A Companion to Assyria

by Eckart Frahm

  Dolce, R. 2008. “Ebla before the Achievement of Palace G Culture: An Evaluation of the Early Syrian Archaic Period,” in: H. Kühne, R.M. Czichon, and F.J. Kreppner (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 29 March–3 April 2004, Freie Universität Berlin, Vol. 2: Social and Cultural Transformation: The Archaeology of Transitional Periods and Dark Ages, Excavation Reports, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 65–80.

  Dolce, R. 2010. “Ebla and Its Origins: A Proposal,” in: P. Matthiae, F. Pinnock, L. Nigro, and N. Marchetti (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East Vol. 1, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 245–60.

  Durand, J.‐M. 1985“La situation historique des šakkanakku: nouvelle approche,” M.A.R.I. 4, 147–72.

  Eidem, J. and Warburton, D. 1996. “In the Land of Nagar: A Survey around Tell Brak,” Iraq 58, 51–64.

  Forest, J.‐D. 2003. “The Ninevite 5 Culture: Its Nature and its Origins,” in: H. Weiss and E. Rova (eds.), The Origins of Northern Mesopotamian Civilization: Ninevite V Economy, Society and Culture, Subartu 9, Turnhout: Brepols, 563–92.

  Fortin, M. 1998. “L’habitat de la station commerciale de Tell ‘Atij, sur le Moyen Khabour, au IIIe millénaire av. J.‐C.,” in : M. Fortin and O. Aurenche (eds.), Espace naturel, espace habité en Syrie du Nord (10e–2e millénaires av. J.‐C.), Quebec and Lyon: Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies, 229–42.

  Foster, B.R. 1982. “Administration of State Land at Sargonic Gasur,” Oriens Antiquus 20, 39–48.

  Foster, B.R. 1993. “Management and Administration in the Sargonic Period,” in: M. Liverani (ed.), Akkad, The First World Empire: Structure, Ideology, Traditions, HANES 5, Padova: Sargon SRL, 25–39.

  Foster, B.R. 2016. The Age of Agade: Inventing Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia, London: Routledge.

  Frayne, D.R. 2008. Presargonic Period (2700–2350 BC), Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

  Fronzaroli, P. 2003. Testi di cancelleria: I rapporti con le città (Archivio L.2769), Rome: Missione Archeologica Italiana in Syria.

  Galtung, J. 1990. “Cultural Violence,” Journal of Peace Research 27, 291–305.

  Harper, P.O., Klengel‐Brandt, E. et al. 1995. Assyrian Origins: Discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris: Antiquities in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  Hayden, B. 2009. “Funerals As Feasts: Why Are They So Important?” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19(1), 29–52.

  Hole, F. 1999. “Economic Implications of Possible Storage Structures at Tell Ziyadeh, NE Syria,” Journal of Field Archaeology 26 (3), 267–83.

  Hole, F. and Kouchoukos, N. 1994. “Preliminary Report on an Archaeological Survey in the Western Khabur Basin, 1994,” Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes.

  Kelly‐Buccellati, M. 2002. “Ein hurritischer Gang in die Unterwelt,” Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient‐Gesellschaft 134, 131–48.

  Kuhrt, A. 1995. The Ancient Near East c. 3000–330 BC, London: Routledge.

  Lafont, B. 2001. “Relations internationales, alliances et diplomatie au temps des royaumes amorrites,” in: J.‐M. Durand and D. Charpin (eds.), Amurru 2: Mari, Ebla et les Hourrites, dix ans de travaux, Paris: ERC, 213–328.

  Lebeau, M. (ed.) 2011. ARCANE (Associated Regional Chronologies for the Ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean) Vol. 1: Jezirah, Turnhout: Brepols.

  Mallowan, M. 1947. “Excavations at Brak and Chagar Bazar,” Iraq 9, 1–259.

  Margueron, J.‐C. 2004. Mari: Métropole de l’Euphrate au IIIe et au début du IIe millénaire av. J.‐C., Paris: ERC.

