Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Choose whose truth you believe - but beware: in the polarised world of Assyria’s court, you may not be in command of all the facts. The period beginning with Puzur-Ashur I's reign is sometimes referred to as the Dynasty of Puzur-Ashur. [20], As opposed to some other ancient monarchies, such as ancient Egypt, the Assyrian king was not believed to be divine himself, but was seen as divinely chosen and uniquely qualified for the royal duties. Lamassu. Most kings stressed their legitimacy through their familial connections to previous kings; a king was legitimate through his relation to the previous line of great kings who had been chosen by Ashur. Though some parts of the list are probably fictional, the list accords well with Hittite, Babylonian and ancient Egyptian king lists and with the archaeological record, and is generally considered reliable for the age. The Lion-hunting was reserved for Assyrian royalty and was a public event, staged at parks in or near the Assyrian cities. Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh from Lachish, with a great army against Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah. The list mentions "ten kings who were ancestors" but includes the final king of the "kings who lived in tents", Apiashal, as one of them, possibly an error. Ashurbanipal (685 BC – 627 BC), the son of Esarhaddon, was the last great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The inscriptions of these kings completely lack any familial references to previous kings, instead stressing that Ashur himself had appointed them directly with phrases such as "Ashur called my name", "Ashur placed me on the throne" and "Ashur placed his merciless weapon in my hand". Context. In around 627 BCE, after the death of its last great king Ashurbanipal, the Neo-Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter civil wars, and Assyria was attacked by the Babylonians and Medes. The line of Assyrian kings ended with the defeat of Assyria's final king Ashur-uballit II by the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Median Empire in 609 BC, after which Assyria disappeared as an independent political unit, never to rise again. Upon Ashurbanipal’s death, a Chaldean leader, Nabopolassar, made Babylon his capital and instituted the last … [21] It is possible that the conclusion of this section on the king list would have indicated an end of the nomadic period of Assyrian history and the foundation of Aššur. The name came from written texts of ancient Greek historians. The reliefs in this exhibition come from the palaces of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC) and Tiglath-pileser III (745–727 BC) at Kalhu; Sargon II (722–705 BC) at Dur-Sharrukin; and the last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal (668–627 BC) at Nineveh. They were found amongst 25,000 tablets that belonged to the library of the last great king of Assyria who lived from 668-627 B.C. [22] The sixteenth king, Ushpia, was designated by later Assyrians as the founder of the temple dedicated to Ashur in Aššur.[22]. The place commanded the direct road from Egypt to Judah. https://www.worldhistoryedu.com/ashurbanipal-the-last-great-king-of-assyria Some cases display lineage stretching back much further, Shamash-shuma-ukin (r. 667–648 BC) describes himself as a "descendant of Sargon II", his great-grandfather. Then they besieged Jerusalem. [29] From this section and onwards, the list records the dates of royal reigns in both the Middle chronology (indicated with MC) and Short chronology (indicated with SC), competing chronologies of ancient Mesopotamian history. Those Neo-Assyrian kings who controlled the city of Babylon used a "hybrid" titulary of sorts in the south, combining aspects of the Assyrian and Babylonian tradition, similar to how the traditional Babylonian deities were promoted in the south alongside the Assyrian main deity of Ashur. [17] The Assyrians believed that the king was the link between the gods and the earthly realm. The Assyrians, a powerful people from northern Mesopotamia ... and installed the Jewish King Herod the Great as administrator. In the Bible he is called Asenappar. For 300 years, from 900 to 600 B.C., the Assyrian Empire expanded, conquered and ruled the Middle East, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, and parts of todays Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Little is known about the kings that succeeded him so the legend of Ashurbanipal as Assyria’s last great king does have some truth to it. [3] Considering them "living in tents", these rulers (if they were real in the first place) probably did not govern the actual city of Aššur itself. Ashurbanipal was the last great king of one of history’s first empires, its roots stretching back nearly 2,000 years before his time. "Kings named on bricks whose eponyms are unknown". The last ruling Assyrian king was Ashurbanipal, who fought a civil war against his brother, the sub-king in Babylon, devastating the city and its population. The Neo-Assyrian Empire. Gilgamesh became a famous myth due to the translation of the Assyrian version of the great flood. The Assyrian king made a campaign against Judah, Lachish was taken, and the event was commemorated on bas-reliefs in Sennacherib's palace. And when they had come up, they went and stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool, which was on … [8] Additionally, there are some known inconsistencies between the list and actual inscriptions by Assyrian kings, often regarding dynastic relationships. To aid the king with this duty, there was a number of priests at the royal court trained in reading and interpreting signs from the gods. [26], After the end of Shamshi-Adad's dynasty, seven competing claimants reigned for a total of just six years. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. The story of Gilgamesh was written on tablets that were discovered in 1845. He led an expedition against Elam and captured Susa, its capital city. [24] In addition to the three kings listed here, three further kings are listed as "kings named on bricks whose eponyms are unknown" in the Assyrian king list,[7] but they are in this list presented in the following section due to their dynastic relationship to later kings. This article focusses on this perio… The library was assembled at Ashurbanipal's command, with scribes being sent out throughout his empire to collect and copy texts of every type and genre from the libraries of the temples. The kings listed in this section would probably have been early rulers of Aššur. He collected clay tablets from all over Mesopotamia. [15], To examplify an Assyrian royal title from the time Assyria ruled all of Mesopotamia, the titulature preserved in one of Esarhaddon's inscriptions read as follows[16]:.mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}. To prove themselves worthy of rule and illustrate that they were competent protectors, Assyrian kings engaged in ritual lion hunts. All Rights Reserved. George Woolliscroft Rhead after Ford Madox Brown, […] Discovery of the clay tablets from the Library of Ashurbanipal means that those tablets are the oldest known books in recorded history, predating even the Bible. Later Assyrian kings, beginning with Ashur-uballit I (14th century BC) adopted the title šar māt Aššur as their empire expanded and later also adopted more boastful titles such as "king of Sumer and Akkad", "king of the Universe" and "king of the Four Corners of the World", often to assert their control over all of Mesopotamia. [14] Epithets like "chosen by the god Marduk and the goddess Sarpanit" and "favourite of the god Ashur and the goddess Mullissu", both assumed by Esarhaddon, illustrate that he was both Assyrian (Ashur and Mullissu, the main pair of Assyrian deities) and a legitimate ruler over Babylon (Marduk and Sarpanit, the main pair of Babylonian deities). [11] Assyrian titularies usually also often emphasize the royal genaeology of the king, something Babylonian titularies do not, and also drive home the king's moral and physical qualities while downplaying his role in the judicial system. The Egyptians and Kushites had begun agitating peoples within the Assyrian empire in an attempt to gain a foothold in the region. Assyrian sculpture reached its apogee under his rule. These included the stories of Gilgamesh, the Code of Hammurabi, and more. In the 14th century BC, the millenniumold state of Assyria, once the powerhouse in Mesopotamia, broke the dominion of the neighbouring Mitanni kingdom and launched campaigns of conquest. Everything You Need To Know About the Underworld in Greek Mythology, Greatest Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, The Boston Massacre: The American Revolution, Julius Caesar: History, Accomplishments and Facts. Much of our knowledge of the Ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia comes from the remains of this library. Assyria became a great military power during the Neo-Assyrian period, and saw the conquests of large empires, such as Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Hittites, and the Persians, among others. As such it was seen as the king's duty to expand the borders of Assyria and bring order and civilization to lands perceived as uncivilized. Hugely powerful, Ashurbanipal ruled what was at the time the largest empire on earth but, within a few decades of his death, his empire had collapsed and his capital city burnt to the ground. The king of Assyria (Akkadian: šar māt Aššur),[1] called the governor or viceroy of Assyria (Akkadian: Išši’ak Aššur)[2] in the Early and Old periods, was the ruler of the ancient Mesopotamian kingdom of Assyria, which existed from approximately the 26th century BC to the 7th century BC. [21], Also referred to as the period of Amorite domination over Assyria. He established (started) the first organized library in the ancient Middle East, the Library of Ashurbanipal, which survives in part today at Nineveh.. This protection included defending against external enemies and defending citizens from dangerous wild animals. To the Assyrians, the most dangerous animal of all was the lion, used (similarly to foreign powers) as an example of chaos and disorder due to their aggressive nature. The last great King of Neo-Assyria under whom the empire reached its greatest extent, stretching from Egypt all the way to Anatolia and the Persian Gulf. Because of the consistency between the list and the method through which it was