A Companion to Assyria

by Eckart Frahm

  In the seventh century BCE, cities like Ashur and Arba’il retained their cultural importance, as emphasized by the hymn quoted above. Yet in comparison to Nineveh, the seat of royal power and the heart of the empire, these cities were now perceived as peripheral and provincial, not as equals to the great city and not so different from other regional centers in the empire. Nineveh’s new size was gigantic by ancient standards: with 750 hectares enclosed by fortification walls, the city boasted more than twice the area of the already enormous cities of Kalḫu (380 hectares) and Dur‐Šarrukin (315 hectares).

  Despite adding no new provinces to the Assyrian state, Sennacherib had more people moved across the empire than any of his predecessors (or any of his successors, for that matter) had; on the basis of his inscriptions, Sennacherib resettled close to half a million people, and almost half of them came from Babylonia (Oded 1979: 20–1). Most deportees were destined for Nineveh, whose newly expanded size called for additional settlers. The move to Nineveh and its enlargement was accompanied by the construction of an extensive network of water reservoirs, canals, and aqueducts (Ur 2005) designed to release the water from seasonal northern rivers – such as the Rubar Dohuk and Gomel, which only carry water after the spring snowmelt – gradually and year‐round to Nineveh, guaranteeing sufficient water supplies for the new megacity and its inhabitants.

  Just as Aššurnaṣirpal II had personnel transferred from Ashur to Kalḫu almost two centuries earlier, the empire’s specialists, among them “exorcists, physicians, augurs, […], carpenters, goldsmiths, smiths” (in a fragmentary catalog: Frahm 1997: 158 no. 69+), were moved to Nineveh and the city became the favorite stomping ground for the empire’s cultural elite. Note, for example, the irritated reaction of a scholar in the royal entourage upon learning that he was to return to Ashur:

  Concerning what the crown prince, my lord, wrote to me, saying: “Why are you here? Move on and go to the Inner City (= Ashur)” – it is now the second time that the crown prince suddenly writes (like this). It is not time for the sacrifices, and there is no ritual and nothing that would make them send for me hastily. Why the same thing again?

  (SAA 13 158)

  Until the reign of Sargon, we may very well argue that the Assyrian heartland, as a whole, was considered the center of the growing empire while the provinces provided opportunities for eager state officials to distinguish themselves by transforming the land in their care into an integral part of Assyria. With the foundation of Dur‐Šarrukin and, especially, with the elevation of Nineveh into the capital city, this situation changed for good. By the seventh century BCE, the great city on the Tigris River was the place to be for all those who were eager to shape the empire and to enjoy its fruits. The provincial governors’ position within the state hierarchy diminished steadily as Sennacherib and his successors shifted power away from them to the members of the king’s immediate family and his attendants (Radner 2008: 510; cf. Mattila 2009). Nineveh and its royal court emerged as the unrivalled center of the empire.

  Farmers and Pastoralists

  While the vast majority of the regions within the Assyrian empire were used as farmland, we must not forget the pastoralists who used the mountain meadows in the Zagros and Taurus Mountain regions as well as the steppe to graze their herds. The former environment was used by transhumant shepherds, who led their flocks according to an annual routine along established, seasonal routes from summer to winter pastures; this has been studied for the Zagros province of Mazamua (or Zamua), corresponding to the Shahrizor plain and the mountain ranges enclosing it, in Iraqi Kurdistan (Greco 2003). The steppe, on the other hand, was exploited not only by transhumant shepherds associated with agricultural settlements in the farming belt but also by nomadic pastoralists who moved across large areas without following a predetermined pattern. The Assyrian economy depended on pastoralism, since the wool from the sheep provided the main raw material for the important textile industry and since mutton was the most commonly consumed meat.

