Download The Peoples of Mesopotamia - Ancient and Modern Assyrians

The Peoples of Mesopotamia
By: George V. Yana (Bebla)
Introduction
Who were the people of Mesopotamia, both north and south?
Throughout the history of Mesopotamia we read about Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians,
Babylonians, Chaldeans, Kassites, Amorites, Hurrians, Arameans, etc.
Assyriologists tell us that written history begins with Sumer and Akkad, both being in the
southern part of Mesopotamia, with Akkadians in the north and Sumerians in the south of
southern Mesopotamia.
Next, centuries later, we find Assyrians in the north and Babylonians in the south,
Sumerians having been absorbed. Therefore, the natural question becomes what
happened to Akkadians? What's the relationship of Assyrians and Babylonians with
Akkadians? Who were they?
As history moves on to later stages, the names used in books are mainly Assyrians in the
north and Chaldeans in the south. Here, too, the question arises: what happened to
Babylonians?
Many people, scholars and informed readers, may know the answer to these
questions, but not every one.
The way the history of Mesopotamia is presented leaves a number of obscure areas, some
of which were enumerated above.
Therefore, this writer decided to research the subject for clear answers to these questions,
by referring to some of the most prominent Assyriologists of our time.
Early History, The North
It is believed that before settling in the plains of Assyria, that is before agriculture
and animal husbandry began, humans lived in the foothills of the Zagros and Taurus
ranges. They were hunters and also gathered wild plants, seeds and fruit.
Before 10,000 BC there were no villages in or around Assyria, or in any other part of the
world. Humans were still rare creatures, compared to sheep and goats. The first signs of
agriculture appear around 9,000 BC, along the western side of the Zagros, the north and
south of the Taurus Mountains and in Palestine and Syria. Across this region there grew
various plants such as wild wheat, wild barley and various legumes. Gradually people
learned to domesticate these wild plants and wild sheep and goats, and food production
became the predominant way of life in the foothills fringing Assyria. These people who
were living in the foothills fringing Assyria colonized the Assyrian plains.
These seem to be the first people inhabiting Assyria, and no racial or ethnic
characteristics are attached to them.1
The principal prehistoric stages found in Assyria are as follows:
1- Hassuna
beginning soon after 6,000 BC,
2- Samarra
around 5,500 BC,
3- Halaf
from around 5,500 to 5,000 BC.2
1
2
H.W.F. Saggs, The Might that was Assyria (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1984), p. 6-8.
H.W.F. Saggs, The Babylonians, (London, The Folio Society, second printing 2000), p. 7.
2
The earliest type of settlement yet found in the Assyrian plains is from a site named Umm
Dabaghiyeh, fifteen miles west of Hatra, and it is one of these settlements, named Tell
Sotto, that represents the earliest known farming culture on the Assyrian plains dated at
around 6,000 BC.3
Samuel Noah Kramer, in his book The Cradle of Civilization, page 16, writes that around
5000 B.C. the Hassuna people faded out of the picture and a new culture arose to
dominate the stage in northern Mesopotamia for the next thousand years. This new
culture was the Halaf culture, the first traces of which were found at Tell Halaf, in
northern Syria.
Saggs, in The Might that was Assyria, pages 13 and 14 writes, the best known Halaf site
in Assyria is Arpachiyeh, on the outskirts of ancient Nineveh and now part of east Mosul.
Kramer, in page 16, goes on to write that fostered by industrious Halaf farmers,
agriculture prospered. Occasional implements and beads of copper found among the
stone tools at Halafian sites heralded the approaching end of the Stone Age in the Near
East and the dawn of the Age of Metals.
The progress and unprecedented prosperity that the economic revolution had brought to
the proliferating northern villages also brought in its wake new groups of the depressed,
the disgruntled and dissatisfied. These malcontents had nothing to lose and everything to
gain by breaking away from their neighbors and emigrating to the marshlands of southern
Mesopotamia, little dreaming that in the course of time their offspring would
transform it into a Cradle of Civilization. Emphasis by this writer.
