Collana di studi sulle civilt dellOriente antico

17

Collana di studi sulle civilt dellOriente antico

fondata da Fiorella Imparati e Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli
diretta da Stefano de Martino

EMPIRES AFTER THE EMPIRE:

ANATOLIA, SYRIA AND ASSYRIA
AFTER SUPPILULIUMA II
(ca. 1200-800/700 B.C.)
herausgegeben von
Karl Strobel

LoGisma editore

Gedruckt mit Untersttzung der Alpen Adria Universitt Klagenfurt.

We gratefully thank the Dipartimento di Storia e tutela dei beni culturali of

the University of Udine for the partial support to this publication.

Empires after the Empire: Anatolia, Syria and Assyria after Suppiluliuma II (ca.
1200-800/700 B.C.), herausgegeben von Karl Strobel
Copyright 2011 LoGisma editore
www.logisma.it - logisma@tin.it
ISBN 978-88-97530-04-6
Printed in November 2011

CONTENT
Introduction

Mario Fales, Udine

Transition: The Assyrians at the Euphrates
between the 13th and 12th century BC.

Federico Manuelli, Trieste/Roma

Malatya Melid between the Late Bronze and the Iron Age.
Continuity and Change at Arslantepe
during the 2nd and 1st Millennium BC:
Preliminary Observations on the Pottery Assemblages
.

61

Anacleto DAgostino, Firenze

The Upper Khabur and Upper Tigris Valleys between the End
of the Late Bronze Age and the Beginning of the Iron Age:
An Assessment of the Archaeological Evidence
(Settlement Paterns and Pottery Assemblages).
.
.

87

Fabrizio Venturi, Bologna

The North Syrian Plateau Before and After the Fall
of the Hittite Empire: New Evidence from Tell Afis

139

Karl Strobel, Klagenfurt

The Crucial 12th Century BC: The Fall of Empires Revisited

167

Kay Kohlmeyer, Berlin

Building Activities and Architectural Decoration
in the 11th Century BC. The Temples of Taita,
King of Padasatini/Palistin in Aleppo and Ain Dr .

255

Simonetta Ponchia, Verona

Patterns of Relationships in the Syro-Hittite Area

281

Onofrio Carruba, Pavia

Die Gliederung des Anatolischen und
der erste indoeuropische Name der Anatolier

309

TRANSITION: THE ASSYRIANS AT THE EUPHRATES

BETWEEN THE 13TH AND THE 12TH CENTURY BC *
Frederick Mario Fales, Udine

1. As is well known, Assyria rose to the rank of major protagonist of the

political scene of the Near East during the third quarter of the 2nd millennium
specifically due to the vast military expansion that this polity undertook
westwards in the Jezirah, as well as northwards in the Upper Tigris region
(Fig. 1). In the course of this enlargement of its territories, Assyria came to
encompass what had once been the central territories of Mittani and in the
course of time became known as the region of anigalbat, 1 where it
established a grid of administrative hubs and strongholds up to the natural
border of the Euphrates. However, from the end of the 13th century BC
onward, two separate, albeit closely spaced, phases of crisis 2 came about,
and these areas of Assyrian expansion were gradually relinquished, ready to
fall prey to newer occupants. In the following pages, placing as central focus
the times and occasions in which the armies of Assur attained the natural and
mental frontier of the eastern bank of the Euphrates, I will discuss the
transition into this overall period of decline for Assyria, on the basis of the
relevant textual and archaeological materials which have become known in
recent decades, and in the light of their ongoing interpretations.
***
The first Assyrian king to reach the Euphrates was Adad-nirari I (13071275 BC 3 ). This king relates of having marched through the land of
anigalbat, after an anti-Assyrian revolt by Wasaatta, scion of the
Mitannian royal line, who had appealed to the Hittites (i.e. presumably to
Murili III) for aid. 4 The Assyrian king conquered the main cities of the
former Hurrian state, 5 and especially the Hurrian l arrti Taidu. 6
I captured by conquest the city Taidu, his great royal city, the cities
Amasaku, Kaat, uru, Nabula, urra, uduu, and Waukanu. I took
and brought to my city, Aur, the possessions of those cities, the
accumulated (wealth) of his (=Wasaattas) fathers, and the treasure of his
palace. I conquered, burnt, (and) destroyed the city Irridu and sowed salty
plants over it. The great gods gave me to rule from the city Taidu to the
city Irridu, the city Eluat and Mount Kaiyeri in its entirety, the fortress
9

of the city Sudu, the fortress of the city arranu, to the bank of the
Euphrates. As for the remainder of his (=Wasaattas) people, I imposed
upon them corve (lit. 'hoe, spade, and basket'). 7

The second foray to the banks of the river took place in the time of
Shalmaneser I (1274-1245 BC), who relates in his official inscriptions that
he defeated the army of the rebellious attuara II of anigalbat, together
with his Hittite and Alam allies, 8 in the course of a harsh campaign
through difficult paths and passes, and in the face of repeated ambushes
from the enemy. His victorious backlash brought the capture of 9 fortified
cities and and the deportations of 14,400 enemy soldiers. 9 The main
conquests are thereupon summed up, and prove to be ranged along an
itinerary from the Upper Tigris to the Upper Euphrates which largely
overlaps with that of his father (cf. Fig. 2):
At that time, I captured their cities (in the region) from Ta'idu to Irritu, all
of Mt. Kaiyari to the city Eluat, the fortress of Sudu, the fortress of
arran, up to Karkemi which is on the bank of the Euphrates. 10

Despite the suspicious repetition of the paternal toponyms, 11 it is

generally accepted that Shalmaneser was efficacious in securing for Assyria
with no further encroachment on the part of Hurrian rulers the Upper
Tigris area, the present-day zone of the Tr Abdin, the br triangle, and
the western territories leading up to the Euphrates. 12 Sources other than the
royal inscriptions suggest that he was also responsible for sending armed
troops to areas of the Middle Euprates, such as Su and Mari, 13 for the
takeover of Hittite fortifications along the east bank of the river (such as Tell
Fray 14 ) and on the basis of the Hittite letter KBo 18.24 for victorious
forays deep into the upper river valley at Malitiya on the west bank. 15
In sum, Shalmaneser I definitely established the area traditionally
known as @anigalbat as part and parcel of the Assyrian reign. On the other
hand, however vast this king's territorial gains may have been, it is a fact that
by the end of the 13th century i.e. barely some 50 years after his reign this
strong westward thrust had already ground to a halt; and we may observe the
onset of a first downturn which, on the basis of the official written records
(i.e. the Assyrian royal inscriptions, and to a lesser degree, some Chronicle
accounts 16 ) appears to have affected the capacity of Assyria for further
military and political expansion.
This first phase of decline may be dated following the reign of TukultiNinurta I (1244-1208), a king as energetic as his father, to whom extensive

10

conquests in the area to the north and northwest of Assyria are attributed in
his royal inscriptions. 17 The Middle Assyrian reign reached its apex under
his rule, from the Zagros to the Euphrates (at least its east bank), and
including the Upper Tigris catchment area to the north as well as Kassite
Babylonia in the south for a short spell. 18 The further possibility, that
Tukulti-Ninurta might have actually held sway at least temporarily over
the west bank of the Euphrates is quite problematic, since only two late texts
of his 19 mention the defeat and deportation of "28,800 people of Hatti from
beyond the Euphrates", albeit attributing the event to the "beginning of my
sovereignty". The first of these texts 20 also summarizes the king's conquests
by including "the lands Mari, ana, Rapiqu, and the mountains of the
Alam which are elsewhere conspicuously absent. 21
In any case, the king's last years were marked by strong internal
opposition to his building and religious policies, and eventually culminated
in his assassination. After Tukulti-Ninurta's reign, Assyrian decline may be
gauged first and foremost from the absence of military feats attested in the
royal inscriptions of his successors; it is thus commonly understood that
under these kings the western limits of Assyrian occupation retreated back to
the Bal river valley. 22 However, more recently the Euphrates has come
back to the fore on archaeological grounds as continuing to be the actual
military and political border of Assyria (cf. 2, below).
Almost a century later, Tiglath-pileser I (1115-1077) again made the
Euphrates into the border of mt Aur, by an extended foray on the left bank
of the river, from Su up to Karkemi, against the Alam by now
obviously widespread, and significantly further qualified as Arameans
and even crossed the river to attack their strongholds on the Jebel Biri. 23
From various sources, he may also be credited with founding fortresses of
his own on the west bank, such as Pitru at the confluence of the Euphrates
and the Sajur, 24 and irbet ed-Diniyeh/aradu, slightly north of Ana
(ancient Anat). 25 Although Tiglath-pileser attributed to himself various other
territorial conquests of a certain import, the administrative texts (specifically
lists of regular offerings and lists of audience gifts) from Assur of this
general age have been interpreted as testifying to the opposite the onset
of a second and graver phase of Assyrian decline and withdrawal from the
previously conquered territories, both to the west and to the east. This
decline should have led to a loss of control of all the territory between the
Euphrates and the abr, of the plain of Diyarbakir to the north, and of
Arrapa and Arzuina to the east (cf. Fig. 3). 26 Most of these lands were not
to be recovered until the 10th century, when the gradual Assyrian takeover of

11

the Jezirah began anew under Adad-nirari II and Tukulti-Ninurta II.

***
In a comprehensive view, of course, this overall period of Assyrian
crisis, which started at the very end of the 13th century and lasted for some
300 years, overlaps by and large with the archaeological transition from the
Late Bronze Age II to Iron Age I. As is well known, this transition
corresponds to a vast picture of socio-economic and political upheaval
entailing the collapse of the urban cities and states and the drying up of
international trade networks which spanned not only the entire Near
Eastern horizon, particularly the Levant and Anatolia, but also the Aegean
and Southeastern Europe, with its peak in the 12th century BC. 27 But
specifically as regards the circum-Euphratic region, this period of transition
witnesses at least two main chains of political events which require to be
briefly contextualized for an overall historical perception. These are:
(1) the dissolution of the Hittite imperial polity, not only in its central
structures but also as regards its North Syrian political and administrative
outposts, such as Karkemi and Emar, and its substitution by a group of
regional polities centered on former Hittite provincial sites the so-called
Neo-Hittite states, some of which present real or alleged dynastic links
with the previous ruling house. These states were located in a vast west-east
arc around the upper reaches of the Orontes and the Euphrates, from Tabal to
Melid to ilakku to Gurgum to Kummu to Karkemi itself, and more
sparsely (or less crucially and permanently) in areas slightly to the south,
from Padasatini-Pattina and Hama in the Orontes river valley to Til Barsib
on the Euphrates itself; 28
(2) the gradual infiltration of West-Semitic speaking peoples, whether
of ultimate gentilic-nomadic origin or of more recently acquired mobility
(and specialization in guerrilla warfare), into the steppe of the Jezirah and its
northern piedmont and (mainly as a subsequent move) into the facing plain
of Aleppo to the west of the the river and their gradual takeover of
formerly inhabited urban and village locations, so as to constitute by the
early Iron Age a specific set of basically sedentary polities facing the
Assyrian territorial possessions. 29 The best-known of these polities around
the Euphrates are, from east to west, Bit-Zamani, Bit-Baiani, Bit-Adini,
Bit-Agui, Bit-Gabbari/Sam'al. 30
In a nutshell, these crucial, albeit dark, 300 years witnessed the setting
in place of two distinct ethno-social and political complexes which were
not, however, devoid of mutual cultural cross-references 31 with the overall
12

result of a highly fragmented (or Balkanized) political landscape which

came to fill the power vacuum left by Imperial Hittite and Middle Assyrian
occupation/administration in a vast arc around the Upper Euphrates river
valley. These newer occupants proved to require almost two centuries of
Assyrian armed intervention from the mid-10th century onward for their
neutralization, whether as the result of outright conquests or of political
alliances. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that this first lap of renewed
Assyrian military and political expansion after the long centuries of crisis
which resulted in the incorporation of all the steppe-lands between the Tigris
and the Euphrates within political borders of the northern Mesopotamian
polity by the early years of Shalmaneser III (858-824 BC) was selfconsciously explained by the protagonists themselves as constituting no more
and no less than a legitimate and dutiful reconquista of the territories which
the MA kings (and mainly Tiglath-pileser I) had already secured for Assyria in
the early 12th century. In other words, as has been stated, we find here the
beginning of a multi-generational dialog which would thereupon continue to
define Assyrian culture, and indeed, Assyrian self-identity. 32
***
As for the general historical interpretation of this obscure phase of
Assyrian history, I would like to focus here specifically on two well-known
interpretations, which prove to be basically in agreement, but on the other
hand present some significant differences of nuance and perspective. 33 For
Mario Liverani, in his monumental manual of ancient Near Eastern history
(1988), a decided decline began following the apex of Assyrian power under
Tukulti-Ninurta I, and was not entirely brought to a halt until the 10th
century. In this light, the achievements of Tiglath-pileser I, while being
considered analogous in their importance to those of the Middle Assyrian
king of a century earlier as well as to those of Aurnasirpal II, of two and a
half centuries later, are however viewed by Liverani as an ephemeral
realization, and one rather indicative of the ease with which an energetic
political leadership could lead a full-bodied State (such as Assyria was) to
wide-ranging success, even in an uncertain and unstable international
political situation. 34
The second perspective is by Nicholas Postgate, in his seminal article on
The Land of Assur and the Yoke of Assur. 35 Postgate views the entire period
from 1200 to 900 BC as presenting a long recession of varying intensity,
albeit possibly subdivided into a period of gentle recession, down to the
reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (who was still in a position to march unopposed to
13

the Mediterranean), and a much more intense loss of power which saw
Assyrian control wither to the minimal core of Assur itself and to the cities
to its north on the Tigris. 36
As for the possible causes of the crisis, Postgate is forced to cut to the
quick in the context of his relatively brief article: The external political
agents of this recession were not neighbouring states: Babylon was equally
weak, the Hittite Empire had collapsed and fragmented, and the Mitannian
state was only a memory. Rather, the damage was done by incursions of
Aramaean tribes.... One contributory factor may well have been the climate,
since poor rainfall both weakened Assyria's agricultural base and forced
Aramaeans north in search of pasture. 37
Liverani, with greater space of his disposal, traces instead a vast historical
scenario in which the political dissolution of Bronze Age statehood, the
movement of peoples, and the emergence of new forms of community life and
of economic production are to be considered tightly intertwined as elements of
the transition from one specific age to the next. As for the Mesopotamian area,
Liverani states that the main crisis of this historical phase was merely
postponed by the presence of powerful and charismatic figures such as
Tiglath-Pileser I, Nebuchadrezzar I in Babylonia and ilak-in-uinak in Elam.
According to this scholar, a certain delay in the decline of the Mesopotamian
states and their eastern neighbour may be explained by the fact that the crisis
itself had a general movement from West to East, and that the three quoted
kings showed a strong and original, albeit ultimately futile, mobilization of
military, social, and cultural energies. 38
These two interpretations of the crisis involving Assyria and its western
expansion between the last centuries of the 2nd millennium and the beginning
of the Iron Age were penned some twenty years ago, and still preserve their
authoritative character. We may however nowadays ask: how far have we
come since then, as for concrete results and theoretical perspectives, in
regards to the specific theme of the double transitional crisis of Assyria?
As a contribution to the discussion, I would like to cast a bird's-eye view on
some of the more recent data and their relevant interpretations, such as have
come to refine, and at times to modify, the historical framework regarding
the circum-Euphratic geographical horizon described above.

