatest of the Assyrian kings (722-705 B.C.) and was the first to come into actual conflict with the Egyptians. Palestine as a whole showed no alacrity to take up arms against her powerful overlord, but the Philistine town of Gaza, in reliance on the support of Egypt, refused to submit. Hannon the Philistine commander, on failing to repulse the Assyrian army retreated on Raphia, a town bordering on the Egyptian frontier, where he was joined by Shabê the Egyptian general. At Raphia the opposing armies joined battle, and after a fierce encounter, the allies had to retire before the better equipped and more disciplined army of Sargon. On his return, Sargon found it necessary to again subdue Babylonia, and he also carried on war with Elam. He was succeeded by his son Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.). After having suppressed the revolts which always seem to have signalized the accession of a new king, Sennacherib invaded Syria, established his authority over northern Palestine, reduced the rebellious Philistine city of Askelon, and then proceeded to attack the city of Ekron, to whose assistance an Egyptian army had rallied. Their combined forces were routed by Sennacherib at Altaku, and Ekron fell. Judah next occupied his attention; having captured numerous small towns and enslaved some 200,000 of the inhabitants, he proceeded to lay siege to Jerusalem. Hezekiah the king of Judah, withstood the siege for some time, but pressed by famine, he was compelled to yield and purchased the safety of his city by stripping the Temple of its treasures. Sennacherib thereupon returned to Assyria, but two years after, Hezekiah’s repudiation of his suzerainty occasioned another expedition to Palestine. The Assyrian troops first stationed themselves at Lachish, whence Sennacherib dispatched a messenger to Hezekiah to demand his instant surrender. Meanwhile Sennacherib marched westward with a view to engaging the Egyptian army lying at Pelusium, one of the frontier towns of Egypt. But a sudden catastrophe—possibly an outbreak of plague—overtook the Assyrian host, and Sennacherib returned to Nineveh. On his arrival home, he found it necessary to once more suppress rebellious Babylon, and to render his work more lasting, he completely destroyed the city (689 B.C.). Towards the end of his reign he conducted a campaign in Cilicia where he defeated the Greeks and is said to have laid the foundations of the city of Tarsus. In 681 B.C. he was murdered by his sons, and the crown eventually settled on the head of Esarhaddon (681-668 B.C.). The most striking event of his reign was the conquest of Lower Egypt (672 B.C.), but towards the end of his reign Tirhakah, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, recaptured Memphis and threatened to put an end to the Assyrian domination; his subjugation was one of the first acts of Ashur-bani-pal, the successor of Esarhaddon. Judah also became disaffected, but she was speedily reduced to submission and her king Manasseh was removed into captivity.

Ashur-bani-pal succeeded Esarhaddon in 668 B.C. The work of re-establishing the Assyrian power in Egypt occupied some time and was finally accomplished by the capture of Thebes (666 B.C.). Under Ashur-bani-pal Assyria attained the height of her power both at home and abroad, and the limits of her empire were extended further than ever before. After a lengthy war, Elam was subdued, but she subsequently joined Shamash-shum-ukîn, the brother of Ashur-bani-pal, and viceroy of Babylonia, in an organized revolt against Assyria, which resulted in the defeat of Shamash-shum-ukîn, and the ultimate capture and sack of Susa the Elamite capital (circ. 640 B.C.).