Thus the first peoples to colonize Assyria were people living in the foothills fringing
Assyria, that is the Taurus and Zagros Mountains, not the Semite Akkadians. Maybe
these people living in the foothills around Assyria are the same people that Georges
Contenau calls the Asianic people: "The Babylonians and Assyrians are members of the
Semitic racial group, but they contain certain foreign elements originally represented by
the people whom we now know as 'Asianic', who, if not actually indigenous, were at least
among the earliest recognizable inhabitants of Asia Minor, and form a group
distinguishable alike by language, religious practice and physical type. The most
individual feature of their languages, of which there were many varieties among the
'Asianic' tongues, was a verbal root which remains unaltered both in conjugation and the
formation of nouns… The measurement of such skulls as have been recovered during
excavation are in fact inconsistent with the features reproduced by their sculptors, but if
we may accept the evidence of their monuments, their physical appearance was
distinguished by a boldly hooked nose, a low forehead, a deep and slanting cranial vault
and a flat occiput. Theses features are all typical of the modern Armenian group."4
The earliest date of Semitic Akkadian immigration into Mesopotamia [probably, first in
the south], is about 4,000 BC.5
In the same vein, according to Samuel Noah Kramer, in his “Cradle of Civilization,” page
33, “Around the end of the Fifth Millennium B.C. some of the hordes of Semitic nomads
inhabiting the Syrian Desert and the Arabian Peninsula to the west began to infiltrate the
Ubaidian settlements, both as conquerors in search of booty and as peaceful immigrants
3
Saggs, The Might That Was Assyria, p. 11
Georges Contenau, Everyday Life in Babylon And Assyria (London, Edward Arnold LTD, 1959.), p. 5.
5
Saggs, The Babylonians, p. 12.
4
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eager to better their lot. The resulting cross-fertilization of the two peoples and cultures,
the Ubaidian and the Semitic, brought about a new and even more productive era during
which it may be said that the foundations were laid for the world’s first true civilization.”
To the groups of people that participated in the building of “The world’s first true
civilization,” I would add the Halafian people of Assyria that moved south into
“Babylonia.”
The “end of the Fifth Millennium B.C.” of Kramer, regarding the immigration of the
Semitic peoples, agrees with the 4000 BC of Saggs, and it also points to the probability
that the Semitic hordes of Kramer are the same Akkadians of Saggs. It should be pointed
out that the name Akkadian was given to the Semitic people of southern Mesopotamia
after the rule of King Sargon, who built his capital city and named it Akkad, or Agade.
The first settlements in Babylonia, that is in southern Mesopotamia, are from 5000 BC, or
a little before.6 This period is known as Al-Ubaid.
The Ubaid period mentioned above has taken its name from a small tell or mound, near
the famous Sumerian City of Ur. Its importance derives from the fact that it indicates the
presence, for the first time, of a single civilization extending from the extreme north to
the extreme south of Mesopotamia.
While the Assyrian plains were occupied by these ethnically unidentified people, the land
itself did not have a common name. Later on, it became known as Subartu, a name that
was changed by Ashur-uballit I (c. 1354-c. 1318), who, for the first time, named it the
Land of Ashur.7
Thus, the semi-nomadic tribes of the Assyrian plains settled under the aegis of the
divinity Assur, from whom they borrowed their collective name. They called themselves
Ashuru and Ashuritu, the latter being the feminine form. They spoke an Akkadian dialect.
“The site [Assur] was originally occupied about 2500 BC by a tribe that probably had reached the Tigris
River either from Syria or from the south.”8
The settlement of Assyrians in Assur took place in the sphere of influence of Sumerians.9
This suggests that, even though Assyrians lived in the plains of Assyria since pre-historic
times, but civilization and progress began in the south, at about 3500 BC, with the
participation of Sumerians and Akkadians, and other unknown peoples. The influence of
Sumerians spread to Assur as well.10
This is reflected in the Bible, in Genesis 10: 10-11, where it reads: "[Nimrod's] kingdom
in the beginning consisted of Babel, Ereck, and Akkad, all of them in the land of Shinar.
From that land he migrated to Ashur [Assyria] and built Nineveh… and Calah."11
The statement that the settlers of Assyria spoke an Akkadian dialect is very
important in understanding the identity of the different peoples living in Mesopotamia.
