Assyrian Kings

[Neal Robbins]

In 2334 B.C. an invasion occurred in Mesopotamia. The Akkadian speaking people led by a man named Sargon conquered the Sumerians. Sargon founded a powerful dynasty.
Sargon conquered other territories as well. He overcame cities in the mountains of southern Anatolia. This gave him access to rich silver mines. Elam (in the southwest portion of what is now Iran) also came under Sargon's rule. Sargon also brought city states in northern Syria under his domination. The empire that he established was indeed powerful. This is ironic, since he is said to have come from an origin that was very humble. The story goes that he was raised by a gardener who allegedly found him found him floating in a basket on a river. Sargon took up the gardening profession for a while.
After Sargon died, his son Rimush became king. Rimush ruled until 2270 B.C. He was highly unpopular because of the violent way that he dealt with opposition. His own servants assassinated him.
Rimush's brother Manishtu ascended the throne. He restored order in vassal states that had revolted. Manishtu enhanced the military strength by building a navy. Then he led a campaign to the banks of the Persian Gulf and put down uprisings by the new vassal states of Ansham and Sherihum. Manishtu did not stop there. He went down the resources that came under his control. Manishtu also took many blocks of diorite (a black volcanic rock) and one was used to make a statue of him. It was placed in the temple of Enlil at Nippur.
In 2254 B.C. Manishtu died and his son Naram-Sin took the throne. He declared himself to be a god and ordered that the cuneiform star sign (the sign of the gods) precede his name.
Naram-Sin conquered the cities of Arman and Ebla and laid waste to them. They were later rebuilt. Naram-Son also led a military campaign against the Lullibis, a tribe in the northwest part of what is now Iran. The Lullubis had been robbing caravans.
Another conquest of Naram-Sin was in Lebanon. He took control of Amanus, which gave him access to a rich source of timber, i.e. cedars. During the reign of Naram-Sin, the Elamite governor, Puzur Inshushinak remained a vassal of Naram-Sin. In 2217 Naram-Sin died and Shar-Kulli-Sharri became king. The empire weakened. Puzur Inshushinak invaded two vassal states and even led his army deep into Akkad itself. Invasions by the Amorites and the troops of Martu occurred. After Shar-Kulli-Sharri died in 2193 B.C. things got far worse. The Gutians invaded Akkad and the dynasty that Sargon had founded collapsed. The temple of Ishtar at Assur was destroyed and the royal palace at Agade was sacked.
However, the Sumerian cities (Ur, Nippur, Uruk, Lagash, etc.) remained intact during the period of Gutian domination and actually prospered. The Gutian rule ended in 2123 B.C. The ruler of the Sumerian city of Uruk was Utu-Hegal ('Lugal'). He overthrew the Gutians and cast off their yoke forever. His first act in doing this was imprisoning the ambassadors of Tirqan, the Gutian king. Thus Utu-Hegal founded the neo-Sumerian dynasty. However, the Akkadians eventually regain control of Mesopotamia.

Neal Robbins

[Neal Robbins]

After Sargon II became king of Assyria, he deported many Samaritans to work on a huge construction project. The manuscripts say that 27,290 Samaritans were conscripted for it. Building the palace took 17 years. A citadel was built around the palace for protection. A zigarrat of seven levels was made and it had many temples for the worship of various gods and goddesses.
Assyria was at war for much of Sargon's reign. After taking Samaria, he led an expedition south to Gaza. He defeated an Egyptian army that had been sent to protect Gaza. Sargon had to put down some revolts and in 720 B.C. Babylonia refused to pay tribute to him. Meradach-Baladan declared himself king of Babylonia. Sargon led an expedition against the Babylonians, but they had aligned themselves with the Elamites. A battle between the Assyrian army and a combined Babylonian-Elamite force took place. It was a draw. So Babylonia remained independent for a while.
In 714 B.C. Sargon led a campaign against the mountainous kingdom of Urartu. Getting to the capital was difficult; the Assyrians had to use pickaxes to cut paths through some areas. Sargon laid siege to the capital, which was called Musasir. He captured the city and Rusa I, the king of Urartu, committed suicide. In 710 B.C. Sargon decided he woul bring Babylonia under control. He led a force south on the east bank of the Tigris River and cut the Babylonians off from their Elamite allies. Sargon instigated a revolt against Meradach-Baladan and it was successful. Meradach-Baladan fled with his supporters to the marshes in the south and hid there.
In 709 B.C. Sargon annexed Cyprus and Phoenicia and forced them to pay a heavy tribute. In 707 B.C. Meradach-Baladan agreed to pay tribute to Sargon. Sargon left him alone and Meradach-Baladan continued to rule the domain of marshes, though he did not regain the throne of Babylonia.
Sargon II encountered a major threat in 705 B.C. A nomadic people called the Cimmerians invaded the Assyrian empire. The Cimmerians had been displaced by the Scythians. Sargon II defeated the Cimmerians in a decisive battle, but was killed during the fighting. His son Sennacherib became king of Assyria.