2. Let us start by a general overview of the overall documentary horizon of

northwestern Mesopotamia regarding this period, which has become
extremely rich in these last two decades. As for cuneiform texts proceeding
14

from the region, we nowadays have at our disposal the 14th-century archives
in Middle Babylonian ductus from Tall Munbqa Ekalte, 39 which are
thereupon followed in time by the letters and the administrative archives in
Assyrian script from Tall Hamad Dr-Katlimmu on the Lower
br. 40
The Dr-Katlimmu letters, which at this time constitute, for their very
nature and their state of publication, a sort of central focus to any
investigation on the Middle Assyrian presence in anigalbat, are partially
contemporaneous 41 to
(a) the mid-13th-century letters and administrative texts from Tell uwra
arbe in the steppe between the br and the Bal, 42 and the few MA
tablets from Tell Fakhariyah on the Upper br, published in 1958, 43 as
well as to
(b) the mid-13th-mid-12th century Syro-Hittite archive from the Hittite
advanced outpost of Meskeneh - Emar on the west bank of the Euphrates,
which have been studied since the mid-1980s and now enjoy a rich
bibliography, 44
and partially, instead, to
(c) the late 13th-late 12th century tablets from Tell Sabi Abyad on the Bal
(ancient name unknown), as yet largely unpublished, 45 as well as to
(d) the 13th-11th century texts from Tell Taban Tbetu on the Lower br,
both of official 46 and of administrative nature. 47
Finally, the tail end of these archives is represented by further official
texts from Tell aban betu and from Tell Bderi Dr-Aur-ketti-leer,
also on the Lower br, dated squarely to the 11th century, and mainly to
the reign of Tiglathpileser I. 48
***
The archaeological picture is decidedly more complex. Northern
Mesopotamia in this general archaeological phase variously dubbed
Middle Assyrian (MA) or Late Bronze Age (LBA) by specialists can count
at present on a vast number of data resulting from (intensive/extensive)
survey activities, excavations, and comparative analyses of materials; 49
however, it must be observed that these data are not always eloquent per se
or have not always proved to be homogeneous in a comparative light.
A major benchmark for Middle Assyrian material culture was
established in 1995 by P. Pflzner 50 through the classification of the pottery
15

of the period in three successive phases (Stufen) between the reigns of

Shalmaneser I and Tiglath-pileser (or slightly later), with a subdivision
between official and domestic production. This crucial classificatory work
thus allows in general to evaluate the presence of Middle Assyrian material
culture as a unifying component between the Assyrian homeland and the
Jezireh, and to suggest the socio-economic functions that specific
standardized wares may have promoted or accompanied. As recently noted,
Pflzner's grid also allows pottery to flank textual evidence in full for the
analysis of the territorial spread of Middle Assyrian administration, with the
identification of an overall mittelassyrische Keramikregion. 51 This said,
however, it must be pointed out that pottery corpora from some MA sites
published of late do not prove to fall precisely/fully within Pflzner's
typological and/or chronological criteria, thus suggesting that the picture
may be more composite than previously believed. 52
A specific set of surveys, held between the late 1980s and early 2000s,
focused on the inner northwestern Mesopotamian area, and specifically on
the area from the Tigris to the Bal. 53 The overall results of these surveys
are still subject to discussion and interpretation. A long-term perspective
shows a certain decrease in LBA settlement, followed by a marked increase
in Iron Age settlements; and this strong intensification in settlement density
might be attributed to a shift in living patterns of previously mobile Aramean
peoples during the ages of crisis 54 . However, at a narrower and more
detailed focus on some of the studied areas the basins of the br and
Bal a more complex and vivid picture emerges. It appears that during the
first half of the LBA (15th-14th centuries BC, corresponding to the Late
Mittanian and condominial Assyro-Hurrian control of anigalbat), the
previously inhabited nucleated centers were abandoned in favor of smaller,
often newly founded rural settlements, pointing to renewed agricultural
exploitation of marginal areas. A decline, in numbers and density, of these
mid-LBA sites was thereupon followed by a second phase of settlement in
the river valley from the 13th century BC onwards, corresponding to the full
Middle Assyrian occupation of anigalbat; these later settlements seem to
have been in the main new foundations, located toward the southern limits of
the dry farming area. 55
As for excavations, significant results regarding Middle Assyrian
occupation have been reached in numerous areas of the Jezirah during the
last half-century. 56 However, three sites (Tell Sabi Abyad on the Bal, Tell
16

aban/betu on the Lower br, and Giricanu/Dunnu-a-Uzibi on the

Upper Tigris) may be here set in particular relief for the purposes of our
analysis of Middle Assyrian decline in @anigalbat, not only because their
recent archeological results have been studied in detail in relation to the
latter phases of Middle Assyrian occupancy and even to the transitional MANA period, but also because their finds consistently comprise groups of
texts, which describe the local settings themselves.
At Tell Sabi Abyad I, 57 a Dutch archaeological expedition has exposed a
very substantial part of a Middle Assyrian fortified farmstead, or dunnu, 58
for which the textual evidence (cf. above) suggests the span of approx. a
century (ca. 1225-1120 BC) of overall existence. Specifically, after 1180, the
site bears witness to vast changes in the layout and organization of the
fortress, then to its devastation by a violent conflagration. After some years,
a partial reoccupation took place with a renovation of parts of the structure,
albeit on a much more modest scale, and finally its abandonment ensued. 59
Apart from the useful correlations that the texts allow to establish between
the diverse buildings within the site and their respective function (cf. 3,
below), the most striking characteristic of Tell Sabi Abyad is its fortified
nature, as shown by the massive central tower, with its blind ground floor,
which was in its turn surrounded by a massive wall, and by the security
measures conditioning the access to the structure, entailing a tight corridor
between high walls with a 45 angle just before the entrance. 60
At Tell aban, for which an identification with ancient betu had been
already suggested by E. Forrer in 1920, preliminary surveys had allowed to
determine, on the basis of the pottery, that occupation should have stretched
well into the 11th century BC. The texts found here and at Tell Bderi indicate
that this was the seat of a dynasty of kings of Mari that had held betu
and its environs for generations, 61 building here a city-wall, at least two
temples (to Adad and Gula respectively), and a royal palace. This layout was
partially confirmed by a Japanese salvage excavation from 1997 to 1999
with resumption in 2005, which attained the palace and the rampart,
resulting in a full stratigraphical sequence for the site and in the retrieval of
an abundance of written materials (bricks and tablets). Thus, the most
ancient MA level (9b), retrieved directly above the last Mittanian one, bore
bricks attributed to the mid-12th century; the subsequent two levels (9a-8)
would seem to pertain to the late 12th century, again on the basis of the
retrieved bricks. Finally, levels 7-5 should represent the 11th century, with a
slight hiatus in occupation (7) followed by a continuation of MA wares (6)
and a first attestation of NA shapes (5). 62

17

Giricano, on the Tigris riverbank, quite close to the major site of Ziyaret
Tepe/Tuu/Tun, was examined by a German team in the framework of
the Ilissu dam project in 2000-2002. A jar discovered within a pit held 15
tablets, representing the archive of one Auni, said to come from Tun
or from Dunnu-a-Uzibi; the latter toponym proved to correspond to the
ancient name of the site, while the sole date (retrieved on 11 tablets)
corresponded to an eponym in the reign of Aur-bel-kala (1073-1056 BC),
and specifically to 1069-1068 BC. 63 Thus this small local archive allows to
be ranged alongside Aur-bel-kala's Broken Obelisk (RIMA 2, A.0.89.7),
a text describing a vast quantity of armed encounters that the Assyrians were
forced to engage within what had been MA @anigalbat, but had become by
this time a hotbed of insurrection, invasion, and destruction. Some of the
fighting took place quite close to Dunnu-a-Uzibi, as the royal text explains;
but Auni and his business associates seem to have gone their own way,
presumably referring back for economic matters to the main administrative
center of Tun at least for as long as it continued to function as such.
Moving out of @anigalbat proper, a number of MA sites on the Middle
Euphrates has received archaeological attention, essentially through a new
reading-out of the results of the salvage excavations held in the framework
of the Haditha dam project in the 1980s, previously confined in the main to
an unpublished doctoral dissertation. 64 Two fortification systems would
seem to be dated at the end of the 2nd millennium BC: the first one is
composed by Sur Jureh and Gleieh, two massive square and double-walled
fortresses, facing each other on the two riverbanks, with Sur Mureh as a
third site in the environs on the east bank. 65 The second system is composed
by the island of Bijan, where a fortress endowed with a port area allows to
identify the site with Sapirutu, an island in the Euphrates mentioned in
Tiglath-pileser's annals (RIMA 2, A.0.87.4, 41; A.0.87.10, 41-42) and the
less well-known fortresses of Usiyeh and Yemniyeh. 66 Other fortresses in
the area comprise e.g. irbet ed-Diniyeh, to be identified with Old
Babylonian aradum, thanks to the find of a tablet archive, 67 and which had
subsequently been rebuilt as fortress, used as such by Tiglath-pileser I (cf.
1, above).
3. On the basis of all these new data, we may attempt a first approach to the
interpretation of the double transitional crisis of the Middle Assyrian state,
especially in its western reaches, by centering on the political situation under

18

Tukulti-Ninurta I. 68 In the course of the 13th century, Assyria gained full

control of the region west of the Assyrian homeland (especially in the Upper
Tigris, the Upper and Lower br, and the Bal river valleys), and
thereupon superimposed its own administrative structure on the land already
known as anigalbat; this structure, which was first reconstructed by
Machinist and Postgate on the basis of texts from Amuda, Tell al-Rimah,
Tell Billa, and Assur, 69 may be at present pieced together in greater detail
through the letters from Tall Hamad Dr-Katlimmu, in conjunction
with the other archives quoted above.
From the time of Shalmaneser I, a sukkallu rabi'u (Grand Vizier),
sometimes also dubbed ar (mt) @anigalbat, 70 was empowered over the
Jezirah up to the Euphrates, with his headquarters at Dr-Katlimmu (some
230 kms. as the crow flies or some 10 days' march from Assur 71 ), while
subordinate officials named qpus acted as links between him and the king. 72
The individuals who occupied this post were all part of a single family,
connected to the ruling dynasty of Assur, 73 viz. the descendants of Ibai-ili
(son of Adad-nirari I and brother of Shalmaneser I), who succeeded one
another from father to son: from Qibi-Aur to Aur-iddin 74 and to Iliipadda, 75 i.e. for some 75 years from the mid-13th century to the first quarter
of the 12th. 76 It is generally accepted that the status of the sukkallu rabi'u /ar
(mt) anigalbat was that of a viceroy of sorts, since he substituted the king
in the western areas, by overseeing rural areas and their output, supervising
workers, supplying the Assyrian capital with tax-revenues, acting as legal
authority, hosting officials during their travels, and even took on specific
policing and military duties. 77
The Grand Vizier's authority apparently with the support of a direct
subordinate, the sukkallu,Vizier 78 stretched over a number of districts,
for which the term phutu was used, with a district governor (bl pete)
at the head of each. This Assyrian designation seems to have substituted
during the 13th century the previous Mittanian terminology based on the
concept of alsu, fortified district, for which a alsulu/ assilu was
responsible. 79 The settlements or nodes within each Assyrian enclave or
district were dubbed according to their size and/or their more or less
fortified nature, as lu, city, birtu, fort, dunnu, (fortified) farmstead. 80
A number of sites endowed with fortifications of sorts thus systematically
dotted the @anigalbat countryside. 81
Some of the higher-ranking officials had dunnus in their own name, i.e.
presumably as concession from the crown, ultimate owner of all the lands
within the Land of Assur. 82 Such is the case of Sabi Abyad, where the

19

excavation (cf. above) of the 12th-century dunnu of 60x60 walled metres in

the name of the Grand Vizier Ili-ipadda shows a residence of the owner, a
tower for various purposes (from storage to treasury to jailhouse), a further
residence for the chief steward who administered the farmstead in the
owner's absence (maennu), 83 and quarters for servants and scribes. Other
buildings and stables, wells and threshing-floors must have lain in the rural
area outside the walls, also accounting for the presence of some 900
dependents mentioned in the administrative records from the site. 84
This three-tiered (Grand Vizier district governors minor officials)
hierarchical administrative layout ensured the continuous agricultural output
of the various enclaves of the anigalbat region for the benefit of the locals
themselves and for the discharge of fiscal, cultic, and honorary obligations
toward the royal capital or the figure of the Assyrian king. The overall
fluidity of this structure in times of peace seems to have guaranteed a certain
economic prosperity to the western part of the Middle Assyrian kingdom, as
e.g. reflected in the combined textual and bio-archaeological data for the
Dr-Katlimmu of this period. 85
However, there is still a certain fluctuation of interpretations regarding
the underlying political problem, viz. whether a unique form of functional
coordination cum hierarchical subordination connected the king of
anigalbat to the ruler based at Assur (i.e. somewhat on the model of
Karkemi from the time of Piyaili/arri-Kuu onwards vis--vis attua
as reflected in the Emar texts and elsewhere 86 ), or whether, instead, a certain
degree of organizational and decisional autonomy should be envisaged for
the potentates of the Jezireh in practice with an agreed-upon subdivision of
Assyrian political authority between the Homeland and the West.
Both these theories have found their supporters. Thus, e.g., E. CancikKirschbaum believes that, also due to his family ties to the Assyrian Crown,
der Growezir war ein enger Vertrauter des Knigs und drfte einigen
Einflu auf die Entscheidungen des Herrschers gehabt haben, 87 whereas F.
Wiggermann states more bluntly that at this time The empire is divided into
two parts, the east with Aur as its capital, and the west, anigalbat, where
a branch of the royal family rules as "grand vizier" (sukkallu rab) and "king
of anigalbat". 88
In point of fact, however, both these scenarios appear entirely possible,
and the latter one could have been enacted specifically after the reign of
Tukulti-Ninurta I, in the wake of the dynastic intrigues which had led to his
murder. 89 In this connection, it may be recalled that the Babylonian king