  Matney, T. 2002. “Urban Planning and the Archaeology of Society at Early Bronze Age Titris Hoyuk,” The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 57, 19–34.

  Matthews, D. 1997. The Early Glyptic of Tell Brak: Cylinder Seals of Third Millennium Syria, Freiburg: Universitätsverlag.

  Matthews, D. 2002. “Seven Shrines of Subartu,” in: L. al‐Gailani Werr, J. Curtis, H. Martin et al. (eds.), Of Pots and Plans: Papers on the Archaeology and History of Mesopotamia and Syria Presented to David Oates in Honour of His 75th Birthday, London: NABU Publications, 186–90.

  Matthiae, P. 2010. Ebla, la città del trono: Archeologia e storia, Turin: Einaudi.

  McMahon, A., Oates, J. et al. 2007. “Excavations at Tell Brak, 2006–2007,” Iraq 69, 145–71.

  McMahon, A. and Quenet, P. 2007. “Area D Post‐Akkadian Pottery,” in: Ö. Tunca, A. McMahon, and A.M. Bagdo (eds.), Excavations at Chagar Bazar (Syria)/Fouilles de Chagar Bazar (Syrie), Progress reports/Rapports périodiques 1, Publications de la Mission Archéologique de l’Université de Liège en Syrie, Leuven: Peeters.

  Meyer, J.‐W. 2011. “City Planning,” in: M. Lebeau (ed.), ARCANE (Associated Regional Chronologies for the Ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean) Vol. 1: Jezirah, Turnhout: Brepols, 123–30.

  Michael, C., Pessin, H. et al. 2010. “Tolerating Change at Late Chalcolithic Tell Brak: Responses of an Early Urban Society to an Uncertain Climate,” Environmental Archaeology 15 (2), 184–98.

  Michalowski, P. 1986. “Mental Maps and Ideology: Reflections on Subartu,” in: H. Weiss (ed.), Origins of Cities in Dry‐Farming Syria and Mesopotamia in the Third Millennium BC, Guilford, CT: Four Quarters Publishing, 129–56.

  Michalowski, P. 2009. “Assur During the Ur III Period,” in: O. Drewnowska (ed.), Here and There Across the Ancient Near East: Studies in Honor of Krystyna Lyczkowska, Warsaw: Agade, 149–56.

  Milano, L. 1995. “Ebla: A Third‐Millennium City‐State in Ancient Syria,” in: J.M. Sasson (ed.), Culture and History of the Ancient Near East II, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1219–30.

  Milano, L. and Rova, E. 2000. “Ceramic Provinces and Political Borders in Upper Mesopotamia in the Late Early Dynastic Period,” in: S. Graziani (ed.), Studi sul Vicino Oriente Antico dedicati alla memoria di Luigi Cagni, Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 709–49.

  Moortgat‐Correns, U. 1972. Die Bildwerke vom Djebelet el Beda in ihrer räumlichen und zeitlichen Umwelt, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

  Nishimura, Y. 2008. North Mesopotamian Urban Space: A Reconstruction of Household Activities and City Layout at Titriş Höyük in the Third Millennium BC, Los Angeles: UCLA Press.

  Oates, D., Oates, J. et al. 2001. Excavations at Tell Brak, Vol. 2: Nagar in the Third Millennium BC, London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq.

  Ökse, A. T. 2006. “Gre Virike (Period 1): Early Bronze Age Ritual Facilities on the Middle Euphrates River,” Anatolica 32, 1–27.

  Palumbi, G. 2003. “Red‐black Pottery, Eastern Anatolian and Transcaucasian Relationships around the Mid‐Fourth Millennium B.C.,” Ancient Near Eastern Studies 40, 80–134.

  Parayre, D. 2003. “The Ninevite 5 Sequence of Glyptic at Tell Leilan,” in: H. Weiss and E. Rova (eds.), The Origins of North Mesopotamian Civilization: Ninevite 5 Chronology, Economy, Society, Subartu IX, Turnhout: Brepols, 271–310.