Neal Robbins

[Neal Robbins]

Sennacherib was a king of ancient Assyria. His father, who was Sargon II, had greatly expanded the Assyrian empire in terms of conquests.
Sennacherib spent much of his reign trying to hold onto the territory that his father had conquered. He became king in 701 B.C. Revolts soon broke out in Phoenicia, Philistia, and Palestine. Sennacherib led his army to those territories and captured many cities, including Sidon, Bit Zitti, Zaribtu, Mahalliba, Ushu, Akzib, and Akkal. Then he appointed a Phoenician named Ethbaal to govern those areas as a puppet ruler.
The Egyptians sent troops to aid the cities that had revolted, but Sennacherib defeated them (and some Ethiopian forces) at Eltekeh. [Note - Tirhakah led the Egyptian-Ethiopian army. He was king of both Egypt and Ethiopia.] Hezekiah was the king in Jerusalem. Sennacherib advanced to Jerusalem and the prophet Isaiah advised Hezekiah not to resist. Hezekiah disregarded his advice. The Assyrian army laid siege to Jerusalem, but did not actually succeed in taking the city. Hezekiah came to realize that Jerusalem could not hold out much longer. So he agreed to pay a heavy tribute to Sennacherib.
Sennacherib also fought a war against the Elamites and Babylonians. He defeated them at the battle of Halulina in 691 B.C. Two years later, Sennacherib captured and destroyed the city of Babylon. There were some civil projects accomplished during Sennacherib's reign. For example, he built many canals. A magnificent palace was constructed at the Assyrian capital of Nineveh.
In 681 B.C. Sennacherib was murdered by two of his sons named Adramelech and Sharezer. They killed him while he was praying in a temple. The boys slew Sennacherib by striking him with a statuette of a deity. But they did not gain the throne. Their brother Esarhaddon arrived with an army. He forced his brothers to flee and defeated them at Malatiyeh. They managed to escape, but never dared to show their faces in Assyria again.
Esarhaddon became the new Assyrian king. I will discuss his reign in another posting.

Neal Robbins

[Neal Robbins]

Esarhaddon became king of Assyra in 681 B.C. As I mentioned in a previous posting, his two brothers had murdered their father Sennacherib.
Very soon after becoming king, Esarhaddon faced a serious challenge. Assyria was threatened by a Scythian invasion. The Scythians were a nomadic Iranian people who were known for being fierce warriors. Esarhaddon led his army in a campaign and defeated the Scythians in a major battle. The Scythians withdrew from Assyria.
Esarhaddon felt badly about the fact that his father Sennacherib had destroyed Babylon. Esarhaddon wished to be conciliatory. He provided support for the rebuilding of Babylon. The Babylonian priests had predicted that Babylon would lie in ruins for another 70 years. But once the construction started, the priests declared that the god Marduk had decreed that the city was to be rebuilt. The reconstruction of Babylon pleased the Babylonians. For the rest of his reign, Esarhaddon had no problem with them.
The same could not be said for some other parts of the empire. Abdi-Milkuti, the king of Sidon, revolted in 677 B.C. Esarhaddon captured and beheaded him. Then he deported many of the Sidonians and gave their territory to the Phoenician city-state of Tyre. Two years later Esarhaddon defeated the Elamites when they invaded Assyria. In 672 B.C. he had to put down another revolt in Phoenicia. This time it was the city of Tyre that had rebelled. Esarhaddon learned that Tirhakah, the pharaoh of Egypt, had given backing to the rebellion.
In 671 B.C. Esarhaddon led an invasion of Egypt. He soundly defeated the Egyptian army and took the capital of Memphis. Esarhaddon captured the wife and daughters of Tirhakah, along with several servants. But he did not capture Tirhakah. Tirhakah fled to Ethiopia and gained the support of the Ethiopian nobility. He married an Ethiopian princess. Two years later he returned to Egypt for a rematch.
Esarhaddon heard about it and was not one to back down from a fight. He led an army to Egypt, but became ill and died at Harran.
Ashurbanipal became king of Assyria. He was one of the sons of Esarhaddon.