20

Adad-uma-usur, son of the Katilia IV who had been defeated by TukultiNinurta, wrote a letter (ABL 924 90 ) to Aur-nirari III (1202-1197 BC) and
Ili-ipadda jointly, calling them LUGALME KURA+urKI, albeit treating
them with condescension, in conformity with the temporary ascendancy
regained by Babylonia over Assyria. 91 Some years later, as is known, Iliipadda's son Ninurta-apil-ekur would become king of Assyria himself, in
connection with a campaign against Babylonia. 92
Further, it should not be entirely ruled out that an impulse toward
decentralization was consistently operating within anigalbat: how to
judge otherwise the philo-Assyrian, but ideologically separate (or
separatist?), dynasty of kings of the land of Mari at betu and Dr-Aurketti-leer, whose written testimonials span from Shalmaneser's to Tiglathpileser's reigns? After all, the nmurtu-texts from Assur of Ninurta-tukultiAssur's time employed for one of the members of this dynasty the ethnonym
Tabatajje, 93 as with client or allied polities, and did not indicate any bl
pete in charge over this area, despite its distance of a bare 40 kms. from
the Grand Vizier's residence.
***
A related item, currently under discussion, is whether the inner territory
of this quite vast western area was basically organized along the working
model of a network empire, such as has been theorized by M. Liverani 94
a model which would continue to be in use during the earliest phases of
Assyrian reconquest of the Jezirah in the 10th-9th centuries BC or not. In
the period under consideration here, Liverani observes the presence of a
number of intersecting enclaves of Assyrian administrative control,
characterized as a network of palaces and Assyrian cities embedded in a
native (Hurrian) world. 95 These enclaves were connected by a complex but
functional system of main routes which allowed political and administrative
intercommunication as well as the forwarding of produce to Assur, in
relation to the needs of the palace and temple administration of the capital
city; and the Dr-Katlimmu letters give sufficient evidence of policing
activities over these roads, on the part of urdu-troops. 96 On the other hand,
the intermediate areas between such enclaves would seem to have been
largely unprotected, and open to dangers from entities which were
extraneous, when not prejudicially inimical, to the Assyrian state.
To be sure, a bird's-eye view of the evidence shows that both settled and
non-settled peoples, northerners and southerners of various ethnicities
formed this motley crew. For the 13th century, the evidence points to the
21

presence of some sparsely or fully non-settled sectors, in which random

bands of former Mitannian/anigalbatean subjects could have been
relatively free to roam and ambush the merchant caravans directed between
the west and Assur. To what extent, and in which exact circumstances, such
hostile presences made up actually organized contingents, still remains a bit
hazy; thus, e.g. a letter from Dr-Katlimmu implies that Hurrian troops were
in movement towards Niriya. 97 And it is equally unclear what possibly
adverse circumstances led to the abrupt abandonment of Tell uwra
arbe some 15 years before the death of Tukulti-Ninurta, at least as an
official administrative seat. 98 In the extreme northern part of the Jezirah,
where the steppe becomes a piedmont which slowly leads to the Anatolian
plateau, on the other hand, a number of polities of possibly residual Hurrian
affiliation, such as Kadmuu and Papi, resisted to Assyrian attempts at
military and territorial control, and proved coriaceous enemies well until the
time of Tiglath-pileser I. 99
On the other hand, as H. Khne first 100 and more recently E. CancikKirschbaum 101 have argued, the western sector of the Middle Assyrian reign
shows an uninterrupted territorial structure and specifically the three-tiered
structure noted above, which should have had a precise correspondence in
the settlement pattern of the age. 102 And to be sure, a look at the grid of
routes which crossed anigalbat from NE to SW and led to Assur, such as
has been recently reconstructed by B. Faist, 103 conveying to the royal capital
not only agricultural produce and livestock, but also merchants and
diplomats, even from the Far West (a Sidonian mission, bearing letters from
Pharaoh to the Assyrian king, is attested in a text from Tell uwra
arbe 104 ) does not show specific fault lines in its midst to the opposite, it
sets into evidence the vast number of (archaeologically well-known) sites
that were thus interconnected.
Thus, similarly to the lightly escorted diplomats from arbe, the Grand
Vizier Ili-ipadda seems to have had little or no difficulty in periodically
crossing the western plain linking the br and the Bal, leaving his
political headquarters at Dr-Katlimmu to visit his dunnu at Sabi Abyad. 105
This could have also ensued from the peaceful and symbiotic relations that
the Assyrians entertained with some Semitic nomadic groups of the area,
such as the Suteans as we know not only from the Dr-katlimmu letters,
but especially from the treaty-document that Ili-ipadda wrote out with the
Sutean chiefs of the Nisanu tribe, retrieved at Sabi Abyad. 106 Further, if the
agricultural area of Duara, known from the Dr-Katlimmu administrative
texts, lay as has been suggested at Tall Umm Aqrbe in the Wadi A,

22

i.e. smack in the middle of the barren steppe some 40 kms. east of the
br, 107 the Assyrians must have relied on a situation of sufficient local
security in order to perform the complex task of tapping the terrain for water
run-offs from the drainage system of the western sector of the abal
Sinar. 108
And finally, the Dr-Katlimmu administrative documents regarding
flocks and their products (mainly wool, but also sheep and goat skins, and
hair) supplied to government officials but especially to the palace
workshops 109 show a close similarity with those from an archive on exactly
the opposite flank of the 13th-century Assyrian state, i.e. from Tell Ali
Atmannu on the left bank of the Lower Zab. 110 This similarity as has been
said emphasises the degree of bureaucratic standardization between the
two archives, which taken together illustrate vividly the level of economic
and social control introduced by the Assyrian government on the territories
under its direct administration. 111
In sum, the more the topographical and historical picture of anigalbat
at the time of Tukulti-Ninurta I becomes known, the less of a network and
the more of a continuous territorial domain or the more Assyrianized but
also adaptive in its social and settlement policy 112 it appears. And yet,
going back once more to the consistent and dense presence of fortified sites
which both archaeology and texts have singled out within the various settled
niches of this western territory, the words of a renowned historian of
warfare should not be overlooked, because they seem to fit somewhat with
the situation at hand: Strongholds are a product of small or divided
sovereignties; they proliferate when central authority has not been
established or is struggling to secure itself or has broken down. 113 Despite
the existence of numerous markers of a smoothly functioning provincial
administration directed from Assur and/or operated by relay from DrKatlimmu such as to judge Liverani's image of Assyrian cities embedded
in a native (Hurrian) world as decidedly too strong it must be recalled that
the full-fledged operational period of the organization of Assyrian
@anigalbat scarcely reached a full century. Thus, in a dynamic view, it may
be suggested that the degree of territorial control on the part of the Assyrian
administration and military through lu and birtu, so to speak was
constantly in a state of work in progress.
In other words, we may envisage an unceasing effort on the part of the
Assyrian administration (both central and local) to further colonise, protect
and administer this largely arid and bare steppic area by thickening the mesh
of its inner communications, of its economic and political connections from

23

one site to the next. 114 This all-round effort met with a certain degree of
success, it must be said, until the overall political system eventually broke
down, and full-scale territorial disruption and subdivision ensued; at that
point, the residual zones of Assyrian control or fealty found themselves left
with only the barest of networks at their disposal for their connections to
the political centre, if at all.
4. A further recent indication by E. Cancik-Kirschbaum is that the Euphrates
should have represented the main strategic focus of the Grand Viziers
based at Dr-Katlimmu and specifically as a geopolitical boundary-line
with neighboring powers. Thus, it is evident from the Dr-Katlimmu letters
dass das Euphratgebiet von Iwa im Norden bis einschlielich der Region
Su im Sden unter intensiver assyrischer Beobachtung stand. 115 This
position is not entirely new, 116 but it nowadays it enjoys a certain additional
support from the archaeological investigations on both riverbanks which
have been described above (2). We may thus briefly examine the
Euphrates scenario with reference to the polities that faced Assyria along
the river, to check whether any causes of Assyrian crisis could have come
from this horizon. In particular, we shall take a look at the relations of the
Hittite court with Assyrian @anigalbat; at possible intimations from the
Emar texts that Assyria could have operated in a hostile manner against this
Hittite stronghold on the west bank of the Upper Euphrates; and finally, at a
piece of evidence relevant to Su on the Middle Euphrates and its
Babylonian connections.
***
From the viewpoint of the Hittites, with their line of strongholds on the
west bank of the river under the responsibility of the viceroy of Karkemi,
the recurring Assyrian interest in reaching the Euphrates and positioning
themselves along its course during the 13th century seems to have been a
worrisome factor in political relations all round. This point has been rather
clearly brought forth in recent research on the royal correspondence in
Akkadian or Hittite retrieved at @attua which however still leaves open a
number of problematical issues. 117
The Hittite kings were of course traditional allies of the Kassites, and, in
the early days of Assyrian expansion to the west, showed little else then
disdain for Assyrian royalty: thus Adad-nirari I never received the title of
LUGAL.GAL from the Hittite court although of course his widespread

24

victories would have entitled him to this status de facto. 118 But UriTeup/Murili III (1272-1267 BC), despite having witnessed the defeat of
his Hurrian ally Wasaatta at the hands of the Assyrian king and the
submission of the people of @anigalbat to his power (cf. 1, above), did not
refrain from sending back to the latter a piqued message, bearing a longwinded and polemical discussion on brotherhood. 119 On the other hand,
somewhat more cordial relations with Assyria seem to have been established
by the usurper @attuili III (1267-1240), who presumably managed to
persuade the by now elderly Assyrian king to accept his Hurrian ally
attuara II as ruler on at least a part of the territory of @anigalbat. 120
At the same time, @attuili III sought a renewal of the alliance with
Babylonia, and specifically with the new king Kadaman-Enlil. The wellcrafted letter KBo I 10+ by the Hittite king to his Kassite counterpart seems
to imply his desire for all-round good relations with the Mesopotamian
states, especially concerning the thoroughfare along the Euphrates leading
southwards. In a rebuke for not having yet received any Babylonian
ambassadors (ll. 44-54), Hattuili implies that Kadaman-Enlil might try to
make up the excuse that his messengers were always turned back by the
Assyrians, and pointedly notes that, to the opposite, the Hittite messengers
were never blocked by the Assyrians where the respective zones met,
possibly at Tuttul (modern tell Ba) at the confluence of the Bal with the
Euphrates. 121
Despite these diplomatic moves, however, the military thrust of Assyria
especially concerning the Euphrates boundary proved very soon to be
difficult to check. 122 After attuara II rebelled against Assyria with the aid of
Hittites and Alam and was defeated by Shalmaneser I, with the entire area
of anigalbat falling firmly into Assyrian hands, the relations between the
two courts became necessarily very strained. 123 On the other hand, with the
advent to the throne of Tudaliya IV, new attempts were made to reestablish some form of entente cordiale; 124 in the well-known letter KBo
18.24, the Hittite king states clearly that he considered the Assyrian ruler a
Great King, and that he respected his conquests far and wide, although a
passage indicates some friction over the Assyrian conquest of Malitiya (cf.
1, above). 125 Whether, in this light, the Hittites had any doings in a revolt
that seems to have shaken the mountain regions of anigalbat and points
east late in the reign of Shalmaneser an episode that is recalled by TukultiNinurta (cf. below) is hard to say.
Upon Tukulti-Ninurta's ascent to the throne, Tudaliya IV continued his
policy of appeasement, going so far as to give a piece of patronizing advice

25

to the younger ruler in a letter to Baba-au-iddina, brother of the king and

sukkallu rab, 126 viz. that the best thing would be, to attack a country much
weaker than his own possibly with reference to Babylonia. 127 However as
this may be, Tukulti-Ninurta quite soon led a full-fledged offensive to put
down the revolt that had beleaguered his father's last days: he attacked a
number of residual Hurrian enclaves between the Tr Abdin and the Upper
Tigris valley. 128
According to a number of authors, 129 it was essentially as a consequence
of this warring action which perhaps gave the Assyrians control over the
routes over the Euphrates into Anatolia and access to the Ergani Maden
copper mines and specifically in order to forestall further Assyrian
advances towards the river, that Tud~aliya would have planned and set in
motion a retaliation, bringing the two powers to a direct armed engagement
at Niriya. 130 The main evidence usually invoked for the Hittite king's
hostile moves derives from RS 34.165, a letter attributed to Tukulti-Ninurta
(the sender's name is fragmentary) and sent to [Ibira]na, king of Ugarit, in
which passages such as the following are attested:
I sent this message to the king of atti: Ni~riya is at war with me. Why
are your troops in Ni~riya? Legally you are at peace with me, not at war.
Why then have your troops fortified Ni~riya? I am going to lay siege to
Ni~riya. Send a message ordering your troops withdrawal from
Ni~riya. 131

The encounter seems to have ended in a round defeat for the Hittites in
a scenario which is usually reconstructed by stringing together various
pieces of evidence, and essentially a letter by Tudaliya to an ally of his
(presumably the king of Iuwa), in which the addressee is rebuked for not
having come to his aid during the battle:
As (the situation) turned difficult for me, you kept yourself somewhere
away from me. Beside me you were not! Have I not fled from Ni~riya
alone? When it thus occurred that the enemy took away from me the
Hurrian lands, was I not left on my own in Alatarma? 132

The battle of Ni~riya remains at the fore of recent historical

criticism. 133 But in any case, the very presence of a letter on Ni~riya from
the Assyrian king in the archives of the ruler of Ugarit has been interpreted
as an attempt by Tukulti-Ninurta to draw the traditional allies of the Hittites
over to his side, or at least to obtain their neutrality. 134 Good relations with
Assyria in this general period may be certainly envisaged for the Hittite

26

vassal state of Amurru, at least judging from a text from Tell uwra/@arbe
which acts as safe-conduct for one Jabnana, bringing tablets and gifts from
the Syrian state to Assur. 135 Thus, the treaty imposed by Tudhaliya to
augamuwa of Amurru (KUB XXIII 1 +), and usually dated in TukultiNinurta's reign 136 might have been written after the armed encounter at
Ni~riya, since it is unambiguous about establishing an embargo on Assyria
as regards international commerce:
As the king of Assyria is the enemy of My Sun, so must he also be your
enemy. No merchant of yours is to go to the Land of Assyria, and you
must allow no merchant of Assyria to enter your land or pass through your
land. If, however, an Assyrian merchant comes to your land, seize him and
send him to My Sun. Let this be your obligation under divine oath! And
because I, My Sun, am at war with the king of Assyria, when my Sun calls
up troops and chariotry, you must do likewise. 137

However, as has been argued, it is possible that the treaty was more
meant to uphold Hittite supremacy from an ideological-political point of
view, or conversely to block the negative impact of the defeat with Assyria,
than to actually enforce an embargo in practice 138 which it might have been
even impossible to do, given Assyria's economic potential and commercial
penetration. 139 Viewed in general, in point of fact, the Hittite-Assyrian
relationship would seem to have continued as an entente cordiale which
basically held, willy-nilly, in good times or bad even if Hittite-Kassite
relationships also continued in some way at the same time as the mangled
text of KBo XXVIII 61 + would seem to suggest. 140 Hittite interpreters were
present at the Assyrian court on a permanent basis; 141 an open caravan route
linked the two states through Karkemi, involving the participation of
Assyrian and Hittite merchants alike; 142 and a text from Tell Sabi Abyad, as
yet unpublished, would seem to regard Ili-ipadda coming to the help of the
king of Karkemi with his army during the reign of Aur-nirari III (11931188 BC). 143
In sum, whatever the judgment on the chronology of the letters from
attusa and on the battle of Ni~riya, one point regarding Assyrian-Hittite
relationships seems to have been cleared up, through the re-examination of
the available evidence regarding @anigalbat and it is a point which had
been raised by more than one historian of Hatti in the past. 144 The Assyrians
appear to have been in no way involved in precipitating the ultimate crisis of
the Hittite state (however this may have taken place), either per se or in
alliance with other powers; and conversely, it must be averred that after the
mid-13th century, when the Assyrians established themselves definitely in
27

@anigalbat, the Hittites prove to have been incapable of wielding enough

power in the Euphrates river valley so as to change the political equilibrium
therein.
We may now turn to the Emar texts. As is well known, in this provincial
town on the right bank of the Euphrates, a local dynasty apparently flanked
by a form of traditional communal government depended directly from the
viceroy of Karkemi (endowed with an increasing degree of autonomy in the
age of Tudaliya IV), through the mediation of the high officer known as
ugula.kalam.ma. 145 The extant archives, first published in 1986 but which
have since received numerous additions, span some four generations. While
in the vast majority they tend to deal with local issues, and hold in point of
fact very few mentions of relations with Assyria, there are a few intimations
that Hurrian troops were hostile to the city, and conquered nearby centers.
These mentions have stimulated speculations concerning a possible role of
Assyria in the matter.
In his monographic study on Emar, M. Adamthwaite 146 maintained that
no organized Hurrian entity could have been any longer active in the vicinity
of Emar at the time of Tukulti-Ninurta I; thus, he started out by playing with
the possibility that the mentions of the hostile troops of KURur-ri in the
Emar documents could have referred to the army of the sukkallu rab in his
function as king of anigalbat. 147 But, all said and done, such a
description for an Assyrian intervention appeared highly unlikely; 148 and so
Adamthwaite himself ended up by suggesting quite to the contrary that
there could have been a gap within the Assyrian control of the Jezirah, in
which a self-styled ruler of Hurrian marauders could have penetrated and
attacked the cities on the riverbank. Most recently, however, this scenario
has been rejected in the light of a full chronological review of the Emar
archives; the date of the texts mentioning the king of urri, etc., should
refer to the time of the Hittite protectorate over @anigalbat at the beginning
of the 13th century, i.e. before Muwatalli and Adad-nerari by around 1270
curtailed the ambitions of attuara and Wasaatta. 149
But the Emar archives have, in point of fact, brought down to us a small
gem of textual information of direct concern for the history of the
Assyrians in their western territories and specifically as regards the
Euphrates. The text Emar VI/3, 263 which has of late received a new
reading and interpretation by J.-M. Durand and L. Marti 150 is a report from
a subaltern to the ugula.kalam.ma of the city; among various news, the
sender relates (ll. 17-29) that

28

Two A~lam have come from S~u, and say thus: The prefect of S~u,
with his chariots and his footsoldiers, has mightily plundered the land of
Mari!. I will write to my lord all the booty that they have pillaged as a
consequence of this action.