  Paz, S. 2009. “A Home Away from Home? The Settlement of Early Transcaucasian Migrants at Tel Bet Yerah,” Tel Aviv 36 (2), 196–217.

  Pfälzner, P. 2001. Haus und Haushalt: Wohnformen des dritten Jahrtausends vor Christus in Nordmesopotamien, Mainz: Verlag Phillip von Zabern.

  Pfälzner, P. 2002. “Modes of Storage and the Development of Economic Systems in the Early Jezireh‐Period,” in: L. al‐Gailani Werr, J. Curtis, H. Martin et al. (eds.), Of Pots and Plans: Papers on the Archaeology and History of Mesopotamia and Syria, Presented to David Oates in Honour of His 75th Birthday, London: NABU Publications, 259–86.

  Pfälzner, P. 2011. “Architecture,” in: M. Lebeau (ed.), ARCANE (Associated Regional Chronologies for the Ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean) Vol. 1: Jezirah, Turnhout: Brepols, 131–94.

  Philip, G. 1999. “Complexity and Diversity in the Southern Levant during the Third Millennium BC: The Evidence of Khirbet Kerak Ware,” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 12 (1), 26–57.

  Pittman, H. 1994.
The Glazed Steatite Glyptic Style: The Structure and Function of an Image System in the Administration of Protoliterate Mesopotamia, Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.

  Podany, A.H. 2010. Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

  Pollock, S. 2003. “Feasts, Funerals and Fast Foods in Early Mesopotamian States,” in: T.L. Bray (ed.), The Archaeology of Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires, New York: Kluwer, 17–38.

  Postgate, J.N. 1994. “In Search of the First Empires,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 293, 1–14.

  Potts, D.T. 1986. “Eastern Arabia and the Oman Peninsula during the Late Fourth and Early Third Millennium B.C.,” in: U. Finkbeiner and W. Röllig (eds.), Gamdat Nasr: Period or Regional Style?, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 121–70.

  Reade, J. 2005. “The Ishtar Temple at Nineveh,” Iraq 67, 347–90.

  Ristvet, L. 2005. Settlement, Economy and Society in the Tell Leilan Region, Syria, 3000–1000 BC, PhD University of Cambridge.

  Ristvet, L. 2007. “The Third Millennium City Wall at Tell Leilan, Syria: Identity, Authority, and Urbanism,” in: J. Bretschneider, J. Driessen, and K. Van Lerberghe (eds.), Power and Architecture: Monumental Public Architecture in the Bronze Age Near East and Aegean, Orientalia Lovaniensa Analecta 156, Leuven: Peeters, 183–212.

  Ristvet, L. 2008. “Legal and Archaeological Territories of the 2nd Millennium BC in Northern Mesopotamia,” Antiquity 82(315), 585–99.

  Ristvet, L. 2011. “Travel and the Making of North Mesopotamian Polities,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 361, 1–31.

  Ristvet, L., Bakhshaliev, V.B. et al. 2011. “Settlement and Society in Naxçıvan: 2006 Excavations and Survey of the Naxçıvan Archaeological Project,” Iranica Antiqua 46, 1–53.

  Ristvet, L., Guilderson, T. et al. 2004. “The Dynamics of State Development and Imperialization at Third Millennium Tell Leilan, Syria,” Orient‐Express 8, 8–12.

  Rothman, M.S. 2003. “Ripples in the Stream: Transcaucasia‐Anatolian Interaction in the Murat/Euphrates Basin at the Beginning of the Third Millennium BC,” in: A.T. Smith and K.S. Rubinson (eds.), Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Monograph 47, Los Angeles: UCLA Press, 95–110.

  Sagona, A. 1984. The Caucasian Region in the Early Bronze Age, Oxford: BAR Reports.

  Sallaberger, W. 2001. “Nagar in den frühdynastischen Texten aus Beydar,” in: K. Van Lerberghe and G. Voet (eds.), At the Crossroads of Civilizations in the Syro‐ Mesopotamian Realm: Proceedings of the 42nd RAI (Leuven), Leuven: Peeters, 393–407.