It is an indication that these original people, that is the settlers from the foothills of the
north and east of Assyria who were ethnically unidentified, mixed with the Akkadians,
6
H.W.F. Saggs, The Babylonians, (London, The Folio Society, second printing 2000), p. 7, 8.
Encyclopedia Britannica, CD 2002, History of Mesopotamia.
8
Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 ; search for Assur.
9
Guy Rachet, Dictionaire des Civilisation de l'Orient ancien, Larousse-Bordas/HER 1999, p. 67
10
During the third dynasty of Ur, King Amar-Suen or Amar-Sin (2046-2038), son of Shulgi king of Ur,
incorporated Assur into his empire and nominated a governor of a high class for it. See Georges Roux, La
Mésopotamie, Éditions du Seuil, 1995. P.196.
11
Saggs, The Might That Was Assyria, p. 5.
7
4
who had moved in during the Sumerian and Akkadian domination, and melted in the
common Akkadian melting pot. Later, that is after Ashur-uballit I changed the name of
the land from Subartu to Assur, these speakers of Akkadian, became known as Assyrians,
as were those living in the south, later known as Babylonians. Therefore, those
Akkadians who moved north, founded Assyria, and those who remained in the south,
after the reign of Hammurabi, were called Babylonians. They both spoke Akkadian. It is
here that the unity of the Assyrians and Babylonians is revealed.
In this connection, Georges Contenau writes:
"The Babylonians and the Assyrians originally comprised a single group, the
Akkadians.12
The name Akkad or Agade, came into use since Sargon Sharrum-kin (2371-2316
BC) made Agade his capital. He became known as Sargon of Akkad, or Sharum-kin and,
his dynasty as the Akkadian Dynasty. These were the same people that formed the
Assyrian State in the north and the Babylonian State in the south. In other words, after
King Sargon made Akad famous, the same ancient people, who occupied part of the
south of Mesopotamia, became known as Akkadians, and in the north, for the name of
their god and city, Assur, they became known as Assyrians. Later, after King Hammurabi
made Babylon his capital and made her world famous, the south became known as
Babylonia.
Early History, The South
One misconception concerning the history of southern Mesopotamia is the
conclusion that everything started with Sumerians, and Sumerians alone. This is not what
we read from Saggs, Roux and others.
"The earliest intelligible writing from Mesopotamia proves that in the early third
millennium not less than three languages were current there - Sumerian itself, the Semitic
language Akkadian (evidenced by loan words in Sumerian), and at least one other. The
proof of the last lies in the many ancient place names which cannot be explained as either
Semitic or Sumerian."13
In the third millennium BC, the land that later became Babylonia, was known to
its people as Sumer and Akkad, not Sumer alone. Both these names occur in the Bible,
Akkad in Genesis 10:10, and Sumer, as Shinar, in Genesis 11:2-3.14
It is worth remembering here that, the third millennium is when Sargon Sharum-kin
founded the Akkadian Empire, which is the earliest vast empire known to history.
The conclusion drawn by Saggs is that "Sumerian civilization was the creation of a group
of peoples of diverse origin that in the late fourth and early third millennia coalesced into
a society with a single social, political and religious system. This civilization included
people of different linguistic ancestry, but from the cultural point of view they were all
Sumerians."15 This means that, besides the Sumerians, there were the Ubaidians, the
Halafians from the north, and the Akkadians.
Roux, discussing the relationships of the three ethnic groups of southern
Mesopotamia, Sumerians, Akkadians and a third group that he calls the X people, reaches
12
Georges Contenau, p. 6
H.W.F. Saggs, The Babylonians, London, The Folio Society, Second Printing 2000, p. 11.
14
Ibid P. 1.