  As we have seen, the role of the city of Ashur changed considerably in the course of the first quarter of the first millennium BCE but, as the only central Assyrian city situated on the western bank of the Tigris River, it always functioned as the key contact point between the Assyrian state and the pastoralist tribes that roamed the Jezirah, the arid region between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, with their herds of sheep and camels. By the eighth century BCE, Arab tribes had penetrated deep into the Syrian desert and the Jezirah with the permission of the Assyrian authorities, who needed their goodwill in order to protect their economic interests along the empire’s southern borders in the desert zone stretching from the Mediterranean Sea coast to the Persian Gulf. The tribes and their herds were given the use of the steppe lands between the Assyrian farming belt and the desert (cf. Fales 2002). But when the steppe could not provide enough resources for their survival, the pastoralists would quickly become opportunistic raiders and threaten the nearby settlements. Since this severely upset the fragile, but important, relations between Assyria and the tribes, it was in the state’s best interest to find good grazing grounds for the pastoralists, as illustrated by a letter exchange between King Sargon II and Ṭab‐ṣil‐Ešarra, the governor of Ashur. The king had ordered him to lead the Arabs to Ḫinzanu (Ḫindanu), on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River and in the region of the modern border between Syria and Iraq, and allow them to graze there, stipulating Suḫu (i.e. the region along the Euphrates between the modern Iraqi cities Jabriyeh and Ramadi) as the southern border and the Wadi Tharthar as the eastern border of their grazing grounds. This is the governor’s reply:

  As to the Arabs about whom the king, my lord wrote to me: “Why do they graze their sheep and camels in the desert where they must resort to plundering when hungry?” Rains have been scarce this year; they had to settle in [the desert].

  As to what the king, my lord, wrote to me: “Now, go to Ḫinzanu, and let them go and graze with you! There shall be no restrictions from the banks of the Wadi Tharthar up to the land of Suḫu!” I will now go to Ḫinzanu, but they (are sure to) leave the territory I am assigning to them, move further downstream and plunder; they pay absolutely no heed to the chief scout I have appointed.

  Let them order the governor of Kalḫu to appoint one of his eunuchs and put the Arabs under his jurisdiction; they should then ask me for a territory where to graze. All the same, their tents should remain in the territory of the governor of Kalḫu while they are grazing [elsewhere].

  They plunder settlements. They never plunder sheep or camels but they do kidnap people.

  (SAA 1 82)

  Ṭab‐ṣil‐Ešarra was not happy with the king’s order since he considered it unlikely that the Arabs would stay in the assigned territory, presumably because he knew the grazing conditions there would be inadequate. He predicted that they would move further south, into Babylonia, and would plunder there. We know from another of his letters (SAA 1 84) that the northern Babylonian city of Sippar was targeted by Arabs at the time. His alternative was to move the Arabs northwards into the province of Kalḫu, which means that they would have been relocated to the other bank of the Tigris River. There, they would find enough grazing for their herds while their ability to move freely would have been severely restricted by the tributaries of the Tigris River, which would, in turn, keep them exactly where the Assyrians wanted them to be. Although Ṭab‐ṣil‐Ešarra suggested that the Arabs could also graze their herds elsewhere, he insisted that their camps should be established in the province of Kalḫu. In this way, the families of the herders would have served as hostages, guaranteeing the good behavior of those herders who could not always be watched closely. By establishing a permanent base for the Arab pastoralists, Ṭab‐ṣil‐Ešarra, in effect, intended to change their lifestyle from free‐roaming “true” nomadism to transhumance. Ṭab‐ṣil‐Ešarra’s suggestion also indicates that it was quite late in the year, after the grain harvests from the intensely used agricultural
zone of Kalḫu had already been brought in: even today, shepherds graze their herds around Kalḫu after harvest time.

  Four Vignettes of Neo‐Assyrian Life

  The following biographical sketches are meant to illustrate the diversity of living conditions in the Assyrian empire. They have two things in common: they all date to the seventh century BCE, the period when our sources are most numerous, and they all are situated in an urban context. This is not coincidental since the available sources come overwhelmingly from the cities, rather than from the countryside, and tend to concern themselves with matters of urban life. I have selected a millionaire landowner and military officer, two scholars from Assyria’s leading learned family, a slave woman who had been abducted from a foreign country, and the head of a firm of wine importers. The entries in The Prosopography of the Neo‐Assyrian Empire (Radner and Baker 1998–2011) provide textual references for these and many other Assyrians.