  Sallaberger, W. 2007. “From Urban Culture to Nomadism: A History of Upper Mesopotamia in the Late Third Millennium,” in: C. Kuzucuoglu and C. Marro (eds.), Sociétés humaines et changement climatique à la fin du troisième millénaire: Une crise a‐t‐elle eu lieu en haute Mésopotamie?, Varia Anatolica 19, Istanbul: Institut français d’études anatoliennes Georges‐Dumézil, 417–56.

  Sallaberger, W. and Ur, J. 2004. “Tell Beydar/Nabada in its Regional Setting,” in: L. Milano, W. Sallaberger, P. Talon, and K. Van Lerberghe (eds.), Third Millennium Cuneiform Texts from Tell Beydar (Seasons 1996–2002), Subartu 12, Turnhout: Brepols, 51–71.

  Sasson, J. M. 1995. Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, 4 vols., New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

  Schmandt‐Besserat, D. 2001. “Feasting in the Ancient Near East,” in: M. Dietler and B. Hayden (eds.), Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics and Power, Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 391–403.

  Schwartz, G.M. 1994. “Rural Economic Specialization and Early Urbanization in the Khabur Valley, Syria,” in: G.M. Schwartz and S.E. Falconer (eds.), Archaeological Views from the Countryside: Village Communities in Early Complex Societies, Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 19–36.

  Schwartz, G.M. 2003. “Socio‐Political Developments in the Ninevite 5 Period,” in: E. Rova and H. Weiss (eds.), The Origins of Northern Mesopotamian Civilization: Ninevite V Economy, Society and Culture, Subartu IX, Turnhout: Brepols, 585–91.

  Schwartz, G.M., Curvers, H.H. et al. 2006. “A Third‐millennium B.C. Elite Mortuary Complex at Umm el‐Marra, Syria: 2002 and 2004 Excavations,” American Journal of Archaeology 110 (4), 603–41.

  Schwartz, G.M. and. Klucas, E. 1998.“Spatial Analysis and Social Structure at Tell ar‐Raqa’i,” in: M. Fortin and O. Aurenche (eds.), Espace naturel, espace habité en Syrie du Nord (10e–2e millénaires av. J‐C), Lyon: De Boccard, 188–207.

  Smith, M.E. 2007. “Form and Meaning in the Earliest Cities: A New Approach to Ancient Urban Planning,” Journal of Planning History 6 (3), 3–47.

  Soltysiak, A. 2008. “Short Fieldwork Report: Tell Majnuna (Syria), Season 2006,” Bioarchaeology of the Near East 2, 77–94.

  Sommerfeld, W., Archi, A. et al. 2004. “Why ‘Dada Measured 40,000 Liters of Barley from Nagar for Sippar’,” 4th ICAANE Poster.

  Steinkeller, P. 1993. “Early Political Development in Mesopotamia and the Origins of the Sargonic Empire,” in: M. Liverani (ed.), Akkad. The First World Empire. Structure, Ideology, Traditions, HANES 5, Padova: Sargon SRL, 107–29.

  Steinkeller, P. 1998. “The Historical Background of Urkesh and the Hurrian Beginnings in Northern Mesopotamia,” in: G. Buccellati and M. Kelly‐Buccellati (eds.), Urkesh and the Hurrians. Studies in Honor of Lloyd Cotsen, Urkesh/Mozan Studies 3, Malibu: Undena, 75–98.

  Ur, J. 2010. “Cycles of Civilization in Northern Mesopotamia, 4400–2000 BC,” Journal of Archaeological Research 18(4), 387–431.

  Van de Mieroop, M. 2007. A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323 BC, Malden, MA: Blackwell.

  Weiss, H. 1986. “The Origins of Tell Leilan and the Conquest of Space in 3rd millennium Mesopotamia,” in: H. Weiss (ed.), The Origins of Cities in Dry‐Farming Syria and Mesopotamia in the Third Millennium B.C, Guilford, CT: Four Quarters Press, 71–108.