15
Ibid, p. 17
13
5
the same conclusion as Saggs: "these three ethnic groups shared the same institutions,
similar beliefs and, the same way of life, the same techniques and artistic traditions, in a
word, the civilization we call Sumerian, to which they probably all have contributed."16
Still in the same vein, Crawford writes: "It is not possible to tell how much of this culture
should be attributed to the Sumerian speakers and how much to those speaking a Semitic
language, but the question hardly matters as it seems to have been the fusion of all the
elements in the population which produced the distinctive civilization which will be
described in the rest of this book."17
But, although they all contributed to the Sumerian civilization, Contenau regards
the Sumerians as the "civilizing element in Mesopotamia."18
The fate of the Sumerians
As mentioned above, the Sumerian civilization began to take shape in the early
fourth millennium. After a long period of Sumerian civilization, "the expansion of
Sumerian cities is abruptly halted in the 24th century BC by the creation of the semitic
empire of Akkad. But Akkadians assimilated the Sumerian culture and spread it beyond
Sumer. Barbarian tribes, Lullubi and Guti, who had come down from the neighboring
mountains, put an end to the Akkadian Empire and ravaged the countryside. Utu-hegal,
the king of Uruk, overthrew the power of the Guti in about 2120 BC, and captured
Tiriqan, their king. At this point a new era of Sumerian renaissance begins with the
hegemony of Lagash, and particularly of Ur…but after the triumph of Babylon, under
Hammurabi [1792-1750 BC], Sumer disappears politically."19 That was a long history
condensed in a few lines.
Before Hammurabi, Elamites in 2004 BC attacked and destroyed the city of Ur
and captured Ibbi-Sin, its king. This was the fall of Ur and the Ur III dynasty.
The fall of Ur sounded the knell not only of a dynasty and a kingdom, but also of a nation
and a social form.20
Hammurabi, king of Babylon, who made Babylon famous, was an Amorite. The
Amorite tribes penetrated into Mesopotamia from the west and when settled, they
adopted the Akkadian language.
Amorites not only had Hammurabi as king in the south, but they also had Shamshi-Adad
I (1814-1782 BC) as king of Assyria in the north.
Under pressure of the new demography and, doubtlessly, also under psychological
pressure, Sumerians began to adopt Akkadian names and became indistinguishable, to a
point that, in a way, they gradually disappeared.21
The New Demography
With the assimilation of Sumerians, the major and dominant group of people, both
north and south, were the Akkadians.
16
Georges Roux, La Mésopotamie, Éditions du Seuil, Février 1995, p. 104.
Harriet Crawford, Sumer and the Sumerians, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 20.
18
Georges Contenau, Everyday Life in Babylon and Assyria, The Norton Library, New York, 1966, p. 6
19
Guy Rachet, Dictionaire de L'Archéologie, Éditions Robert Laffont, S.A., Paris, 1994, p. 870
20
Georges Roux, La Mésopotamie, Éditions du Seuil, Février 1995, p. 207.
21
Georges Roux, La Mésopotamie, Éditions du Seuil, Février 1995, p. 207.
17
6
But, the Akkadians of the north called themselves Assyrians, after their god Ashur, and
those of the south became to be known as Babylonians, after King Hammurabi made
Babylon his capital.
Of course the demography of Mesopotamia is much more complex than is
presented above, but the general picture is true.
There have been many invasions of different peoples, Semite and non-Semite, into
Mesopotamia, either peacefully, as a gradual immigration, or by the use of force.
Considering Assyria first, the following is a telling picture.
The term Assyrian represents a complex ethnic background. The people that have
become part of the land of Assyria, as we find them in the fifteenth century BC, are the
prehistoric population, the Sumerians who, in the third millennium, brought their culture
up the Tigris River, those Semites who arrived during the Agade expansion, Amorite
immigrants of whom King Shamshi-adad was a member, Hurrians, both those who had
settled in the third millennium and those newly settled under the Mittannian expansion.
To be added to the list are Arameans who came in by immigration and those who arrived
under the policy of deportation practiced by the kings of Assyria, from the thirteenth
century onward.22 As we shall see in the following quote from Saggs, Assyria was a real
melting pot of peoples, about three thousand years ago.
"By the end of the Assyrian Empire, in the seventh century BC, there was probably no
ethnic strain throughout the whole Near East which was not represented in the Assyrian
homeland. Assyria was a melting-pot of peoples."23
Now, despite the immigration or invasion of Assyria by a number of population
groups, the Akkadian element came out victorious, and the rest melted in the civilizing
pot of Assyria.
A similar process took place in the south of Mesopotamia, namely in Babylonia.
Amorites, of whom King Hammurabi was a part, entered Babylonia in the early second
millennium. Hittites came from eastern Turkey and Cassites from the Zagros Mountains.