All the protagonists of this passage are well known. As for the people
designated by the socionym/ethnonym Alam, 151 not only the royal
inscriptions of Shalmaneser I naming them as allies of the rebellious
Wasaatta and of the Hittites, but also the letter KBo 1 10+ and a number of
Emar texts mentioning their presence on the Euphrates riverbank
characterize their role as essentially antagonistic to Assyrian power in the
@anigalbat area. 152 Not by chance, the two Alams in our document act as
informers for Hittite power: they warn the Emar high officer that a strong
armed force has set out from the polity of S~u on the Middle Euphrates,
marched upriver, and attacked the land of Mari.
S~u for its part, must be considered an ally of Babylonia, as the abovenamed KBo XXVIII 61 + may lead us to suspect, 153 and as we positively
know from the 9th century annals from this area, which trace the allegiance
of S~u to the southern Mesopotamian state back to Hammurabi's time. Thus
it may be surmised that the attack on the part of the prefect of Shu could
have been executed explicitly on the Babylonians' behalf, with the aim of
destabilizing a sector of Assyrian @anigalbat.
Now for Mari. The reading of this toponym (KURMa!-ri!KI), proposed by
Durand and Marti as against the previously understood KURQa-at-naKI
represents a decided shift in perspective. However, this shift is crucial only
insofar as some previous interpretations had focused on Qatna in central
Syria, well known for the MB age from the Mari letters and from the elAmarna letters, and local cultic inventories, epistolary and administrative
documents, as well as from recent excavation results, for the age of
Mittanian demise under uppiluliuma I. 154 On the other hand, numerous
researchers had already suggested that the toponym could instead refer to the
Assyrian town of Qatni on the Lower br, to be identified with presentday Tell Fadami, and which was the seat of a bl pete in this age. 155
Specifically, a MA offering list from Nineveh (BM 122635+) mentions the
governor of URUQat-ni in a sequence between the governor of adikanni
(Tell A) and the man from Tbetu (URUDG.GA-a-ie) 156 i.e with a
geographical approach, moving upriver from the governorships just north of
Dr-Katlimmu along the br to the capital of the land of Mari.
In this light, as is obvious, there is no fundamental structural difference
between the older and the new interpretation of the toponym, since both sites
29

should be localized on the Lower br with their adjacent hinterland in

the steppe to the east. Specifically, the two Alam spies should be
informing on an attack of the army of Su on a city fully located within
Assyrian-controlled territory and fully part and parcel of the mesh of
political and economic communication that the Assyrians had created
between Assur and the Euphrates. 157 Now, the later Assyrian-Sutean treaty
document from Sabi Abyad explicitly bade the Nisanu tribe not to give
food, drink or shelter to the enemies of Assyria, among which were the
people of Su; 158 it was the possibility of hostile incursions from the proBabylonian reign of the Middle Euphrates area, such as the one recorded in
the quoted Emar text, that would seem to have been foremost in the sukkallu
Ili-ipadda's mind.
***
Thus, to conclude our quick investigation into the Euphrates scenario:
it does not seem nowadays counter to older opinions that any particular
hostility between Hittites and Assyrians could have had an influence in the
downturn that affected both polities beginning in the late 13th-early 12th
century. On the other hand, other subjects would seem to have lurked in a
sinister fashion on the horizon: the Alam, despite their defeat as Hittite
allies at the hands of Shalmaneser I, were nonetheless fully capable of
moving up- and downriver with their flocks (and arms) without encountering
decisive obstacles in later phases. For their part, the Suheans seem to have
had a large military capability, befitting a reduced but well-organized reign
that wished to hold its own on the crucial thoroughfare represented by the
terraces and straits of the Middle Euphrates. And finally, the Babylonians
seem to have been eager for revenge after the despoliation of their cities and
sacred places by Tukulti-Ninurta and the Euphrates route was presumably
viewed as a good avenue of entry into the less populated and less defensible
areas of mt Aur.
5. So, to go back to our initial question, regarding the model of decline to be
taken into account for the Middle Assyrian state in the light of its repeated
thrusts to the bank of the Euphrates, it must be said that the scenario evoked
by Postgate, that of a gentle recession of the circum-Euphratic area during
the 12th century BC, remains quite apt and might even account for later
developments. In other words, perhaps it was exactly such a slow but
unavoidable erosion of the Assyrian hold on the Jezirah due to dynastic

30

troubles at Assur, to the diversion of military energies toward Babylonia, to

an increasing separatism in the diverse lands (@anigalbat, Mari) that
formed the western territories of the reign, and finally to an ever-growing
menace posed by West Semitic gentilic groups on the Euphrates that
prompted Tiglath-pileser I to engage into a forceful attempt to restore the
borders of Assyria established by his forebears Shalmaneser I and TukultiNinurta I. This attempt, which not only led the ruler to regain a strong
foothold on the Euphrates, as witnessed by the occupation of Pitru, high
above the western riverbank, but even to effect a foray with no real
opposition into the Transeuphratic area to the Mediterranean, remained in
Assyrian memory long after its relatively short-lived military and political
consequences as a model of sorts.
As for the sequel, it is on the other hand probable following Liverani
that a long-delayed systemic surge of crisis finally hit the Euphrates during
the 11th century, with such intensity as to efface all of Tiglath-pileser's
military and political results, and to actually drive back on the defensive his
successors within their home frontiers thus leaving some far-off enclaves
of former Assyrian @anigalbat, such as Dunni-a-Uzibi/Giricano, to fend
entirely for themselves. However, somewhat in opposition with this accepted
image of Assyrian retreat and decline, the late 11th-century inscriptions of
the ruler of Tbtu, Aur-ketti-leer (found both at Tell Bderi and at Tell
Tban) and even of his heirs and successors, 159 as well as the cylinder of
Bel-ere, a ang of adikanni, who was a contemporary of Aur-rabi II
(1013-973 BC) and Aur-re-ii II (972-968 BC) 160 would seem to indicate
that, at least in some enclaves of the Lower br, the political connections
with the Assyrian state were never entirely severed. 161 And at DurKatlimmu, despite Aur-bl-kala's (1073-1056 BC) claim in the Broken
Obelisk of having fought the Arameans here, 162 no archaeological evidence
of disturbance in the overall pattern of culture during the dark age of
Assyria has hitherto come to light, and the reaffirmation of Assyrian power
in the late 10th-early 9th century seems to have brought the city quite
smoothly again under the political sway of the Mesopotamian reign as a
surface find of an orthostat in the classic style of the sculptures of
Aurnasirpal II might exemplify. 163
The situation of this Dark Age for the western reaches of the Assyrian
reign should thus be viewed as presumably more complex than hitherto
thought, and even possibly open to new perspectives as archaeological
excavations in the region continue. In any case, to the extent that we may
still retain in general a framework of a major period of crisis following the

31

final burst of expansion under Tiglath-pileser I, we may ask: could it have

been caused by climate changes, with social and economic repercussions
which caused mass migrations of tribal elements into the steppeland between
the Twin Rivers, as has been postulated by various authors? 164 Or should we
instead take into account the possibility that plagues or other epidemic
diseases caused widespread alterations in health conditions, thus depleting
large population groups and putting others on the move toward the
Jezirah? 165 Despite the use of socio-anthropological modelling, of chemicalphysical analyses on specific materials, of sophisticated geo-referential
techniques, and computerized information systems for a cross-referential
view of all such factors, any answer on these and other related counts is
still at present very difficult to provide.

32

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Adamthwaite 2001

Akkermans
2003

M.R. ADAMTHWAITE, Late Hittite Emar. The

Chronology, Synchronisms, and Socio-Political
Aspects of a Late Bronze Age Fortress Town,
Louvain 2001.

Schwartz P.M.M.G. AKKERMANS  G.M. Schwartz, The

Archaeology of Syria, Cambridge 2003.

Akkermans Smits 2008

P.M.M.G AKKERMANS E. SMITS, A Sealed

Double Cremation at Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria, in
D. BONATZ R.M. CZICHON F.J. KREPPNER
(Hrsgg.), Fundstellen. Gesammelte Schriften...ad
honorem Hartmut Khne, Wiesbaden 2008, 251261.

Akkermans 1999

P.M.M.G. AKKERMANS, Seals and Seal

Impressions from Middle Assyrian Tell Sabi
Abyad, Syria, in M. LEBEAU (Ed.), About
Subartu:
Studies
Devoted
to
Upper
Mesopotamia, Turnhout 1999, 243-258.

Akkermans 2006

P.M.M.G. AKKERMANS, The Fortress of Ili-pada

Middle Assyrian Architecture at Tell Sabi
Abyad, Syria, in P. BUTTERLIN - M. LEBEAU J.-Y. MONCHAMBERT - J. MONTERO FENOLLS
- B. MULLER (eds.), Les espaces syromsopotamiens Dimensions de lexprience
humaine au Proche-Orient ancien, Turnhout,
2006, 201-211.

Al-Maqdissi Morandi M. AL-MAQDISSI D. MORANDI BONACOSSI

(Eds.), Studi archeologici su Qatna 1, Udine
Bonacossi 2008
2008.
Al-Shukri 1988

S.J. AL-SHUKRI, Archaeological Survey of

Ancient Settlements and Irrigation Systems in
the Middle Euphrates Region of Mesopotamia,
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago 1988.

Astour 1996

M.C. ASTOUR, Who was the King of the Hurrian

Troops at the Siege of Emar?, in M.W.
CHAVALAS [Ed.], Emar: the History, Religion,
and Culture of a Syrian Town in the Late Bronze

33

Age, Bethesda 1996, 25-56.

Beckman 1995

Hittite
Provincial
G.M.
BECKMAN,
Administration in Anatolia and Syria: the View
from Maat and Emar, in O. CARRUBA - M.
GIORGIERI - C. MORA (Eds), Atti del II
Congresso internazionale di Hittitologia, Pavia
1995, 19-37.

Brinkman 1968

J.A. BRINKMAN, A Political History of PostKassite Babylonia, Roma 1968.

Bryce 2005

T. BRYCE, The Kingdom of the Hittites, OxfordNew York 2005.

Bunnens 1999

G. BUNNENS, Aramaeans, Hittites and Assyrians

in the Upper Euphrates Valley, in G. DEL OLMO
LETE J.-L. MONTERO FENOLLS (Eds.),
Archaeology of the Upper Syrian Euphrates, The
Tishrin Dam Area, Barcelona 1999, 605-624.

Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996

E.C. CANCIK-KIRSCHBAUM, Die mittelassyrischen

Briefe aus Tall eh Hamad, Berlin 1996.

Cancik-Kirschbaum 1999

E.C. CANCIK-KIRSCHBAUM, Nebenlinien des

assyrischen Knigshauses in der 2. Hlfte des 2.
Jts. v. Chr., AoF 26 [1999], 210-222.

Cancik-Kirschbaum 2008

E.C. CANCIK-KIRSCHBAUM, Emar aus der

Perspektive Assurs, in L. DALFONSO Y.
COHEN D. SRENHAGEN (Eds.), The City of
Emar among the Late Bronze Age Empires:
History, Environment, and Society, Mnster
2008, 91-99.

Cifola 2004

B. CIFOLA, The Titles of Tukulti-Ninurta I after

the Babylonian Campaign: A Re-evaluation, in
G. FRAME (Ed.), From the Upper Sea to the
Lower Sea. Studies... A.K. Grayson, Leiden
2004, 7-15.

Cohen d'Alfonso 2008

Y. COHEN L. D'ALFONSO, The Duration of the

Emar Archives and the Relative and Absolute
Chronology of the City, in L. DALFONSO Y.
COHEN D. SRENHAGEN (Eds.), The City of
Emar among the Late Bronze Age Empires:
History, Environment, and Society, Mnster
2008, 3-25.

34

Dalley 2000

S. DALLEY, Shamshi-ilu, Language and Power

in the Western Assyrian Empire, in G. BUNNENS
(Ed.), Essays on Syria in the Iron Age, Louvain
2000,79-88.

Dietrich 2003

M. DIETRICH, Salmanassar I von Assyrien,

Ibiranu (VI) von Ugarit und Tudaliya IV von
Hatti, UF 35 (2003) 103-139.

Duistermaat 2008

K. DUISTERMAAT, The Pots and Potters of

Assyria, Turnhout 2008.

Durand Marti 2005

J.-M. DURAND L. MARTI, Chronique du

Moyen-Euphrate 5. Une attaque de Qatna par le
Shum et la question du "Pays de Mari", RA 99
(2005), 123-132.

Faist 2001

B. FAIST, Die Fernhandel des assyrischen

Reiches zwischen dem 14. und 11. Jh. v. Chr.,
Mnster 2001.

Faist 2006

B. FAIST, Itineraries and Travellers in the Middle

Assyrian Period, SAAB 15 (2006), 147-160.

Faist 2008

B. FAIST, review of Mora-Giorgeri 2004, Or 77

(2008), 418-424.

Faist et al. 2003

B. FAIST et al., Bibliografia de los estudios de

Emar, UF 35 (2003), 191-230.

Faist et al. 2007

B. FAIST et al., Bibliografia de los estudios de

Emar,
UF
39
(2007),
141-159
(http://digital.csic.es/handle/10261/20835).

Faist et al. 2005

B. FAIST et al., Bibliografia de los estudios de

Emar,
UF
37
(2005),
329-340
(http://digital.csic.es/handle/10261/20834).

Fales 2002

F.M. FALES, The Djezireh in Neo-Assyrian

Sources, in M. al-Maqdissi et al. (Eds.), The
Syrian Jezira. Cultural Heritage and
Interrelations, Damas 2002, 181-199.