Neal Robbins

I have a question, where would one find a translation of the nine sided tablet that was unearthed at the arheological site of what is believed to be Nineveh, I noticed it in a history book and wondered if it was translated into enlgish, also the Babylonian tablet that depicts the flood story.

[Neal Robbins]

Information on the translation of the Babylonian flood story can be found on this link.

Neal

[Ethnotour]

Hi Neal Robbins.

There is a very famous and beautiful armenian legend about an Armenian King Ara(Ara the Beautiful) and Assirian queen Samiramis(in armenian Shamiram).The story was wroten by Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi in 5th century AD. The story is based on folk tales.
Almost every armenian know the story of "Ara Geghetsic(the Beautiful) and Shamiram".
And thanks to this legend names "Ara","Nuard" and also "Shamiram" are very spreaded and famous among armenians.
Now in Armenia there is a village Shamiram ,which is inhabited by assirians, and a mountain near Yerevan, by the name of Ara the Beautiful -Arayi ler(Ara's mountain).

I'm very curious ,do the assirians aware about this legend.If yes is it so famous among assirians as among us(armenians).And any story about queen Samiramis.

"Ara the Beautiful and Shamiram"

At this time there lived Semiramis (Shamiram in Armenian), the queen of Ninevah. Her husband was Ninus, who came to loathe her for her infidelity, and left his country. Semiramis, who had heard about the fame of the handsome Armenian king Ara, lusted after his image and asked him to come to Ninevah and marry her. When Ara refused, she marched her armies towards Armenia.

The battle began when Semiramis arrived in the region called Ararat. She ordered her commanders to capture Ara alive, but he was vanquished and killed by one of her sons. His body was found on the battlefield among the other slain soldiers. In order to calm the Armenians, who wanted to continue the fight to avenge his death, Semiramis said, "I have prayed to the gods to lick his wounds and heal him. Ara will revive."

Semiramis was a sorceress, and she believed in her powers. She was so crazed at his death and desperate for his beauty that she believed she could revive him. When his corpse decayed she became more crazed than before, and had her servants bury it in a deep grave. Dressing one of the men from her retinue of lovers as Ara, she came before the Armenians and said, "Licking his wounds the gods gave life back to Ara, thus fulfilling our deepest desires. Since they have bestowed on us happiness we should exalt them more than before."

She had a new statue erected to the gods and offered them many sacrifices for saving Ara. The people believed that Ara was revived, and Semiramis was saved from another battle waged against her.

In order to eternalize her love for Ara, she named his son Karthos after him, who was born from his wife Nuvard and aged twelve at the time. Although he was so young, she made him ruler of Armenia.

On her way back to Ninevah, the proud Assyrian queen traveled by the eastern shores of Lake Van. Struck by the beauty of the region and bringing thousands of workers and many architects, she had a magnificent summer palace built on the rocky cliffs nearby. (Ed. Note: There is some discrepancy in Khorenatsi's account of the palace and city alluded to Semiramis. The description of the palace walls and a monumental wall with inscriptions described in his account were actually built during the reigns of the Urartian King Menuas and Argishti. Khorenatsi mistakes the palace and new city of Tushpa for one built by Semiramis. Likewise the Semiramis Canal, which was accredited by Khorenatsi as being built under Semiramis' orders, was laid during the Urartu period, on top of earlier 4th-3rd millennium BC canals).

Khorenatsi goes on to relay that Semiramis remained in the city she had built, appointing as her representative in Assyria and Ninevah, Zoroaster, the religious leader and oracle of the Medes, and as such he ruled the country well for a long time.

Ninus did not die in Ninevah, and is not buried in the palace, as it is said, but actually fled to Crete. When her children grew up they wanted to seize Semiramis' throne and confiscate her treasury. They openly accused her of disgraceful deeds. This enraged her, and she had all of her children killed with the exception of the youngest son Ninyas, or "Zamassias". She left her throne and her treasury to her lovers instead.

Therein Zoroaster tried to usurp the throne, and in the ensuing battle Semiramis was defeated which caused her to flee to Armenia. Her son Ninyas saw his chance, and killing her became the ruler of the kingdom. Ara (Karthos, the renamed son of Ara) also died in during the battle, leaving a son named Anushavan.