The Cassites, who captured Babylon in 1595 BC24, established their dynasty in Babylonia
until 1157 BC25. Hurrians, or the Horites of the Old Testament (Genesis 14:6), formed
their own state around 1600 BC in the Khabur area and between the Euphrates and the
Tigris rivers. Arameans and finally Chaldeans, all immigrated to and became part of
Babylonia.
All these peoples, who came to Babylonia, adopted the Akkadian language and
became part of the Akkadian, or more precisely, the Sumero-Akkadian civilization.
This is why none left a trace in the demography, which remained Akkadian to the end.
Chaldeans and Arameans
It is worth mentioning that the name Chaldeans under discussion here is used in
its ethnic sense, and not in its modern religious sense.
22
H.W.F. Saggs, The Babylonians, London, The Folio Society, Second printing 2000. P. 76
Ibid. p. 76.
24
Georges Roux, La Mésopotamie, Éditions du Seuil, Février 1995. See end of book, table V. Periode
Kassite
25
Ibid. See end of book, table V. Periode Sassite.
23
7
The name “Chaldean,” pronounced Kaldu by the Assyrians, for the first time appears in
the Assyrian cuneiform texts of Assurnasirpal II, during his campaigns in Babylonia, in
877 B.C.26
The very fact that their name appears in Assyrian chronicles, is evidence of their
importance. Therefore, they must have entered Babylonia much earlier than 877 B.C., in
order to progressively become a nuisance and a threat to the Assyrians.
Their antecedents remain in doubt. Some scholars suggest that Chaldeans
migrated from east Arabia, and settled in southern Babylonia.27 Their original language,
too, remains unknown. What is known is that they spoke Babylonian, that is Akkadian,
but at a later date, like the rest of the country, they spoke Aramaic.
Compared to the forty or so Aramean tribes, Chaldeans were concentrated in five
tribes.
They were, Bit-Yakin, Bit-Dakkuri, Bit-Amukkani, Bit-Sha’alli, and Bit-Shilani.
Contrary to Arameans who lived throughout rural areas of the north and the south of
Mesopotamia, and also in Syria and Transjordan, Chaldeans were centered in southern
Babylonia, and remained predominant there.
Originally, the occupation of Chaldeans seems to have been in cattle herding.
Later on, they engaged in the cultivation of date palms. Chaldeans also engaged in
trading, as they had long stretches of the Euphrates River under their control. Whether or
not they were traders before their migration to south Babylonia, is not known.28
With regard to the time of migration of Chaldeans into Babylonia, Saggs points out that,
since the beginning of the first millennium, this tribal people, had settled in the south of
Mesopotamia.29
Arameans began their migration from the Syrian steppes into Mesopotamia in the
latter part of the Kassite period, that is around 1400 BC.
The migration of both Arameans and Amorites initially caused considerable disruptions
in Babylonia, but while Amorites formed local dynasties, the entry of Arameans had no
long-term political consequences. The earliest mention of the Arameans under the name
Ahlamu, suggests that they were traders. They also practiced sheep rearing.30
Arameans gave Mesopotamia its alphabet and language, and this was a great
contribution.
The Chaldean Dynasty in Babylonia
This is also known as the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty.
"With Assyrian power nearing the point of collapse this new king, Nabopolassar (Nabuapla-usur, 625-605), was to succeed where Merodach-Baladan had failed in establishing
the wealthy and politically astute Chaldeans not only as successors to the Assyrians but
briefly as the principal political power in Western Asia. With the Accession of
Nabopolassar was founded a new dynasty, generally known to modern scholars as NeoBabylonian or 'Chaldean', under which Babylon was to achieve its greatest fame."31
Guy Rachet, Dictionaire des Civilisations de l’Orient ancien. P. 108
H.W.F. Saggs, Peoples of the Past, Babylonians, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman. Page 134
28
H.W.F. Saggs, Peoples of the past, Babylonians. Page 134
29
H.W.F. Saggs, The Babylonians, London, The Folio Society, Second printing 2000. Page 88
30
H.W.F. Saggs, Babylonians, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1995. P. 128-129
31
Joan Oats, Babylon, 1979 Thames & Hudson Ltd, London. P. 126-127.