created, modern scholars usually accept the regnal years mentioned as more or less correct. More extremely, Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BC) calls himself a "descendant of the eternal seed of Bel-bani", a king who would have lived more than a thousand years before him. [13], Assyrian royal titularies were often changed depending on where the titles were to be displayed, the titles of the same Assyrian king would have been different in their home country of Assyria and in conquered regions. The Assyrians first captured forty-six of Judah’s fortified cities (Isaiah 36:1). The Assyrian Empire lasted for about 600 years. Ishtar. One of the reasons we know so much about the Assyrians and other people of their day was because of a man named Ashurbanipal-- the last great Assyrian king. After his death in 4 BCE the province was divided between Herod's sons. [25] Puzur-Ashur's line saw the beginning of true Akkadian names in the Assyrian royal line as opposed to earlier names which may have corresponded closer to Hurrian names. Ashurbanipal, was the last great king of Assyria and had to deal with many revolts. [17] As such, imperial expansion was not just expansion for expansion's sake but was also seen as a process of bringing divine order and destroying chaos to create civilization. Ashur-dugul appears to have ruled throughout most of the period, making the extent of the rule of the other usurpers unclear. For instance, Ashur-nirari II is stated by the list to be the son of his predecessor Enlil-Nasir II, but from inscriptions it is known that he was actually the son of Ashur-rabi I and brother of Enlil-Nasir. In around 627 BC, after the death of its last great king Ashurbanipal, the Neo-Assyrian empire began to unravel through a series of bitter civil wars between rival claimants for the throne, and in 616 BC Assyria was attacked by its own former vassals, the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, … According to historian Simon Anglim, Tiglath Pileser III “carried out extensive reforms of the army, reasserted central control over the empire, reconquered the Mediterranean seaboard, and even subjugated … In the first millennium BCE, ancient Mesopotamian civilization pioneered the first true multinational empires in world history. The last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, constructed a great library at the city of Nineveh. [19], Two prominent examples of such usurpers are the kings Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745–727 BC) and Sargon II (r. 722–705 BC). Catharsis Theatre's 'Ashurbanipal: The Last Great King of Assyria ticks a lot of my boxes.As a history nerd it's nice to see a play that deals with non-British history, and as I don't know much about the Neo-Assyrian Empire it's a good opportunity to learn. There are some differences between the copies of the list, notably in that they offer somewhat diverging regnal years before the reign of king Ashur-dan I of the Middle Assyrian Empire (reign beginning in 1178 BC). All modern lists of Assyrian kings generally follow the Assyrian King List, a list kept and developed by the ancient Assyrians themselves over the course of several centuries. The great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, son of Sennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of Assyria, grandson of Sargon, the great king, the mighty king, king of Assyria; who under the protection of Assur, Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Marduk, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela, the great gods, his lords, made his way from the rising to the setting sun, having no rival. Incomplete king-lists have been recovered from all three of the major ancient Assyrian capitals (Aššur, Dur-Šarukkin and Nineveh). For this reason, most of the Assyrian kings of the Old Assyrian period (c. 2025–1378 BC) used the title Išši’ak Aššur, translating to "governor of Assyria". Your email address will not be published. Though some parts of the list are probably fictional, the list accord… In times of civil strife and confusion, the list still adheres to a single royal line of descent, probably ignoring rival claimants to the throne. 2 Kings 15:19 - [And] Pul the king of Assyria came against the land: and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand. [12] The assumption of many traditional southern titles, including the ancient "king of Sumer and Akkad" and the boastful "king of the Universe" and "king of the Four Corners of the World", by the Assyrian kings served to legitimize their rule and assert their control over Babylon and lower Mesopotamia. [5] Originally it was assumed that the list was first written in the time of Shamshi-Adad I circa 1800 BC but it now is considered to date from much later, probably from the time of Ashurnasirpal I (1050–1031 BC). [7] King Kikkia is mentioned by later kings as having restored the inner city wall of Aššur. Ancient Assyria was an absolute monarchy, with the king believed to be appointed directly through divine right by the chief deity, Ashur. Xerxes the Great, King of Persia: Biography & Achievements, 12 Important Facts about Ancient Mesopotamia, After the destruction of Nineveh in 612 BC, the Ashurbanipal’s library went down, lost to