  A very rich and influential man

  Šulmu‐šarri’s archive (Radner 2002; Röllig 2014) was excavated from the ruins of a stately home in Dur‐Katlimmu on the Khabur River, known today as the “Red House” (Kreppner and Schmid 2013) after the color of the wall decoration in the western wing of the building. The archive consists of about 150 cuneiform tablets and some fifty Aramaic clay dockets, all of them private legal documents that give us a great deal of information about the economic situation of Šulmu‐šarri’s household.

  Šulmu‐šarri was active throughout the reign of Assurbanipal and, in the last part of the king’s reign, when Šulmu‐šarri was certainly at least fifty years of age, he was promoted to the distinguished position of a royal confidant (ša qurbūte, literally “he who is close”), which would have allowed him to represent the king in confidential matters all over the empire (Postgate 2007: 342–3). We do not know what his original professional title was, although a fragmentary text reveals that he was at some point attached to the crown prince, presumably the future king Aššur‐etel‐ilani (Radner 2002 no. 86). However, it is virtually certain that he was a high‐ranking military commander: most of his associates held military titles and, in the seventh century BCE, Dur‐Katlimmu was a garrison town that harbored contingents of the Assyrian chariot corps and intelligence service.

  Like many who enjoyed the king’s favor, Šulmu‐šarri was a very rich man. We are informed only about those properties that he bought and whose purchase documents survive; this amounts to eight fields, three gardens, and three houses and agricultural buildings in and around Dur‐Katlimmu. From a court record dealing with a crime committed there, we also know that he owned an entire village in the border march of the cupbearer (in the region of Aqra in northeastern Iraq, Radner 2002 no. 71). We can be certain that he had additional estates, some perhaps granted to him by the king. The “Red House” itself is testament to his wealth: with a living space of 5,400 meters2, this enormous building consisted of three separate parts arranged around three paved courtyards. Four staircases indicate that parts of the building had a second floor. The main entrance led into the administrative wing in the north of the building, which offered ample storage facilities, some even refrigerated. The representative wing was situated in the east and the private wing in the west of the building, the latter with two wells. A central reception hall connected the three parts and regulated access to the eastern and western wings. There were several kitchen areas and four bathrooms, all connected to the complex sewage system (Kreppner and Schmid 2013). Šulmu‐šarri and his family shared this house with numerous slaves; within three decades, he bought more than fifty of them, two‐thirds of whom were women (often a mother and her young daughter). The remains of horizontal looms along the walls of the courtyards of the “Red House” provide evidence for domestic textile work, the necessary wool for which was provided by the shepherds in Šulmu‐šarri’s employ, who grazed their flocks in the Jezirah.

  Šulmu‐šarri had three sons: Šamaš‐aḫḫe‐iddina, Nabû‐ili, and Nabû‐uṣur. We do not know anything about their mother but it is a possibility that she was a relative, perhaps the sister, of Šulmu‐šarri’s close associate Raḫimi‐il, an officer in the chariot corps; some of his tablets were found as part of Šulmu‐šarri’s archive. The sons inherited their father’s estate after he died sometime during the reign of Assurbanipal’s second successor, Sîn‐šarru‐iškun (r. 627–612 BCE), most likely of old age. His grave’s location is not known; it is certain that there was no underground tomb attached to the “Red House,” although such structures are attested elsewhere in Dur‐Katlimmu, albeit during an earlier period (late tenth/early ninth century BCE, Kreppner and Hornig 2010). Perhaps he was buried elsewhere in the city or at another one of his estates. The activities of Šulmu‐šarri’s heirs are documented in a few texts found in the “Red House,” proving his family’s continuing connection with this building, even during and after the disintegration of the Assyrian empire. One text (Radner 2002 no. 199) dates to the period just after 612 BCE and contains important evidence for the political situation in Dur‐Katlimmu at the time: the population was still loyal to the Assyrian crown but local power rested now in the hands of a “city lord” rather than the previously well‐attested members of the regular city administration.

  The disappointed scions of Assyria’s leading learned family

  We have already emphasized that relocating the administrative and political center to a new city, in conjunction with the influx of new population groups, resulted in a weakening of the influence of the former urban elites over the king. The fate of the cousins Šumaya and Urdu‐Gula illustrates this point.