Fales 2010

F.M. FALES, Production and Consumption at

Dr-Katlimmu: A Survey of the Evidence, in H.
KHNE (Ed.), Dr-Katlimmu 2008 and Beyond,
Wiesbaden 2010, 67-85.

Fales et al. 2005

F.M. FALES et al., The Assyrian and Aramaic

Texts from Tell Shiukh Fawqani, in L. BACHELOT
35

 F.M. FALES (Eds.), Tell Shiukh Fawqani 19941998, Padova 2005, II, 595-694.
Fales in press

F.M. FALES, Die Ausbreitung Assyriens gegen

Westen und seine fortschrittende Verwuzelung:
der Fall der nordwestlichen Jezira, in DOGColloquium Berlin 2004, in press.

Finkelstein 1953

J.J. FINKELSTEIN, Cuneiform texts from Tell

Billa, JCS 7 (1953), 111-176.

Fischer et al. 2003

B. FISCHER H. GENZ E. JEAN K.

KROGLU (Eds.), Identifying Changes: The
Transition from Bronze to Iron Ages in Anatolia
and Its Neighbouring Regions, Istanbul 2003.

Freu 2003

J. FREU, De la confrontation l'entente cordiale:

les relations assyro-hittites la fin de l'ge du
Bronze (ca. 1250-1180 av. J.-C.), in G.
BECKMAN - R. Beal - G. MCMAHON (Eds.),
Hittite Studies in Honor of Harry A. Hoffner Jr.,
Winona Lake 2003, 101-118.

Freydank 1991

H. FREYDANK, Beitrge zur mittelassyrischen

Chronologie und Geschichte, Berlin 1991.

Galter 1988

H.D. GALTER, 28.800 Hethiter, JCS 40 (1988),

217-235.

Glassner Foster 2004

J.-J. GLASSNER [+ B. R. Foster (Ed.)],

Mesopotamian Chronicles, Atlanta 2004.

Gurney 1949

O.R. GURNEY, Texts from Dur-Kurigalzu, Iraq

11 (1949), 131-149.

Gterbock 1958

H.G. GTERBOCK, The Cuneiform tablets, in C.

MCEWAN et al. (Eds.), Soundings at Tell
Fakhariyah, Chicago 1958, 80-90.

Harrak 1987

A. HARRAK, Assyria and @anigalbat, Berlin

1987.

Harrison 2010

T.P. HARRISON, The Late Bronze/Early Iron

Age Transition in the North Orontes Valley, in
Venturi 2010, 83-102.

Hawkins 1993

J.D. HAWKINS, Melid (Malatya, Arslan-Tepe).

A. Historisch, RlA 8/1-2 (11993), 35-41.

Hawkins 1995

J.D. HAWKINS, The Political Geography of

36

North Syria and South-East Anatolia in the NeoAssyrian Period, in M. LIVERANI (Ed.), NeoAssyrian Geography, Roma 1995, 87-101.
Hawkins 2000

J.D. HAWKINS, Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian

Inscriptions, I-III, Berlin 2000.

Heinhold-Krahmer 1998

S. HEINHOLD-KRAHMER, Zu Salmanasars I.
Eroberungen im Hurritergebiet, AfO 35 (1998),
79-104.

Herles 2007a

M. HERLES, Assyrische Prsenz an Euphrat und

Bal, UF 39 (2007), 415-449.

Herles 2007b

M. HERLES, Zur geographischen Einordnung der

alam eine Bestandaufnahme, AoF 34
(2007), 319-341.

Hoffner Beckman 2009

H.A. HOFFNER (+ G.A. Beckman [Ed.]), Letters

from the Hittite Kingdom, Atlanta 2009.

Hunger
2004

Pruzsinszky H. HUNGER R. PRUZSINSZKY (Eds.), Mesopotamian Dark Age Revisited, Wien 2004.

Ismail Postgate 2008

B. Kh. ISMAIL J.N. POSTGATE, A Middle

Assyrian Flock-Master's Archive from Tell Ali,
Iraq 70 (2008), 147-178.

Jakob 2003

S. JAKOB, Mittelassyrische Verwaltung und

Sozialstruktur: Untersuchungen, Leiden 2003.

Jakob 2009

S. JAKOB, Die mittelassyrischen Texte aus Tell

Chura in Nordost-Syrien, Wiesbaden 2009.

Joanns 2006

F. JOANNS, Haradum II. Les textes de la

priode palo-babylonienne tardive (Samsuiluna Ammi-saduqa), Paris 2006.

Keegan 1993

J. KEEGAN, A History of Warfare, New York

1993.

Kessler 1980

K. KESSLER, Untersuchungen zur historischen

Topographie Nordmesopotamiens, Wiesbaden
1980.

Kirleis Herles 2007

W. KIRLEIS M. HERLES, Climatic Change as a

Reason for Assyro-Aramean Conflicts? Pollen
Evidence for Drought at the End of the 2 nd
Millennium BC, SAAB 16 (2007), 7-38.

Klengel 1999

H. KLENGEL, Epidemien im sptbronzezeitlichen

37

Syrien-Palstina, in Y. AVISHUR R. DEUTSCH

(Eds.), Michael: Historical, Epigraphical and
Biblical Studies In Honor of Prof. Michael
Heltzer, Tel Aviv Jaffa 1999, 187-193.
Klengel 2000

H. KLENGEL, The 'Crisis Years' and the New

Political System in Early Iron age Syria: Some
Introductory Remarks, in G. BUNNENS (Ed.),
Essays on Syria in the Iron Age, Louvain Paris
Sterling (Va.) 2000, 21-30.

Khne (C.) 1995

C. KHNE, Ein mittelassyrisch Verwaltungsarchiv und andere Keilschrifttexte, in W.

ORTHMANN et al. (Hrsgg.), Ausgrabungen in
Tell Chura in Nordost-Syrien, I. Vorbericht
ber die Grabungskampagnen 1986 bis 1992,
Saarbrcken 1995, 203-225.

Khne (H.) 1995

H. KHNE, The Assyrians on the Middle

Euphrates and the Habur, in M. LIVERANI (Ed.),
Neo-Assyrian Geography, Rome 1995, 69-85.

Khne 2010

H. KHNE, The Rural Hinterland of DrKatlimmu, in H. KHNE (Ed.), Dr-Katlimmu

2008 and Beyond, Wiesbaden 2010, 115-128.

Lackenbacher 2002

S. LACKENBACHER, Textes akkadiens d'Ugarit,

Paris 2002.

Lawson Younger 2007

K. LAWSON YOUNGER, Jr., The Late

Bronze/Iron Age Transition and the Origins of
the Arameans, in K. LAWSON YOUNGER, Jr.
(Ed.), Ugarit at Seventy-Five, Winona Lake
2007, 131-174.

Lipiski 2000

E. LIPISKI, The Arameans. Their Ancient

History, Culture, Religion, Leuven 2000.

Liverani 1988a

M. LIVERANI, Antico Oriente. Storia societ

economia, Roma.Bari 1988, 760.

Liverani 1988b

M. LIVERANI, The Growth of the Assyrian

Empire in the Habur / Middle Euphrates Area: A
New Paradigm, SAAB II (1988), 81-98.

Liverani 1990

Prestige
and
Interest.
M.
LIVERANI,
International Rlations in the Near East, c. 16001100 BC, Padova 1990.

38

Liverani 1992

M. LIVERANI, Studies on the Annals of

Ashurnasirpal II. 2. Topographical Analysis,
Roma 1992.

Llop Radua 2001

J. LLOP RADUA, Aportaci a lestudi de les

relacions poltiques i militars entre Assria i
Babilnia durant la segona meitat del segon
mil.leni a.C, tesi doctoral, Barcelona 2001 [cf.
http://www.tdx.cat/TDX-0529102-113226].

Luciani 1999-2001

M. LUCIANI, On Assyrian Frontiers and the

Middle Euphrates, SAAB 13 (1999-2001), 87-114.

Lyon 2000

J. LYON, Middle Assyrian Expansion and

Settlement Development in the Syrian Jazira: the
View from the Balikh Valley, in R.M. JAS (Ed.),
Rainfall
and
Agriculture
in
Northern
Mesopotamia, Leiden 2000, 89-126.

Lyonnet 1996

B. LYONNET, La prospection archologique de

la partie occidentale du Haut-Khabur (Syrie du
nord-est): mthodes, rsultats et questions autour
de l'occupation aux IIIe et IIe millnaires av. J.C., in J.-M. DURAND (d) Amurru I: Mari, Ebla
et les Hourrites, Paris 1996, 363-376.

Machinist 1982

P. MACHINIST, Provincial Governance in Middle

Assyria, Assur 3/2 (1982), 1-37.

Maul 1992

S.M. MAUL, Die Inschriften von Tall Bderi,

Berlin 1992.

Maul 2005

S.M. MAUL, Die Inschriften von Tall Taban

(Grabungskampagnen 1997-1999). Die Knige
von Tabetu und das Land Mri in
mittelassyrischer Zeit, Tokyo 2005.

Mayer 2001

W. MAYER, Tall Munbqa Ekalte II. Die

Texte, Saarbrcken. 2001.

Meijer 1986

D. MEIJER, A Survey in Northeastern Syria,

Istanbul 1986.

Melchert 2003

H.C. MELCHERT (Ed.), The Luwians, LeidenBoston 2003.

Millard 1970

A.R. MILLARD, Fragments of Historical texts

from Nineveh: Middle Assyrian and Later
Kings, Iraq 32 (1970), 167-176.

39

Mora Giorgieri 2004

C. MORA M. GIORGIERI, Le lettere tra i re ittiti

e i re assiri ritrovate a Hattusa, Padova 2004.

Mora 2005

C. MORA, Il conflitto tra Ittiti ed Assiri e le

molteplici implicazioni di un evento non narrato,
in F. PECCHIOLI DADDI - M.C. GUIDOTTI (Eds.),
Narrare gli eventi, Roma 2005, 245-256.

Mora 2008

C. MORA, Entre Anatolie et Syrie, entre ge du

Bronze et ge du Fer, entre paix et guerre:
lhistoire inacheve de Karkemi et les donnes
d'Emar, in L. DALFONSO Y. COHEN D.
SRENHAGEN (Eds.), The City of Emar among
the Late Bronze Age Empires: History,
Environment, and Society, Mnster 2008, 79-90

Morandi Bonacossi 1996

D. MORANDI BONACOSSI, Tra il fiume e la

steppa, Padova 1996.

Neumann Parpola 1987

J. NEUMANN - S. PARPOLA, Climatic Change and

the Eleventh-Tenth-Century Eclipse of Assyria
and Babylonia, JNES 46 (1987), 161-182.

Pardee 2009

D. PARDEE, A New Aramaic Inscription,

BASOR 356 (2009), 51-71.

Parker 2001

B. PARKER, The Mechanics of Empire: the

Northern Frontier of Assyria as a Case Study of
Imperial Dynamics, Helsinki 2001.

Pflzner 1995

P. PFLZNER, Mittanische und mittelassyrische

Keramik. Eine chronologische, funktionale und
produktionskonomische Anayse, Berlin 1995.

Podany 2002

A.H. PODANY, The Land of Hana, Bethesda

2002.

Postgate 1982

J.N. POSTGATE, review of Kh. Nashef, Die Ortsund Gewssernamen der mittelbabylonischen
und mittelassyrischen Zeit, in AfO 35 (1982),
95-101.

Postgate 1992

J.N. POSTGATE, The Land of Assur and the

Yoke of Assur, World Archaeology 23 (1992),
247-263.

Pruzsinszky 2006

R. PRUZSINSZKY, Die "verkrzte mittlere

Chronologie" unter besonderer Bercksichtigung
der Distanzangabe des Tukulti-Ninurtas I.,

40

NABU 2006/1, no. 13.

Pruzsinszky 2007

R. PRUZSINSZKY, Emar and the Transition from

Hurrian to Hittite Power, in M. HEINZ M. H.
FELDMAN, Representations of Political Power:
Case Histories from Times of Change and
Dissolving Order in the Ancient Near East,
Winona Lake 2007, 21-37.

Pruzsinszky 2009

R. PRUZSINSZKY, Mesopotamian Chronology of

the 2nd Millennium B.C.: An Introduction to the
Textual Evidence and Related Chronological
Issues, Wien 2009.

Radner Schachner 2001

K. RADNER A. SCHACHNER, From Tuan to

Amdi. Topographical Questions concerning the
Upper Tigris Region in the Assyrian Period, in
N. TUNA - J. ZTRK - J. VELIBEYOLU (Eds.),
Salvage Project of the Archaeological Heritage
of the Ilisu and Carchemish Dam Reservoirs.
Activities 1999, Ankara 2001, 729-776.

Radner 2004

K. RADNER, Das mittelassyrische Tontafelarchiv

von Giricano/Dunnu-a-Uzibi, Turnhout 2004.

Radner 2006a

K. RADNER, How to Reach the Upper Tigris: the

Route through the Tr Abdin, SAAB XV
(2006), 273-306.

Radner 2006b

K. RADNER, Provinz. C. Assyrien, RlA XI

(2006), 42-68.

Reculeau 2008

H. RECULEAU, Late Bronze Age Rural Landscapes

of the Euphrates according to the Emar Texts, in L.
DALFONSO Y. COHEN D. SRENHAGEN
(Eds.), The City of Emar among the Late Bronze
Age Empires: History, Environment, and Society,
Mnster 2008, 129-140.

Roaf Schachner 2005

M. ROAF A. SCHACHNER, The Bronze Age to

Iron age transition in the upper Tigris region; new
information from Ziyaret Tepe and Giricano, in
A. ILINGIROLU A. DARBYSHIRE, Anatolian
Iron Ages 5, London 2005, 115-123.

Roaf 2001

M. ROAF, Continuity and Change from the

Middle to the Late Assyrian Period, in R.
EICHMANN H. PARZINGER (hrsgg.), Migration

41

und Kulturwandel. Der Wandel vorder- und

zentralasiatischer Kulturen im Umbruch vom 2.
zum 1. vorchristlichen Jahrtausend, Bonn 2001,
357-369.
Rllig 1997

W. RLLIG, Aspects of the Historical geography

of Northeastern Syria from Middle Assyrian to
Neo-Assyrian Times, in S. PARPOLA, R.M.
Whiting (Eds.), Assyria 1995, Helsinki 1997,
281-293.

Rllig 2004

W. RLLIG, Eponymen in dem mittelassyrischen

Dokumenten aus Tall @amad / DrKatlimmu, ZA 94 (2004), 18-51.

Rllig 2008a

W. RLLIG, Duara - Die Satellitenstadt zu DrKatlimmu, in: D. BONATZ - R.M. CZICHON - F.J.
KREPPNER (Hrsg.), Fundstellen, Gesammelte
Schriften zur Archologie und Geschichte
Altvorderasiens ad honorem Hartmut Khne,
Berlin 2008, 189-196.

Rllig 2008b

W. RLLIG, Land- und Viehwirtschaft am

Unteren Habur im mittelassyrische Zeit,
Wiesbaden 2008.

Sader 2000

H. SADER, Aramaean Kingdoms of Syria: Origin

and Formation Processes, in G. BUNNENS (Ed.),
Essays on Syria in the Iron Age, Louvain 2000,
61-76.

Salvini 2004

M. SALVINI, I documenti cuneiformi della

campagna del 2001, in P.E. PECORELLA - R,
PIEROBON BENOIT (Eds.), Tell Barri/Kahat. La
campagna del 2001. Relazione preliminare,
Firenze 2004, 147-151.