history for over two millennia. [30][31][32], Old Assyrian kings (c. 2025–1366/1353 BC), "The Achievement of Tiglath-pileser III: Novelty or Continuity? Required fields are marked *. [6] The oldest of the surviving king-lists, List A (8th century BC) stops at Tiglath-Pileser II (c. 967–935 BC) and the youngest, List C, stops at Shalmaneser V (727–722 BC). After 1178 BC, the lists are identical in their contents. It was discovered in the 19, The first translations of the clay tablets were done by George Smith. Assyrian protective deity placed at the entrance of important palaces and temples. Who were the 12 Most Famous Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia? The Middle Chronology tends to be favored by modern researchers. In the years after the siege of Samaria, the southern kingdom of Judah was also threatened by Assyria. ", "Chronology and History in the Late Assyrian Empire (631—619 B.C. [19], The king was also tasked with protecting his own people, often being referred to as a "shepherd". Originally vassals of more powerful empires, the early Assyrian kings used the title governor or viceroy (Išši’ak), which was retained as the ruling title after Assyria gained independence due to the title of king (šar) being applied to the god Ashur. [17] In some cases, the hunt even took place with captive lions in an arena. Although the Sargonid Dynasty begins with Sargon II, he was provided with the resources to begin his successful reign by his father, Tiglath Pileser III (reigned 745-727 BCE), who reorganized the military and restructured the government. Isaiah 36:13 - Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said, Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. Ashurbanipal, the last great king of Assyria, ruled this vast empire from the ancient city of Nineveh, the ruins of which lie across the Tigris River from modern Mosul, Iraq. A similar inscription from the reign of Ashurbanipal (r. 668–631 BC) commands the king to "extend the land at his feet". Usurpers who were unrelated to previous kings usually either simply lied about being the son of some previous monarch or claimed that they had been divinely appointed directly by Ashur. Sculpted reliefs depicting Ashurbanipal, the last great Assyrian king, hunting lions, gypsum hall relief from the North Palace of Nineveh ( CC BY-SA 2.0 ) Ashurbanipal had initially not been expected to succeed his father, Esarhaddon, as king, since he had an older brother, Sin-iddina-apla. Roman historian Justinus identified him as Sardanapalus, and describes him as effeminate. In around 627 BCE, after the death of its last great king Ashurbanipal, the Neo-Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter civil wars, and Assyria was attacked by the Babylonians and Medes. Ashurbanipal is famous for building a huge library of clay tablets (known as cuneiform) in the capital city of Nineveh. Assyria’s last great king, Ashurbanipal, g ets the briefest of mentions in the Old Testament (Ezra 4:9-10). [19] Because the king was the earthly link to the gods, it was his duty to spread order throughout the world through the military conquest of these strange and chaotic countries. He is famous as one of the few kings in antiquity who could himself read and write. As a result, in 701 BCE, Hezekiah of Judah, Lule king of Sidon, Sidka, king of Ascalon and the king of Ekron formed an alliance with Egypt against Assyria. The Assyrian Empire started off as a major regional power in Mesopotamia in the second millennium B.C.E., but later grew in size and stature in the first millennium B.C.E. Decipher the true meanings of omens which will shape the fate of thousands. Aššur-uballiṭ II of Assyria according to Archival Sources", "The titles 'King of Sumer and Akkad' and 'King of Karduniaš', and the Assyro-Babylonian relationship during the Sargonid Period", "The Antiochus Cylinder, Babylonian Scholarship and Seleucid Imperial Ideology", "Ancient Egypt and Archaeology Web Site - Ancient Egypt - Assyrian", "Sargonid Dynasty - Ancient History Encyclopedia", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Assyrian_kings&oldid=1004672680, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Unclear relation; descendant of Shamshi-Adad I, Usurper; unrelated to previous kings; extent of rule unclear, Usurper; unrelated to the Adaside dynasty, Son of Enlil-nasir I; usurped the throne from Ashur-shaduni, Son of Ashur-rabi I; usurped the throne from Ashur-nadin-ahhe I, Son of Ashur-bel-nisheshu or Ashur-rim-nisheshu, Son of Tukulti-Ninurta I; usurped the throne from his father, Son of Tukulti-Ninurta I; usurped the throne from Ashur-nirari III, Descendant of Adad-nirari I; usurped the throne from Enlil-kudurri-usur, Son of Ninurta-apal-Ekur; regnal dates from Ashur-dan I onwards are consistent in all chronologies, Son of Ashur-dan I; usurped the throne from Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur, Son of Tiglath-Pileser I; usurped the throne from Eriba-Adad II, Claimed to be the son of Tiglath-Pileser III; usurped the throne from Shalmaneser V, General of Ashur-etil-ilani; rebelled against Sinsharishkun and attempted to claim the throne for himself, Unclear relation; possibly the son of Sinsharishkun, This page was last edited on 3 February 2021, at 20:16.