Another version of the story of Ara Geghetsik and Semiramis is tied to the mountain that bears Ara's name (Arai Lehr). This version has Ara being cast upon the mountain by Semiramis after he spurns her advances. Semiramis, skilled in black magic, conjured the forces of the night to throw him into the void, and when he landed, his body sank onto the top of the mount, giving it its present contour. Yet another tale says that when Ara died, and Semiramis had him buried at the foot of the mountain, his spirit rose, forming the top of the mountain into his sleeping likeness. The top of the mountain does resemble the contour of a man's face.

http://www.tacentral.com/mythology.asp?story_no=8

Best regards!

[Neal Robbins]

Hi Ethnotour,

I had read some things about Semiramis, though I had not heard about this particular legend. I'm glad that you posted it; the story is interesting. I'm not sure if the Assyrians know about this legend, but I would not be surprised if they do.
I have read one classic of Armenian literature. I read David of Sassoun, which is a great epic. I'm sure that you know about it.
This is getting off the subject a little bit, but I also read a Georgian classic epic by Shota Rustaveli, one titled "The Man in the Panther Skin". However, some translations of the title say "The Man in the Tiger Skin".
I'm glad that you made the reply; you posted a very informative message.

Sincerely,
Neal Robbins

[Ethnotour]

Thanks for reply Neal Robbins.
Samiramis(Shamiram) for armenians symbolize a woman with an amazing beauty , power and aim to achieve whatever you want.
The epos of "David of Sassun"(among armenians famous also as "The Crazies of Sasun"( crazies with good meaning of the word,"Sasna tsrer" in armenian)) is very famous.
David of Sassun (Sasuntsi David) is one of the main symbols of armenian folk,for us he is the symbol of proudness,strength,justice and great lover of his native land.
Yes the georgian epic "The Man in the Tiger Skin" has a very important place in the literature of caucassian nations.
Again thanks for the interesting posts you'de posted and keep the thread alive.

Best regards!

[Thanks Mr. Robbins for your Assyrian kings narrative, I found it very interesting, but you stopped at Ashur Bani-Pal, I wish you would continue with the narrativem since I,ve heard he ruled for a long time, but sadly he was the last king ,. so please continue and tell us what was the end for this magnificent civilization.

thanksQUOTE=Neal Robbins]Esarhaddon became king of Assyra in 681 B.C. As I mentioned in a previous posting, his two brothers had murdered their father Sennacherib.
Very soon after becoming king, Esarhaddon faced a serious challenge. Assyria was threatened by a Scythian invasion. The Scythians were a nomadic Iranian people who were known for being fierce warriors. Esarhaddon led his army in a campaign and defeated the Scythians in a major battle. The Scythians withdrew from Assyria.
Esarhaddon felt badly about the fact that his father Sennacherib had destroyed Babylon. Esarhaddon wished to be conciliatory. He provided support for the rebuilding of Babylon. The Babylonian priests had predicted that Babylon would lie in ruins for another 70 years. But once the construction started, the priests declared that the god Marduk had decreed that the city was to be rebuilt. The reconstruction of Babylon pleased the Babylonians. For the rest of his reign, Esarhaddon had no problem with them.
The same could not be said for some other parts of the empire. Abdi-Milkuti, the king of Sidon, revolted in 677 B.C. Esarhaddon captured and beheaded him. Then he deported many of the Sidonians and gave their territory to the Phoenician city-state of Tyre. Two years later Esarhaddon defeated the Elamites when they invaded Assyria. In 672 B.C. he had to put down another revolt in Phoenicia. This time it was the city of Tyre that had rebelled. Esarhaddon learned that Tirhakah, the pharaoh of Egypt, had given backing to the rebellion.
In 671 B.C. Esarhaddon led an invasion of Egypt. He soundly defeated the Egyptian army and took the capital of Memphis. Esarhaddon captured the wife and daughters of Tirhakah, along with several servants. But he did not capture Tirhakah. Tirhakah fled to Ethiopia and gained the support of the Ethiopian nobility. He married an Ethiopian princess. Two years later he returned to Egypt for a rematch.
Esarhaddon heard about it and was not one to back down from a fight. He led an army to Egypt, but became ill and died at Harran.
Ashurbanipal became king of Assyria. He was one of the sons of Esarhaddon.

Neal Robbins[/quote]