26
27
8
The fame of Babylonia under its Chaldean kings was such that foreign historians,
including the Bible, referred to it as Chaldea, and Chaldeans.
But this is not how the Chaldeans themselves called the country and the people.
Chaldeans called the country Akkad, not Chaldea, as will be demonstrated in the
following Chronicles of Chaldean kings.
Text from the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar II. D. J. Wiseman, Chronicles of
Chaldaean Kings (626-556 B.C.): "Seventh year: In the month Kislimu, the king of Akkad
called up his army, marched against Syria (lit. Hattu-land), encamped against the city of
Judah (URU Ia-a-hu-du) and seized the town on the second day of the month Adar. He
captured the king…He took much booty from (it) to Babylon."32
The above dates are given as (605-562) by Saggs, which agree with those of
Nabopolassar below.
Therefore, Nebuchadnezzar the Chaldean king of Babylonia calls himself king of Akkad
and this is most appropriate, since the Chaldean tribes were but a part of a larger
civilization, the Sumero-Akkadian civilization.
In the Chronicle relating the fall of Nineveh also reference is made to the king of Akkad.
In this case the king is Nabopolassar (626-605) who participated in the attacks against
Assyria.
"[Fourteenth year:] The king of Akkad called up his army and Cyaxares , the king of the
Manda hordes (Umman-manda) marched toward the king of Akkad…"33
Sources of migration into Mesopotamia
The origin of Sumerians is still unknown and under debate. So, it will not be
considered here.
As to the origin of Semitic peoples, such as the Akkadians, some scholars have
considered Arabia as the source.
But Arabia is such a vast dry, hot and arid area that it does not offer support for the living
of large masses of people and conditions for traveling over large distances, with donkeys
as the means of transportation.
Here is how Roux is commenting on this subject.
A long held opinion was that the Semites were nomadic people, with their origin in the
center of the geographic center defined as the great Syro-Arab desert.
It was assumed that they had come out of the desert at different times, in successive
waves, to be settled in its periphery, with Akkadians in central Mesopotamia, during,
probably, the fourth millennium, the Amorites in Syria and Mesopotamia, and the
Canaanites in Syria-Palestine, during the second millennium. The Arameans settled all
around the Fertile Crescent, since the twelfth century BC, and finally, the Arabs, in the
seventh century of our era.
"This theory is now void…the center of the Arab Peninsula and the triangle that
separates Mesopotamia from Syria-Palestine, have been deserts as arid as today…This
desert has manifestly not been capable of feeding sufficiently large populations to enable
them to massively invade, other regions. In fact, all indications are that the only parts of
the Near East that have had relatively dense populations, during the high antiquity, were
Turkey, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran, and to a lesser degree, Hejaz, Yemen and Oman,
32
33
James B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East, Vol. I, Princeton, 1973. P. 203.
Ibid, P. 202
9
that is the areas situated along the periphery of the Syro-Arab desert. In fact, to be able
to live (a sufficiently miserable life) in the great desert areas, one has to be able to cover
the enormous distances that the seasonal migrations require for the search of water and
meager pastures. We know that, before the twelfth century BC, the date when the use of
the camel began to spread in the Middle East, the nomads used to breed goats and sheep,
and that their sole means of transportation was the donkey. Therefore, their freedom of
movement was more restricted than the present Bedouins, and all their migrations could
have been done only in a band of variable width, situated at the foot of mountains, within
an area limited to 250 millimeters of rainfall, that is, along rivers and certain enclaves in
the heart of urbanized regions, where the pastures come into contact with cultivated
lands. This is closed nomadism, as opposed to the open nomadism of Central Asia."34
Summary and discussion
Two major groups of people appeared in Mesopotamia, Sumerians and
Akkadians.
Sumerians were mainly in the south, although, as we saw above, they reached Ashur as
well. Akkadians lived both in the north and in the south.
Many other groups of people came into Mesopotamia, but they all merged into the main
stream of Sumero-Akkadian civilization.
In turn, the Akkadian majority absorbed the Sumerians.
The Akkadians of the north, mixed with the original inhabitants, became followers of a
god named Ashur, the protector of the city by the same name, so they were called
Assyrians. Assyria is the Greek form of Ashur.35
Akkadians of the south were known as Babylonians, after Babylon acquired its
fame as the capital of King Hammurabi, in the eighteenth century BC. The major god of
Babylonians was Marduk, the tutelary god of Babylon.