  Contemporaries of kings Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BCE) and Assurbanipal, the cousins were members of Assyria’s foremost family of scholars. Since their ancestor, Gabbu‐ilani‐ereš, had been master scholar (ummânu), the most prominent position a man of learning could aspire to in Assyria, to kings Tukulti‐Ninurta II (r. 890–884 BCE) and Aššurnaṣirpal II, the family was closely connected to the Assyrian crown and enjoyed royal patronage and prestigious appointments at court. Originally from Ashur, Gabbu‐ilani‐ereš moved as part of Aššurnaṣirpal’s entourage to Kalḫu, where the family flourished. The grandfather of Šumaya and Urdu‐Gula was Nabû‐zuqup‐kenu, who contributed numerous manuscripts of literary and scholarly works to the Assyrian royal library, most famously a copy of the twelfth tablet of the Gilgameš Epic, which he wrote in response to the death of his master, Sargon II, on the battlefield (Frahm 1999). His sons, Nabû‐zeru‐lešir and Adad‐šumu‐uṣur, were favorites of Esarhaddon. The first was chief scribe and, like his ancestor Gabbu‐ilani‐ereš, master scholar, while his brother held the prominent appointment of the king’s personal exorcist. Nabû‐zeru‐lešir was succeeded as chief scribe by his son Issar‐šumu‐ereš, who also served under King Assurbanipal, but his other son, Šumaya, and his nephew, Urdu‐Gula, who were both trained as exorcists, failed to achieve permanent positions in the royal entourage. They both wrote petitions to Assurbanipal that were meant to change their fortunes for the better but, unfortunately, did not succeed in securing his favor. These letters contain some of the most detailed descriptions of individual economic and social circumstances in the Assyrian empire, and it is therefore worthwhile to quote them.

  Šumaya wrote twice to the then crown prince Assurbanipal after his father, the master scholar Nabû‐zeru‐lešir, had died, saddling him with inherited debts:

  My father owed the king a thousand (homers) of barley. Now of that (sum) I have already paid 400 (homers) of barley but I still owe the remaining 600 (homers) of barley. … I have appealed to the crown prince, my lord. May the crown prince, my lord, not leave me in the lurch, but do something!

  (SAA 16 35)

  Here, he seems reasonably confident that the crown prince would help him to repay his debts to the king. But Assurbanipal was apparently not interested in Šumaya’s well‐being, despite the fact that Šumaya used to work at the crown prince’s residence in Tarbiṣu.
A second letter is rather more desperate in tone and reminds the crown prince of his family’s long association with the royal house, demanding that he be recognized like his father and grandfather before him. In this letter, Esarhaddon is held up as a role model who would not have hesitated to do right by Šumaya – Šumaya’s employment, unfortunately, was with Assurbanipal, who appeared less keen about protecting this scion of an ancient learned family and his interests:

  The king, your father, saw the work that I did in Tarbiṣu. I did it carefully, thinking: “May my name be good before my lord.” … The king, my lord, did not give me a house nor silver for the rest of the work. Now, if it is acceptable to the crown prince, let them settle my accounts, let the crown prince hand over the work, and let me do the work in Kalḫu assigned to my father (= Nabû‐zeru‐lešir) and deliver it to the crown prince. Nobody listens to me. (Should) it come to pass that I become a nobody before the crown prince, I will die. If only the crown prince, my lord, would turn his attention to me, I would perform the works of the crown prince and deliver them to the crown prince, my lord. If I did not do it, who would do them and deliver them to the crown prince? … May the crown prince, my lord, live forever, and may I revere the crown prince, my lord, with my arms and feet! The crown prince, my lord, may enquire: Did the eunuch Aššur‐belu‐ka”in not stand by my grandfather (= Nabû‐zuqup‐kenu)? Afterwards, when your grandfather (= Sennacherib) ascended the throne, did he not appoint him to the position of a scribe? Now, may the crown prince, my lord, not forsake me! May the name of his grandfather and the position of my father not be lost from your house! My father and my grandfather served in your household. The king, your father, loves the son of one who did his (= the king’s) work, feels concern for the son of one who did his work. What is my crime? I am a dog of the crown prince, lurking at the threshold of your house. May the crown prince, my lord, not forsake me!