  Weiss, H. 1990. “Tell Leilan 1989: New Data for Mid‐Third Millennium Urbanization and State Formation,” Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient‐Gesellschaft 122, 193–219.

  Weiss, H. 1997. “Leilan,” in: H. Weiss (ed.), Archaeology in Syria, AJA 101, 126–9.

  Weiss, H. 2000. “Beyond the Younger Dryas: Collapse as Adaptation to Abrupt Climate Change in Ancient West Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean,” in: G. Bawden and R.M. Reycraft (eds.), Environmental Disaster and the Archaeology of Human Response, Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, Anthropological Papers 7, Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 75–95.

  Weiss, H. and Bradley, R. 2001. “What Drives Societal Collapse?,” Science 291, 609–10.

  Weiss, H., deLillis, F. et al. 2002. “Revising the Contours of History at Tell Leilan,” Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes Cinquentenaire.

  Westenholz, J.G. 2004. “The Old Akkadian Presence in Nineveh: Fact or Fiction,” Iraq 66, 7–18.

  Wetterstrom, W. 2003. “Ninevite 5 Period Agriculture at Tell Leilan: Preliminary Results,” in: E. Rova and H. Weiss (eds.), The Origins of North Mesopotamian Civilization: Ninevite 5 Chronology, Economy, Society, Subartu IX, Turnhout: Brepols, 387–400.

  Wilkinson, T.J. 1994. “The Structure and Dynamics of Dry Farming States in Upper Mesopotamia,” Current Anthropology 35, 483–505.

  Wilkinson, T.J. and Tucker, D.J. 1995. Settlement Development in the North Jazira, Iraq, London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq.

  Wossink, A. 2009. Challenging Climate Change: Competition and Cooperation among Pastoralists and Agriculturalists in Northern Mesopotamia (ca. 3000–1600 BC), Leiden: Sidestone Press.

  Further Reading

  There is no one volume that discusses the history and archaeology of the third millennium BCE. Recent archaeological information can be found in Akkermans and Schwartz 2003, Cooper 2006, Ur 2010, and Lebeau 2011, while Kuhrt 1995 and Van de Mieroop 2007 provide further historical information. Several o
f the articles in Sasson 1995 elaborate on a number of subjects introduced here.

  Notes

  1 A similar rejection of religious ideology has been hypothesized for Southern Mesopotamia and may be illustrated by the abandonment of the Uruk IV Eanna Temple complex (Staubwasser and Weiss 2006).

  2 Subartu is a geographical term that is used both generally for the area to the “North” (of Sumer and Akkad) and more narrowly, to refer to the area of the East Tigris in the dry‐farming region. For discussion, see Sallaberger 2007, fn. 24, Steinkeller 1993: 77, Weiss 1986, and Michalowski 1986.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Old Assyrian Period (20th–18th Century BCE)

  Klaas R. Veenhof

  The Old Assyrian Period began when Ashur, around 2025 BCE, became independent after the empire of the Third Dynasty of Ur had lost control of its “periphery,” in the northwestern edge of which Ashur was located. The local elite presumably took control, somehow a local ruler emerged, and the city‐state Ashur was born; Assyria as a territorial state only took shape centuries later. How long this period lasted depends on the definition of “Old Assyrian.” If one equates it with the period during which the “native,” so‐called Old Assyrian “Puzur‐Aššur dynasty” ruled, it lasted until 1809 BCE, when the Amorite king Šamši‐Adad took the city. But we may include the 18th century BCE, because the essence of Ashur’s cultural identity and political institutions, described below, somehow survived this conquest, although in recognition of certain differences and developments we may call it the “Later Old Assyrian Period.” The basis for such distinctions, however, also with regard to what this volume calls the “Transition Period” (17th–16th century BCE), is weak because we do not really know what happened after 1760 BCE.

  Sources, Rulers, and Chronology