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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 3 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.