Schloen 2001

J.D. SCHLOEN, The House of the Father as Fact

and Symbol: Patrimonialism in Ugarit and the
Ancient Near East, Winona Lake 2001.

Schwartz 1989

G.M. SCHWARTZ, The Origin of the Aramaeans

in Syria and northern Mesopotamia: Research
Problems and Potential Strategies, in O.M.C.
HAEX - H.H. CURVERS, P.M.M.G. Akkermans
(Eds,), To the Euphrates and Beyond:
Archaeological Studies in Honour of Maurits N.

42

Van Loon, Rotterdam 1989, 275-289.

Shibata 2007

D. SHIBATA, Middle Assyrian Administrative

and Legal Texts from the 2005 Excavation at
Tell Taban: A Preliminary Report, in H.
NUMOTO (ed.), Excavations at Tell Taban,
Hassake, Syria. Preliminary Reports on the
2005 and 2006 Seasons of Excavations, and the
Study of Old Babylonian and Middle Assyrian
Texts, Tokyo, 169-180 [=Al Rafidan 28
(2007), 63-74].

Singer 1985

I. SINGER, The Battle of Niriya and the End of

the Hittite Empire, ZA 75 (1985), 100-123.

Singer 1999

I. SINGER, A Political History of Ugarit, in

W.G.E. WATSON - N. WYATT (Eds.), Handbook
of Ugaritic Studies, Leiden 1999, 603-733.

Skaist 1998

A. SKAIST, The Chronology of the Legal texts

from Emar, ZA 88 (1998), 45-71.

Struble Herrmann 2009

E.J. STRUBLE - V.R. HERRMANN, An Eternal

Feast at Sam'al: The New Iron Age Mortuary
Stele from Zincirli in Context, BASOR 356
(2009) 15-49.

Szuchman 2007

J.J. SZUCHMAN, Prelude to Empire: Middle

Assyrian @anigalbat and the Rise of the
Aramaeans, dissertation, UCLA, 2007 (online at
szuchman.bol.ucla.edu/Prelude%20To%20Empi
re.pdf; J.J. Szchuman).

Szuchman 2009

J.J. SZUCHMAN, Bit Zamani and Assyria, Syria

86 (2009), 55-65.

Tenu 2006

A. TENU, Le moyen Euphrate l'poque mdioassyrienne, in C. KEPINSKI - O. LECOMTE - A.

TENU (d.), Studia euphratica. Le moyen
Euphrate iraquien rvl par les fouilles
prventives de Haditha, Paris 2006, 217-246.

Tenu 2009

A. TENU, L'expansion mdio-assyrienne. Approche

archologique, Paris 2009.

Ur 2002

J. UR, Settlement and Landscape in Northern

Mesopotamia: The Tell Hamoukar Survey 20002001, Akkadica 123 [2002], 57-88.

43

Venturi 2010

F. VENTURI (Ed.), Societies in Transition.

Evolutionary Processes in the Northern Levant
between Late Bronze Age II and Early Iron Age,
Bologna 2010.

Wfler 1994

M. WFLER, Taddum, Tdu und Taidu(m)/Tdum

in P. CALMEYER et al. (Eds.), Festschrift...Barthel
Hrouda, Wiesbaden 1994, 293-302.

Walker 1982

C.B. F. WALKER, Babylonian Chronicle 25: A

Chronicle of the Kassite and Isin Dynasties, in
G. VAN DRIEL (Ed.), Zikir umim:
Assyriological Studies... F.R. Kraus, Leiden
1982, 398-417.

Ward Joukowsky 1992

W.A. WARD M. SHARP JOUKOWSKY (Eds.),

The Crisis Years. The 12th Century B.C. From
Beyond the Danube to the Tigris, Dubuque
1992.

Wiggermann 2000

F.A. M. WIGGERMANN, Agriculture in the

Northern Balikh Valley. The Case of Middle
Assyrian Tell Sabi Abyad, in R.M. JAS (Ed.),
Rainfall and Agriculture in Northern
Mesopotamia,
Leiden
2000,
171-231;
http://www.sabi-abyad.nl/tellsabiabyad/resultaten/index/0_38/38_43/?language=en

Wilhelm Boese 1979

G. WILHELM J. BOESE, Assur-Dan I., NinurtaApil-Ekur und die mittelassyrische Chronologie,

WZKM 71 (1979), 19-38.

Wilkinson -Tucker 1995

T.J. WILKINSON D.J. TUCKER, Settlement

Development in the North Jazira, Iraq, Baghdad
1995.

Wilkinson et al. 2005

T.J. WILKINSON et al., Landscape and Settlement

in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, BASOR 340
(2005), 23-56.

Zadok 1991

R. ZADOK, Elements of Aeamaean Pre-History,

in M. COGAN, I. Eph'al (Eds.), Ah, Assyria,,,
Studies H. Tadmor, Jerusalem 1991, 104-117.

Zimansky 2002

P. ZIMANSKY, The Hittites at Ain Dara, in

K.A. YENER H.A. HOFFNER (Eds.), Hittite
Archaeology and History. Papers in Memory of
Hans G. Gterbock, Winona Lake 2002, 177-192.

44

Fig. 1. Main place names mentioned in the text (after Roaf, Continuity and
Change, cit., 359).

45

Fig. 2. Middle-Assyrian expansion in the Jezirah in the reigns of Assuruballit I (line 1), Shalmaneser I (line 2), and Tukulti-Ninurta I (line 3).
Source: S. Anastasio, Die obere Habur-Tal in der Jazira zwischen dem 13.
und 5. Jh. v. Chr., Firenze 2007, Abb. 5.

46

Fig. 3. The approximate extent of the MA state (after Roaf, Continuity and
Change, cit, 358). Legend: 1 = Reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I; 2 = Reign of
Tiglath-pileser I.

* I wish to express my warm thanks to Dr. C. Pappi, Dr. L.Turri, Ms. R. Del
Fabbro, and Ms. C. Coppini for their kind aid in the retrieval of publications which
were unavailable to me in the course of the preparation of this article.
1
On the region and its history in this period, the standard reference work still
remains that of Harrak 1987, although it is impressive to note to what extent the
items of information acquired since the time of its publication have changed the
relevant historical perspective.
2
Or obscure phases, as defined by Liverani 1988a, 84. On the other hand,
Klengel 2000 prefers to classify the 13th and 12th centuries altogether as Crisis
Years by drawing on the title of the well-known monograph by Ward Joukowsky
1992. Other scholars seem to prefer Dark Age(s): cf. e.g. Khne (H.) 1995;
Szuchman 2007. This definition however risks creating some ambiguity with two
homonymous designations: (a) the "Dark Age" in Greek and Eastern Mediterranean
archaeology and history, relevant to a phase which has a slightly later span, and (b)
the period starting after the fall of the Babylon I Dynasty, which is considered a
"Dark Age" for chronological fixation (e.g. by Hunger Pruzsinszky 2004).
3
The chronological framework of this contribution follows the classic "middle
chronology", as presented e.g. by Postgate 1992, chart on p. 248. The "shortened
middle chronology" suggested by Wilhelm Boese 1979 implies the following dates
for this period (cf. chart ibid., p. 38) : Adad-nirari I = 1295-1264; Shalmaneser I =
1263-1234; Tukulti-Ninurta I = 1233-1197; Ninurta-apil-Ekur = 1182-1180 (or
1170); Tiglath-pileser I = 1114-1076 (which virtually tallies again with the other
dating). Wilhelm's and Boese's dating finds at present many followers, and has
received further internal confirmations (e.g. Pruzsinszky 2006; and more widely
Pruzsinszky 2009, passim).

47

For the previous half-century, in which the Assyrians had aided the last
Mittanian kings against the Hittites, Karkemi, and their rival Hurrian allies, cf.
Harrak 1987, 7-60. But troubles started brewing under attuara I, who launched an
attack against Assyrian traders or border towns, receiving from Adad-nirari I a status
of vassalage to Assyria as reprisal: "When attuara, king of the Land of @anigalbat,
rebelled against me, and committed hostilities: by the command of Aur, My lord
and ally, and of the great gods who decide in my favour, I seized him and brought
him to my city Aur. I made him take an oath and then allowed him to return to his
land. Annually, as long as he lived, I regularly received his tribute within my city,
Aur" (RIMA 1, A.0.76.3, 4-14).
5
At Tell Barri-Kaat, concrete proof of Adad-nirari's conquest is represented by
a basalt mortar bearing an official inscription of his mentioning the local palace: cf.
Salvini 2004 (and cf. photo ibid., p. 146).
6
On the localization of MA Taidu on the eastern br basin, on the basis of
the data in an itinerary from Dr-Katlimmu (and thus perhaps at Tell el-Hamidiya,
following Wfler 1994), cf. of late the remarks by Szuchman 2009 (and esp. 56, fn.
1). According to a number of scholars, e.g. Liverani 1992, 40, and Parker 2001, 163,
fn. 746, the MA toponym should not be identified with NA Tdu, which is presentday tepe on the bank of the Upper Tigris; cf. already Kessler 1980, 110ff.
However, other scholars believe that also MA Taidu should, in fact, be identified
with tepe, on the basis of the Kurkh monolith, in which Aurnasirpal II mentions
it with Tuan, Damdammusa, and inamu all to be located on the Upper Tigris
as a fortress recaptured from the Arameans who had taken it after Shalmaneser I's
conquest (RIMA 2, A.0.101.19: 92-93, 97): cf. e.g. Radner Schachner 2001, esp.
pp. 754-757). Following this reconstruction, Taidu would have become the capital
of Mittani after the destruction of Waukanni, with a strategic position further away
from Assyria, such as the Upper Tigris guaranteed; and Aurnasirpal II would have
learned of Shalmaneser's conquests from texts found during his own building
activities in Taidu/Tdu. Cf. also Radner 2004, 113-115.
7
RIMA 1, A.0.76.3:26-45.
8
On attuara II's alliance with Hatti, albeit presumably also with occasional
attempts to establish special relations with Assyrian kingship before his demise,
sandwiched as he was between two Great Kingdoms on the brink of all-out war,
cf. Bryce 2005, 313-314, with previous bibl.
9
RIMA 1, A.0.77.1 : 56-78.
10
RIMA 1, A.0.77.1 81-85.
11
Which, if acceptable, would imply that, one way or another (i.e. whether
through the diplomatic dealings of the Assyrians and the Hittites, and/or through his
own anti-Assyrian rebellion), attuara II had managed to regain back all the
territories belonging to @anigalbat prior to Adad-nirari's conquest, as noted by Faist
2008, 420.
12
On the Tr Abdin / Mt. Kaiyari from a historical-geographical perspective,
cf. recently Radner 2006a.
13
Cf. Gurney 1949, 148 no. 10, and Table XLVII 10; recent treatment by Faist
2001, 234-236. Freu 2003, 110-111, seems to have widely misunderstood the text,
with no cognizance of Faist's interpretation.

48

14

Cf. Harrak 1987, 175-178; Faist 2001, 214-215. The Tell Fray cuneiform
tablets, discovered in 1973 within the framework of the Lake Assad rescue
excavations, were first assigned to G. Pettinato (cf. Tenu 2009, 208), but are now to
be published by G. Wilhelm. However, they are not of MA date, but of the Mittanian
period, as communicated orally by Wilhelm (quoted by Faist, loc. cit., 215 fn. 73).
15
Cf. Harrak 1987, 172-175; Heinhold-Krahmer 1998. For the identification of
Malitiya as later Malatya, modern Arslantepe, cf. Hawkins 1993.
16
Cf. Glassner Foster 2004, 142-143 ("Assyrian Royal Chronicle"). Cf also
Walker 1982.
17
These victorious actions should have also included the battle of Niriya,
resulting in the defeat of the Hittite king Tudaliya IV, on the basis of the letter from
Ugarit RS 34.165; cf. Singer 1985. Singer identifies Niriya with Nairi, locating it
somewhere in the upper Tigris Valley.... north or northeast of Diyarbakir (106);
somewhat similarly, cf. already Harrak 1987, 185, Niriya must be located between
Taidu (in central @anigalbat) and Shuru (at the northern edge of Tr Abdin). On
the other hand, on the strength of the Dr-Katlimmu evidence and of that from
previous periods, Rllig 1997, 287-289, placed this toponym in the north-western
part of Mesopotamia, and specifically in the upper Bal basin, "not far from the
Harran plain".
18
As documented of course in the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic and contemporaneous
official texts (cf. e.g. RIMA 1, A.0.78.5, 48-69; A.0.78.23, 56-68; A.0.78.24, 34-40).
The letters from Dr-Katlimmu are also eloquent testimonials on the subjugation of
the Kassites by Tukulti-Ninurta (cf. Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 14-16). However, the
case for Tukulti-Ninurta's rapid loss of power in Babylonia and for an armed
backlash by the Kassite rulers has been of late reinforced through the study of his
titulary by Cifola 2004.
19
RIMA 1, A.0.78.23, 27-30 and A.0.78.24, 23-25.
20
RIMA 1, A.0.78.23, 69-70.
21
This quaint textual situation has caused a variety of pro- and antiTranseuphratic stances to be taken in the scholarly community. Thus, e.g.,
according to Galter 1988, Tukulti-Ninurta's account of the mass deportation is
fictitious (as a takeover with doubling from Shalmaneser I's 14,400 deportees) and
thus it might be supposed that his flaunt of having conquered the named
Transeuphratic areas might have equally been adapted from his father's accounts. On
the other hand, other scholars quote the existence of a contract with Assyrian-type
dating (a limmu of the first half of Tukulti-Ninurta's regency) usually considered to
be relevant to the land @ana (cf. Podany 2002, 73), as well as a mention of the
toponym Terqa in one of the Dr-Katlimmu letters for which cf. below in order
to confirm Assyrian domination around Terqa itself during the reign of this king
(most recently, Tenu 2006, 229, and fn. 37). Solid objections to this reconstruction
were however already raised by Luciani 1999-2001, 94 ff.: the so-called Assyrian
Hana-Kaufvertrag is in fact unprovenanced, and only the river @br as
geographical name is clearly attested; further, Terqa would seem to have
phonologically altered its name to *Sirqa by this time so the Terqa in the DrKatlimmu letters should be located elsewhere. From a wider perspective, J. Llop
maintains that fou important la conquesta dels territoris de la ruta de l'ufrates mig:

49

Mari, Hana i Rapiqu. L'ocupaci de l'ufrates mig comport el consegent tall de la

comunicaci entre Babilnia i Hatti, el seu aliat del nord (Llop Radua 2001, I, 224).
On the other hand, this author, like others, is forced to recognize that, of the vast list
of toponyms following these three in RIMA 1, A.0.78.23, 70-82, very few might
actually refer to areas on the Assyro-Babylonian border, and that they are mainly to
be located in the mountain regions (ibid., 231). Finally, Maul 1992, 53-54, recalls
that a fragment of a Babylonian chronicle text (Walker 1982, 400, ll. 12-13)
mentions a king with these words:"[...] he attacked and removed the king of Mari in
a rebellion. / [...] he controlled Mari", in connection with the data from the royal
inscriptions; but there is no absolute certainty that this passage referred to TukultiNinurta. As for @ana, the toponym (or at least, a @ana ltu, an "Upper @ana") is
confirmed by the Dr-Katlimmu letters and administrative texts: cf. Rllig 1997,
289-290.
22
Cf. Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 35: Nach dem Briefen zu schlieen, scheint
sich jedoch zumindest der Bal zu diesem Zeitpunkt im assyrischer Hand zu
befinden. Confirmation of this statement comes e.g. from the texts of Sabi Abyad,
which witness to a floruit of the site after the death of Tukulti-Ninurta (cf. 2,
below). On the other hand, the mention, among other toponyms, of URUMarina a
ad in one of the Dr-Katlimmu letters (ibid., no. 2, l. 47, and cf. p. 104), possibly
to be equated with the 1st millennium Burmarina on the west bank of the Euphrates
(cf. Fales et al 2005, 620, with previous bibl.), might suggest that Assyrian
possessions stretched further westward at this time. For the MA archaeological
levels at Tell Shiukh Fawqani, cf. Tenu 2009, 203.
23
RIMA 2, A.0.87.1: 44-63.
24
Pitru is mentioned by Shalmaneser III as a site founded by Tiglath-pileser I
and then conquered by the Arameans at the time of Aur-rabi II (1013-973). Tell
Awshariye, identified as Pitru, has been excavated by a Danish archaeological
expedition: cf. http://www.aushariye.hum.ku.dk/english/index_eng.htm
25
As reported by Tenu 2009, 222-223, two tablets dating from Tiglath-pileser
I's reign were found here, and await publication by J.N. Postgate according to
whom they should confirm the conquest of this area on the part of the Assyrian ruler
(thus modifying previous reconstrjuctions, for which cf the next footnote).
26
Cf. Postgate 1982,100, for this reconstruction, based on the MA text VS 21:
21 and related materials; cf. also Radner 2006b, 43.
27
The transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age has been the theme of
various international conferences of historical-archaeological focus during the last
30 years. To quote but the best known and/or most recent, cf. e.g. Ward Joukowsky
1992; Fischer et al. 2003; Venturi 2010. Publication of the proceedings of a further
conference on this theme, held in Istanbul in May-June 2010, Across the Border:
Late Bronze-Iron Age Relations between Syria and Anatolia, has been announced
(Leuven 2011). For a brief but comprehensive overview of the LBA-IA transition,
especially as regards Syria, cf. Klengel 2000.
28
Cf. Hawkins 1995. For the texts in hieroglyphic Luwian issuing from these
new polities, cf. Hawkins 2000. For Padasatini-Pattina, cf. Harrison 2010. Certainly,
as noted here and there in Melchert 2003, and as stated outright by Zimansky 2002,
189, Without their inscriptions, it is hardly an easy matter to identify Luwians in

50

the archaeological record.

29
Cf. Schwartz 1989; Liverani 1992, passim; Bunnens 1999; Sader 2000; Fales
2002; Herles 2007b.
30
For an overview of the political history of these polities, cf. Lipiski 2000.
passim. On Bit-Adini as a "shifting tribal state" in the 9th century, cf. Fales in press.
31
The cultural interrelations between the West Semitic and the Luwian
environments in the early Iron Age are best visible at Zincirli, ancient Sam'al/Y'DY,
where, despite the consistent use of Semitic varieties for their inscriptions
(Phoenician, local Samalian and Syrian Old Aramaic), the local rulers show mixed
(and mainly Luwian) personal names, together with a signet ring bearing the name
of king Bar-rakib in hieroglyphic Luwian. Moreover, the most recently discovered
Semitic inscription from the site (on the dolerite stela dedicated by the courtier
Kuttamuwa: Pardee 2009) mentions the author's soul as existing within this
stela (l. 5: nby zy bnsb zn), which might be connected to the Hittite and NeoHittite distinction of soul and body (e.g. on the Luwian inscriptions from Kululu
in nearby Tabal in Hawkins 2000, 445-447; and cf. M. Hutter, in Melchert 2003,
261, 274), and also shows a carving in raised relief, in a learned imitation of
hieroglyphic Luwian custom (Struble Herrmann 2009, 20).
32
The quote is from Szuchman 2007, 105.
33
The same two perspectives are used to provide a brief overview of the
history of the Assyrian Empire in terms of...phases of expansion and contraction by
Wilkinson et al. 2005, 25-26.
34
Liverani 1988b, 760. I am aware, by courtesy of the author himself, that a
long-awaited English translation of this important manual is in the process of going
to print, and that it will comprise numerous and substantial updates, but at present I
will necessarily utilize the original Italian edition of long standing.
35
Postgate 1992.
36
Ibid., 249.
37
Ibid.
38
Liverani 1988b, 766.
39
Mayer 2001, and cf. 16-17 for the dating. Here, and in the rest of this list,
italics mark the ancient name of the relevant site.
40
The Dr-katlimmu letters are published by Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996. For the
administrative archives, cf. most recently Rllig 2008b.
41
On the inner chronology of the Dr-Katlimmu texts, cf. Rllig 2004; id.,
2008, 17.
42
Cf. already Khne (C.) 1995; and after Khne's untimely decease, the full
publication by Jakob 2009. Cf. ibid., 1-3 for the dates, all pertaining to TukultiNinurta's 37-year reign.
43
Gterbock 1958. The identification of Tell Fakhariyah with MA
(W)aukanni is tempting on various grounds, but not completely established at
present; cf. Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 33, with previous bibl.
44
For a bibliography of studies on Emar, cf. Faist et al. 2003; for more recent
instalments, cf. Faist et al. 2005; and Faist et al. 2007). As regards the chronological
aspects of the Emar archives, cf. Adamthwaite 2001, passim; Skaist 1998;
Pruzsinszky 2007, 22 ff.; Cohen d'Alfonso 2008..

51

45

Cf Wiggermann 2000.
Maul 2005. For the chronology, stretching from Shalmaneser I to Tiglathpileser I and later, cf. ibid.,10-15.
47
These texts have been provisionally presented in Shibata 2007. For the
chronology, stretching from Shalmaneser I to Ninurta-apil-ekur, cf. ibid., 65-66.
48
Maul 1992; cf. also Maul 2005, 17, for a comprehensive chart of the kings of
betu from the time of Tukulti-Ninurta I to the early 11th century BC.
49
For an extensive overview of the archaeological data of the Middle Assyrian
period, see most recently Tenu 2009, 80 ff.; for the passage from the MA to the NA
phase in a mainly archaelogical light, cf. Roaf 2001.
50
Pflzner 1995
51
Tenu 2009, 48, 245-246. As noted by Roaf Schachner 2005, Pflzner's
distribution maps stop short of the border of Turkey and Syria, but may now be
extended to include the entire Upper Tigris region.
52
Thus, e.g., Duistermaat 2008, 123-124, suggests, on the basis of comparisons
between the wares of Tell Sabi Abyad and a number of Middle assyrian and nonMiddle Assyrian LBA sites in Northern Syria, Iraq, and Southern Turkey, that
"although the majority of the ceramics at Sabi Abyad was made in the well-known
Middle Assyrian tradition, there are a number of more rarely occurring shapes that
have closer connections to non-Middle Assyrian sites on the Euphrates, This shows
that the inhabitants of Sabi Abyad had regular contacts with the west and with nonAssyrian sites".
53
These surveys are resp. relevant to the projects with the code-names North
Jazira(Wilkinson -Tucker 1995), Hamoukar (Ur 2002), Northeastern Syria
(Meijer 1986), Khabur (Lyonnet 1996), Upper Tigris (Parker 2001), and
Balikh (Lyon 2000). Cf. Szuchman 2007, 225, Fig. 16, for a map of the surveys in
the region of Middle Assyrian occupation, and figs. 17-22 for detailed maps of each
surveyed area.
54
Cf. e.g. Wilkinson et al.. 2005, chart on p. 39, with the comparative quantities
of sites from all surveyed areas dated to the LBA/Middle Assyrian and the IA/Late
Assyrian periods, which indicates a vast increase of sites in the later phase.
55
Cf. e.g. Duistermaat 2008, 23; Ur 2002, 74 (earlier phase: abandonment of
Hamoukar, while focus of settlement shifts to irbat al-Abd, 10.4 ha; Middle
Assyrian phase: irbat al-Abd grows to 14.2 ha).
56
Cf. Tenu 2009, 93 ff.
57
The numbering refers to the fact that this 5-hectare site is one of a group of
four different, but closely adjacent, tells (I-IV): cf. Duistermaat 2008, loc. cit..
58
The dunnu appears to have been the terminological successor of the complex
known as dimtu, tower, i.e. a fortified farmstead with its territory, known from the
Nuzi texts: cf. Wiggermann 2000, 172, with previous bibliography. Perhaps not by
chance, at Sabi Abyad the earliest Late Bronze Age remains consist of a square
tower-like building, surrounded by structures of an as yet poorly-known nature.
Most probably this tower has to be dated to the 14th or beginning of the 13th
century: Duistermaat 2008, 23.
59
Cf. Akkermans 2006; Akkermans Smits 2008.
60
Cf. Akkermans 2006, 203; Tenu 2009, 144.
46

52

61

Cf. Maul 1992, 29, ll. 3-4.

Cf. most recently the detailed overview by Tenu 2009, 20-132.
63
Cf. Radner 2004, 52-53.
64
Al-Shukri 1988. The new reading-out is given in Tenu 2007, 219-226.
65
Cf. also Herles 2007a, 419-421.
66
Cf. Tenu 2007, 219-221; Herles 2007a, 422-423.
67
Cf. Joanns 2006.
68
For the (possibly still somewhat fluid) political status of @anigalbat under
Adad-nirari I and Shalmaneser I, cf. Harrak 1987, 98-131, 155-205, resp.; cf. also
the succinct overview by Duistermaat 2008, 24-25, also in correlation with visible
fluctuations in the settlement pattern.
69
Postgate 1982.; Machinist 1982.
70
It is worth recalling that M.C. Astour (Astour 1996, 30) suggested that, since
the title of ar (mt) @anigalbat was, in point of fact, devoid of political and
administrative significance, it might have been justified by reasons of a religious
order, i.e. the care and feeding of the gods of the former Mittanian land. This
hypothesis is not so far from, but possibly more far-reaching than, Machinist's idea
(Machinist 1982) that the title was retained in order to appease the local populations.
Somewhere along the same line of thought, Cancik-Kirschbaum (1996, 28) pointed
out that the title ar (mt) @anigalbat fails to turn up both in administrative texts
and in the stelae from Assur dedicated to the Magnates although in fact the same
author a few years later quoted stela n. 129, of one Mardkya, governor of
Katmuu, son of Ili-padda, the Grand Vizier, king of @anigalbat (CancikKirschbaum 1999, 219). Recently, Faist 2008, 421-422, has suggested that the title
of ar (mt) @anigalbat could have been taken up explicitly in view of the
precarious state of Assyrian control of the former lands of @anigalbat during
Shalmaneser's reign, i.e. as an element of ideological warfare obviously vis--vis
Hittite royalty and the residual Hurrian polities to the north-east.
71
Cf. Khne (H.) 1995.
72
Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 25-32. On the relation between qpus and district
governors (bl pete, for which cf. below), cf. Jakob 2009, 117.
73
Cf. Freydank 1991, 59-61; also Jakob 2003, 59-65, and the chart on p. 64.
The possibility that also the rulers of Tell aban/betu could have been linked to
the Assyrian royal house is discussed by Shibata 2007, 63-64, fn. 7.
74
As noted by Wiggermann 2000, 172 fn. 2, the same Aur-iddin also appears
in the Tell Fakhariyah texts, perhaps for the time when he was a mere sukkallu,
Vizier; cf. fn. 43.
75
One ulmanu-muabi is to be inserted between Aur-iddin and to Iliipadda, but he might also have been a member of the same family (cf. Wiggermann
2000, 172; contra, Jakob 2003, 62-63, who views a full discontinuity here, perhaps
tied to Ili-ipadda's young age). The career of Ili-ipadda was very long, beginning in
the final years of Shalmaneser I, lasting through the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I and
his various short-lived successors, and ending in the reign of Aur-dan I, ca. 1180;
for his seal, cf. Akkermans 1999, 253-254. When his son Ninurta-apil-ekur ascended
to the throne of Assur (1192-1180), thus restoring Assyrian royalty to the dynastic
line of Adad-nirari I (cf. Cancik-Kirschbaum, 1999, 222), the title of ar mt
62

53

@anigalbat disappeared. Curiously enough, it would be revived in a totally

anachronistic way during Esarhaddon's reign to characterize the Grand Vizier Abirmu, eponym for the year 677 BC (cf, PNA 1/I, 13b).
76
Cf. Cancik-Kirschbaum 1999, 221.
77
Cf. Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 43-45; Jakob 2009,14-17; see also Szuchman
2007, 17.
78
Such would seem to have been the role of one Sin-mudammeq, who authored
a number of letters from Dr-Katlimmu under Aur-iddin: cf. Cancik-Kirschbaum
1996, 29-32.
79
Cf. Jakob 2003,17-19. Notice in any case that one of the texts from Tell
Billa/ibaniba (Finkelstein 1953, 124, no. 6, l.8) mentions one Aur-kaid...
assilu of the alsi of Bit-Zamani and may be dated between Adad-nirari I and
Shalmaneser I, i.e. possibly well into the 13th century (cf. Szuchman 2009, 56).
80
Notice that birtus are dubbed "kastellartige Befestigungen" and dunnus
"befestigte Stdten", by Herles 2007a, 415.
81
Cf. Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 99, who recalls that in the Bal area sites such
as Tell Sabi Abyad, Tell idle, Tell Saln and Tell Hammm et-Turkman prove to
have been all fortified during the MA period. Even more precise on the matter is
Akkermans 2006, 209, who writes: Tell Sabi Abyad was evidently not the only
Middle Assyrian fortress in the Bal valley. Fields surveys as well as the texts from
Sabi Abyad and elsewhere point to a string of such fortified settlements less than one
or two hectares in extent, distributed in a linear pattern from Harran in the north all
the way down to Tuttul on the Euphrates in the south.
82
Wiggermann 2000, 173. On the distinction between private and public
ownership in the Middle Assyrian period, cf. most recently Schloen 2001, 298-301.
83
For this reading also in MA (on the combined basis of the Nuzi evidence and
that of Neo-Assyrian) of the professional designation LAGRIG previously (and still
often) read as abarakku, cf. Jakob 2003, 94 fn. 180. For the identities of the
successive maennus at Tell Sabi Abyad (most notable of whom was Tammitte), cf.
Wiggermann 2000, 172. In an annex to the maennu's residence, an archive of 137
tablets was discovered in 1998 (cf. Tenu 2009, 138).
84
Such texts are apparently more than 400 at present. Cf.
Wiggermann 2000, 175, for a provisional total of 285 texts, to which
numerous additions have been made up to 2005 (cf. http://www.sabiabyad.nl/tellsabiabyad/resultaten/index/0_38/38_43/?language=en).
85
Cf. Fales 2010. It is interesting, in this context, to note that MA DrKatlimmu's prosperity appears to have been in part tied to the presence of a dense
woodland of various arboreal species along the br river valley, similarly to what
may be reconstructed for Emar in the same period (cf. Reculeau 2008, 131-132).
86
The parallel between the situation of Middle Assyrian @anigalbat vis--vis
Assur and that of Karkemi in relation to attua was already underscored by Dalley
2000, 83, and is further pointed out by Mora 2008, 84-85.
87
Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 29.
88
Wiggermann 2000, 171.
89
Cf. on this matter Freydank 1991, 61; and the hints by Jakob 2009, 4-7. For a
letter from Sabi Abyad (discovered in 2002) relevant to Ili-ipadda and the political