To modern thinking, Assyrians and Babylonians were essentially the same people,
which they really were, but their bitter wars appear to be incomprehensible.
The point to be understood is that in those days Nationalism, in its modern sense of the
term, didn't exist. The loyalty of the people was to the god and the city, not to the nation,
a concept that didn't exist. The political system of the time was, according to
Assyriologists, the city-state. In the words of Georges Roux: "Without doubt, the
concepts of "city-state" or of kingdom, were so profoundly rooted in their minds that they
seem to have been incapable of recognizing the existence of a geographic unity, which to
us seems so evident."36
Assyrians and Babylonians had many gods, a so-called pantheon of gods, and
many of those gods were common between the two peoples, as were Shamash and Ishtar,
to give but two examples. It should be mentioned here that the Assyrians believed in the
Babylonian god Marduk. An indication of that is revealed in one of the inscriptions of
Esarhaddon narrating his final and successful attack, in 671 B.C., on Egypt. This campain
through the desert proved to be very difficult, such that Esarhaddon in his comment says
34
Georges Roux, La Mesopotamie, Éditions du Seuil, 1995. P. 173-174.
H.W.F. Saggs, The Babylonians, The Folio Society, London, 2000. P. 74.
36
Georges Roux, La Mésopotamie, Éditions du Seuil, Février 1995, p. 21.
35
10
god Marduk came to his aid and kept his troops alive, an indication that the king didn't
think it was humanly possible for his army to make it through.37
As two groups of peoples with different loyalties and interests, Assyrians and
Babylonians fought many destructive wars for the control of the larger region.
An example of the bloody rivalry between these otherwise brothers, happened after
Tukulti-Ninurta, in 1244 BC, sat on the throne of Assyria.
"For many years, the northeastern Assyrian frontier had been raided by Hurian tribes
who dwelled in the Zagros, a region known to the Assyrians as the Nairi lands.
Determined to stop the incursions… Tukulti-Ninurta marched into the mountains and
defeated, by his account, no fewer than forty kings from Nairi, whom he enslaved and
transported to Assur… While Tukulti-Ninurta was busy with the Nairi lands, trouble
arose on a more important front. For longer than a century, Babylonia and Assyria had
been at odds over claims to the territory that lay between them. Now Babylonia's King
Kashtiliash saw what he thought was an opportunity to settle matters by attacking his
preoccupied neighbor. It was a monumental mistake. Tukulti-Ninurta rushed back with
his warriors from the north, overwhelmed the Babylonian armies, captured the brash
Kashtiliash, and in the Assyrian's own words, "trod with my feet upon his royal neck as
though it were a footstool."".38 The king of Babylonia, in the above quotation, was
Kashtiliash IV and the king of Assyria Tukulti-Ninurta I.
The history of the rise of the Medes of Iran to power and their attack on and the
destruction of Assyria, with the help of Babylonians and others, is well known.
Had the Babylonians and Assyrians been nationalists in the modern sense of the word,
they would have united against the Medes of Iran, rather than joining them and fighting
one another, which proved to be a self-annihilating course of action. After defeating the
Assyrians with the help of Babylonians, the Persians decided to remove the last rival,
Babylonia.
In 539 BC Babylonians welcomed the invading Persians, instead of rallying
around their king to defend the country, because Cyrus had acquired an international
reputation for being just and also showed respect to god Marduk, while their king, Nabunaid (555-539 BC), was promoting god Sin (the Moon god), instead of Marduk and
missing so many New Year processions. Here we see the precedence Babylonians gave to
God Marduk, as opposed to their country, to the extent that they welcomed a foreign king
(foreign in our minds), who respected their god.
Now, after more than two millennia, these people, who once were one but
divided, are now faced with the same ancient problem but under new conditions and
concepts, namely, to remain divided and weak or to unite and increase their chances of
survival.
37
38
H.W.F. Saggs, The Might that was Assyria, Sidgwick and Jackson, 1984. P. 108
Babarian Tides, Time Frame 1500-6700 BC, Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia. P. 17, 18.