54

situation immediately following the death of Tukulti-Ninurta, cf. a summary in

Jakob 2009, 6.
90
Not ABL 940, as stated by Cancik- Kirschbaum 1999, 220.
91
Cf. Brinkman 1968, 87 and fn. 453. For the translated text, cf. ARI I, 888891.
92
Cf. PNA 2/II, 547a-b. Ninurta-apil-Ekur is dubbed DUMU 1DINGIR-i-pa-da
in the "Assyrian Royal Chronicle", l. 27 (cf. Glassner-Foster 2004, 142). Both from
this text and from the "Synchronistic Chronicle", B, 5'-8' (ibid., 178) it seems that
Ninurta-apil-Ekur's accession was the product of an usurpation, albeit in the name of
a return to dynastic purity.
93
Cf. Maul 2005, 12, fn. 39, for two texts mentioning gifts, resp. from one
Mannu-l-ja'u URUDG.GA-da-ie-e and from MAN KURTa-ba-ta-ie-e. The
possibility that the "kings of Mari" could have represented a further "Nebenlinie" of
the Assyrian ruling house is brought forth by Maul (ibid,, 14), also in connection
with a few writings of "Mari" from Tell Bderi as KURA or KURA.A, which might
imply a double sense of the toponym as "land of the (king's) son" (mri). This
proposal seems a bit far-fetched, however but admittedly less than the one by
Durand Marti 2005, 130, that other writings in the same texts as mar-riKI should
point to a mt Marri as "le pays de l'Eau amre".
94
Liverani 1988a, 90-92.
95
Ibid., 90 ad (2). This formulation appears to be largely indebted to that of
Harrak 1987, 203, who spoke of "a series of administrative centres, purely Assyrian,
implanted in the occupied land like islands in a sea of native Hurrians", and of
"Assyrian colonies that monopolized human and territorial resources for the benefit
of the central powe in Ashur" (ibid., 204).
96
Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 133, ad 25', and passim.
97
Ibid., 37.
98
Cf. Jakob 2009,5-6. For reports of an "enemy" descending upon an Assyrian
bearing horses at arbe, cf. Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, no. 4: 5-8.
99
Cf. Liverani 1992, 32. As recalled by Radner- Schachner 2001, 757, the
rulers of the area of ubria in the Neo-Assyrian period bore Hurrian names (HuTeup, Ik-Teup), "showing that Hurrian culture in that area was still strong,
centuries after the collapse of Mitanni".
100
Khne (H.) 1995, 72-73. Cf. also Morandi Bonacossi 1996, 57.
101
Cancik-Kirschbaum 2008, 94: "Das mt Aur des 13. und 12. Jahrhunderts
war nicht nur ideologisch sondern de fact ein Flchenstaat.
102
Akkermans Schwartz 2003, 348 ff.
103
Faist 2006. Faists's reconstruction of the western itineraries (cf. map ibid., p.
149), points to a route leading from Karkemi into the Middle Assyrian area via
arran, which branched off around Altinbaak into (a) a northernmost route (Tell
Fakhariyah, Tell Amuda, Tell Mohammed Diyab) or (b) a slightly more southern
itinerary (Tell uwra, Tell Brak, Tell Barri), which thereupon rejoined (a) through
Tell Abu Marya and Tell al-Rimah to Assur; and (c) a decided southern route, via
Tell Sabi Abyad, Malhat ed-Dru, Tall Hamad, and the open steppe, to Assur.
Routes (c) and (b) were connected by a road along the br; routes (b) and (a) by
an itinerary via Tell Hadidi, leading further to the Upper Tigris region; and finally,

55

there was a N-S route between Altinbaak and the Euphrates (Tell Fray).
104
Jakob 2009,59 no. 9: Obv. 11-rev. 3.
105
For a similar (and presumably generalized) case of a high-level royal official
coming from the city to visit a dunnu in his name, cf. Wiggerman 2000, 73 fn. 3,
with reference to Tell Fakhariyah text no. 2 (Gterbock 1958, 88, no. 2:4), in which
the Vizier Ninuaj announces "I will come to the dunnu" (a-na URU.du-ni al-la-ka).
This very dunnu (as the estate of the Viziers) should have been named Dunnu-Aur,
on the basis of BATSH 5: 2, 6, where it is called "my dunnu" by Sin-mudammeq,
according to Wiggerman, loc. cit. On the surviving archaeological traces of ancient
roads in the Jezirah in the form of imprints on the ground called "hollow ways", and
their specific patterns in the br basin, cf. e.g. Ur 2002,80-84, with previous bibl.
106
For the Dur-Katlimmu evidence on Assyrian-Sutean relations, cf.
Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 40, 103 ad 41. For the time being the information
on the Sabi Abyad treaty is provided on the Web at http://www.sabiabyad.nl/tellsabiabyad/resultaten/index/0_38/38_43/?language=en
107
For Duara cf. most recently Rllig 2008a.
108
Cf. most recently Fales, 2010, 72.
109
Cf. most recently Rllig 2008b.
110
Cf. Ismail Postgate 2008.
111
Ibid., 153.
112
"Assyrianization" is invoked as a factor in the construction of a veritable
provincial system by Harrak 1987, 205, who sees no evidence for it in this period
but it must be noted, for what it is worth, that relatively few non-Assyrian personal
names mark the epistolary and administrative texts of MA @anigalbat (cf. e.g.
Radner 2004, 73-74, where a majority of Assyrian, some West Semitic, quite few
Hurrian, and a smattering of Mushkian[?] names are singled out). The "ability to
respond and adapt to social and political changes within conquered territories" is
suggested as a factor of MA @anigalbat which will be carried on to the NA period by
Szuchman 2007, 107.
113
Keegan 1993, 142.
114
This formulation agrees basically with a recent interpretation by Khne
2010, 118.
115
Cancik-Kirschbaum 2008, 92.
116
Cf. e.g. Harrak 1987, 177.
117
Cf. Freu 2003.; Mora Giorgieri 2004, 11-22, for a survey of the historical
context in recent research; Faist 2008.
118
Freu 2003, 102.
119
KUB 23.102: cf. most recently Mora Giorgieri 2004, 184-194, who accept
the hypothesis of Uri-Teup as the sender and Adad-nirari as the addressee, albeit
with many reservations; Hoffner Beckman 2009, 322-324, no. 104; see esp.. 16'19': "As my grandfather and my father did not call the king of Assyria brother, you
should not keep writing to me (about) coming and Great Kingship. It displeases
me".
120
Freu 2003, 102; similarly, e.g. Faist 2001, 215 fn. 77, who envisages a gute
Beziehung between attuili III and Adad-nirari, but a schlechte Beziehung
between the same Hittite ruler and Shalmaneser III. On the complex political

56

situation of attuara II, cf. also fn. 8, above.

121
The interpretation given here follows that of Faist 2001, 231-235. For Tuttul,
cf. ibid., 214. On the basis of the Sabi Abyad texts, Tuttul was administered by an
Assyrian governor (T 97-3), but at Tell Bia, the site of earlier Tuttul, not a single
MA sherd came to light (Wiggermann 2000, 172). At Dr-Katlimmu, Tuttul would
seem to be mentioned only twice, in Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, no. 2:9, and in
Rllig 2008b, no. 39:14.
122
As stated by Faist 2001, 215: Sobald es klar wurde, da die neue
Machtposition Assyriens nicht umkehrbar war, schwankte die hethitische Position
zwischen Abneigung und (zwangslufiger) Anerkennung. For Tell Fray, cf. 1,
above. However, the fact that even Shalmaneser I, in his widespread forays, did not
attempt to cross the river and attack Emar could have been partly due to the city's
strong fortifications (Harrak 1987, 177-178).
123
A letter found at Dur-Kurigalzu (cf. fn. 13, above) informs the Kassite king
that the Assyrian envoy who had been held for three years in Hatti is returning
home, bringing his Hittite counterpart with him, and that victorious Assyrian troops
are stationed both in the plundered northern cities of @anigalbat (cf. 1) and on the
Euphrates. Among the generals of Shalmaneser, the letter states, was Qibi-Aur,
future sukkallu rabi'u /ar (mt) anigalbat (cf. 3), in charge of 100 war-chariots.
124
Freu 2003, 103; Bryce 2005, 314-315.
125
Freu 2003, 104.
126
KUB 23.103: Mora Giorgieri 2004, no. 17, and passim; Hoffner-Beckman
2009, 324-326, no. 105. For the actual role of Baba-au-iddina, vis--vis his alleged
special function as "Shalmaneser's chancellor", cf. Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 27-28.
127
For a Hittite envoy heading towards Assur with tablets and gifts, cf. the text
of safe-conduct from Harbe no. 24 (Jakob 2009,62-64).
128
RIMA 1, A.0.78.1: III, 30 IV, 23.
129
E.g. Singer 1985, 104; Singer 1999, 689; Bryce 2005, 315.
130
Cf. fn. 17, above, for the localization of this toponym. It may be also
recalled that there are still wide differences of opinion regarding the identity of the
Assyrian king who faced Tudaliya. Thus, Singer's identification of the king as
Tukulti-Ninurta, which follows that of the first editor, S. Lackenbacher (2002, 180
fn. 594) has been challenged by Dietrich 2003, who attributes the battle to
Shalmaneser I thus agreeing e.g. with Harrak 1987, 185-187; Liverani 1990,
169ff., and various others. Contra, Freu 2003, 104, who rules out Shalmaneser I on
the grounds of his overall friendly relations with Tudaliya IV with a slightly
circular line of reasoning, and others.
131
RS 34.165, rev. 6-13; cf. Bryce 2005, 316.
132
KBo IV 14 II 7ff.: cf. Singer 1985,110 (and cf. fn. 61 for Alatarma, localized
in general "east of the Euphrates"); Bryce 2005, 318.
133
Or, one might even say, the alleged battle of Ni~riya. In their critical reedition of the Hittite-Assyrian correspondence, C. Mora and M. Giorgieri suggest
that there is little factual substance to this armed encounter (see also Mora 2005).
According to these authors, not only is the chronology of the events quite uncertain
on the basis of the very sources mentioning Ni~riya, but it must be pointed out that
no attestation of such a potentially crucial battle managed to find its way into

57

Tukulti-Ninurta's official inscriptions (Mora Giorgieri 2004, 16-18, with previous

bibliography).
134
Singer 1999, 689-690.
135
Jakob 2009, 61 no. 23.
136
Faist 2001, 218 fn. 87.
137
KUB XXIII 1 +, iv 12-20: the translation follows Bryce 2005, 315-316. Cf.
also Faist 2001, 218-220 (transliteration and translation).
138
Faist 2001, 223-224.
139
As recalled by Faist, loc. cit, 216 fn. 81, some products "made in Assyria"
prove to have been imported in Emar, such as knives and wooden posts.
140
Most recent edition in Mora Giorgieri 2004, 113-127. The text is dated to
the lmu of Ili-ipadda, thus to the latter half of Tukulti-Ninurta's reign.
141
Cf. Llop Radua 2001, I, 283.
142
Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 38.
143
The text (T 98-119) is quoted by Wiggermann 2000, 200. Since the
document also mentions the fact that the "governors of @arran" had borrowed 164
sheep for consumption in this circumstance, which they are expected to give back to
the masennu of Ili-ipadda, it is obvious that the scenario of this expedition actually
concerned the seat of the Hittite viceroy on the Upper Euphrates and not e.g. his
dependency Emar, to the SE of abi Abya.
144
Cf. Freu 2003, 109-110, with bibliography and critical commentary on the
individual positions.
145
Cf. Beckman 1995, 27-30.
146
Adamthwaite 2001, 268.
147
In this, agreeing with Astour 1996.
148
As most recently also underscored by Cancik-Kirschbaum 2008, 94-95.
149
Cf. Cohen d'Alfonso 2008, 22. In the same perspective, two further Emar
texts, which mention ERIM.ME tr-wu who besieged the city, are of a certain
interest. The ethnonym is fully unclear, down to its actual reading (tr-wu/pi); we
might have here another designation of the same Hurrian bands, although even West
Semitic tribal elements should not be ruled out.
150
Durand Marti 2005.
151
On the A~lam, cf. basically Zadok 1991; Lipiski 2000, 35-38. More
recently, see also Fales 2002; Lawson Younger 2007; Herles 2007b.
152
See Szuchman 2007, 115-118.
153
A letter which Freu 2003, 116, considers totally contemporaneous with the
Emar text under examination on the basis of a further letter, from the Urtenu archive
at Ugarit, mentioning the danger posed by S~u for transit to and from Babylonia;
but cf. Durand Marti 2005, 128 for a critique.
154
The obligatory reference here is to http://www.qatna.org, with many
informative materials. Cf. most recently Al-Maqdissi Morandi Bonacossi 2008.
155
Cf. essentially Morandi 1996, 59, 213, 216-217, for this site in an
archaeological an epigraphical light, with prev. bibl.
156
Cf- Millard 1970, 172-173.
157
Thus also Durand Marti 2005, 129: "L'attaque a donc t port sur un
trritoire d'obdience assyrienne".

58

158

Cf. http://www.sabi-abyad.nl/tellsabiabyad/resultaten/index/0_38/38_43/
?language=en
159
A fragmentary tribute list from Nineveh, BM 122635, mentioning Adadapla-iddina, a ruler from Tbtu (Tbtyu) in connection with a nmurtu of wine, is
very uncertain in its dating to the 12th or the 11th century BC (cf. most recently Maul
2005, 15 fn. 61,62, with refs.). For the inscriptions of Aur-ketti-leer and his
forebears on the throne of Tbtu at least as far back as the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta
I, cf. Maul 1992, 2005, passim. On the other hand a grandchild of Aur-ketti-leer,
whose name is lost, is attested in some fragmentary inscriptions from Tell Tban (cf.
Maul 2005, 15 and nos. 39, 40, 50); his presence would bring the dynastic continuity
at the site theoretically down to the mid-10th century i.e. barely a half-century
before the parade expedition of Adad-nirari II (911-891 BC) to mark the Assyrian
reappropriation of the br.
160
A photo of the clay cylinder bearing the text is given by Khne (H.) 1995
(Pl. I between pages 86 and 87).
161
adikanni and Tbtu prove to have played the role of non-hostile tributaries
all through the Neo-Assyrian phase of reconquest of the br, possibly with the
aim of warding off the main dangers of an Aramean invasion. This dependence is
graphically indicated by the use of the iconography of the god Aur on the seal of
Muezib-Ninurta, scion of the adikanni dynasty of angs, found in the Assyrian
city of Sherif Khan/Tarbisu, where he might have been deported around 808 BC
(RIMA 3, 392-393), as well as by a number of 9th century Assyrian sculptures
discovered at adikanni itself (cf. Khne (H.) 1995, 76-77).
162
RIMA 2, A.0.89.7, iii 22.
163
Cf. Khne (H.) 1995, 77 (illustration on Pl. II facing p. 87).
164
Cf. Neumann Parpola 1987; and most recently Kirleis Herles 2007.
165
I owe this suggestion to my good friend and colleague Dr. Luc Bachelot,
Paris, whom I thank wholeheartedly. On the subject for a slightly earlier date, cf.
Klengel 1999.

59