fales transition eothen 17 2011

8/9/2019 Fales Transition Eothen 17 2011

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Collana di studi sulle civilt dellOriente antico

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Collana di studi sulle civilt dellOriente antico

fondata da Fiorella Imparati e Giovanni Pugliese Carratellidiretta 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

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Gedruckt mit Untersttzung der Alpen Adria Universitt Klagenfurt.

We gratefully thank theDipartimento 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 - [email protected]

ISBN 978-88-97530-04-6

Printed in November 2011

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CONTENT

Introduction . . . . . . . 7

Mario Fales, Udine

Transition: The Assyrians at the Euphrates

between the 13th and 12th century BC. . . . 9

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 Fallof 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

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TRANSITION: THE ASSYRIANS AT THE EUPHRATES

BETWEEN THE 13THAND THE 12THCENTURY BC *

Frederick Mario Fales, Udine

1. As is well known, Assyria rose to the rank of major protagonist of thepolitical scene of the Near East during the third quarter of the 2ndmillenniumspecifically due to the vast military expansion that this polity undertookwestwards 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 thecourse of time became known as the region of anigalbat,1 where itestablished a grid of administrative hubs and strongholds up to the natural

border of the Euphrates. However, from the end of the 13th century BConward, two separate, albeit closely spaced, phases of crisis2 came about,and these areas of Assyrian expansion were gradually relinquished, ready tofall prey to newer occupants. In the following pages, placing as central focusthe times and occasions in which the armies of Assur attained the natural andmental frontier of the eastern bank of the Euphrates, I will discuss thetransition into this overall period of decline for Assyria, on the basis of therelevant textual and archaeological materials which have become known inrecent decades, and in the light of their ongoing interpretations.

***

The first Assyrian king to reach the Euphrates was Adad-nirari I (1307-1275 BC3). This king relates of having marched through the land ofanigalbat, after an anti-Assyrian revolt by Wasaatta, scion of the

Mitannian royal line, who had appealed to the Hittites (i.e. presumably toMurili III) for aid.4 The Assyrian king conquered the main cities of theformer Hurrian state,5and especially the Hurrian l arrtiTaidu.6

I captured by conquest the city Taidu, his great royal city, the citiesAmasaku, Kaat, uru, Nabula, urra, uduu, and Waukanu. I tookand brought to my city, Aur, the possessions of those cities, theaccumulated (wealth) of his (=Wasaattas) fathers, and the treasure of his

palace. I conquered, burnt, (and) destroyed the city Irridu and sowed saltyplants 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

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

The second foray to the banks of the river took place in the time ofShalmaneser I (1274-1245 BC), who relates in his official inscriptions thathe defeated the army of the rebellious attuara II of anigalbat, togetherwith his Hittite and Alam allies,8 in the course of a harsh campaignthrough difficult paths and passes, and in the face of repeated ambushesfrom the enemy. His victorious backlash brought the capture of 9 fortifiedcities and and the deportations of 14,400 enemy soldiers.9 The mainconquests are thereupon summed up, and prove to be ranged along anitinerary 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, allof Mt. Kaiyari to the city Eluat, the fortress of Sudu, the fortress ofarran, up to Karkemi which is on the bank of the Euphrates. 10

Despite the suspicious repetition of the paternal toponyms,11 it isgenerally accepted that Shalmaneser was efficacious in securing for Assyria

with no further encroachment on the part of Hurrian rulers the UpperTigris area, the present-day zone of the Tr Abdin, the br triangle, andthe western territories leading up to the Euphrates.12Sources other than theroyal inscriptions suggest that he was also responsible for sending armedtroops to areas of the Middle Euprates, such as Su and Mari,13 for thetakeover of Hittite fortifications along the east bank of the river (such as TellFray14) and on the basis of the Hittite letter KBo 18.24 for victoriousforays deep into the upper river valley at Malitiya on the west bank.15

In sum, Shalmaneser I definitely established the area traditionallyknown 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 thatby the end of the 13thcentury i.e. barely some 50 years after his reign thisstrong westward thrust had already ground to a halt; and we may observe theonset 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 Chronicleaccounts16) appears to have affected the capacity of Assyria for furthermilitary and political expansion.

This first phase of decline may be dated following the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244-1208), a king as energetic as his father, to whom extensive

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conquests in the area to the north and northwest of Assyria are attributed inhis royal inscriptions.17The Middle Assyrian reign reached its apex underhis rule, from the Zagros to the Euphrates (at least its east bank), andincluding the Upper Tigris catchment area to the north as well as Kassite

Babylonia in the south for a short spell. 18 The further possibility, thatTukulti-Ninurta might have actually held sway at least temporarily overthe west bank of the Euphrates is quite problematic, since only two late textsof his19mention the defeat and deportation of "28,800 people of Hatti from

beyond the Euphrates", albeit attributing the event to the "beginning of mysovereignty". The first of these texts20also summarizes the king's conquests

by including "the lands Mari, ana, Rapiqu, and the mountains of theAlam which are elsewhere conspicuously absent.21

In any case, the king's last years were marked by strong internalopposition to his building and religious policies, and eventually culminatedin his assassination. After Tukulti-Ninurta's reign, Assyrian decline may begauged first and foremost from the absence of military feats attested in theroyal inscriptions of his successors; it is thus commonly understood thatunder these kings the western limits of Assyrian occupation retreated back tothe Bal river valley.22 However, more recently the Euphrates has come

back to the fore on archaeological grounds as continuing to be the actualmilitary and political border of Assyria (cf. 2, below).

Almost a century later, Tiglath-pileser I (1115-1077) again made theEuphrates into the border of mt Aur, by an extended foray on the left bankof the river, from Su up to Karkemi, against the Alam by nowobviously widespread, and significantly further qualified as Arameans and even crossed the river to attack their strongholds on the Jebel Biri. 23From various sources, he may also be credited with founding fortresses ofhis own on the west bank, such as Pitru at the confluence of the Euphratesand the Sajur,24 and irbet ed-Diniyeh/aradu, slightly north of Ana(ancientAnat).25Although Tiglath-pileser attributed to himself various other

territorial conquests of a certain import, the administrative texts (specificallylists of regular offerings and lists of audience gifts) from Assur of thisgeneral age have been interpreted as testifying to the opposite the onsetof a second and graver phase of Assyrian decline and withdrawal from the

previously conquered territories, both to the west and to the east. Thisdecline should have led to a loss of control of all the territory between theEuphrates and the abr, of the plain of Diyarbakir to the north, and ofArrapa and Arzuina to the east (cf. Fig. 3).26Most of these lands were not

to be recovered until the 10th

century, when the gradual Assyrian takeover of

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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 13 thcentury and lasted for some300 years, overlaps by and large with the archaeological transition from theLate Bronze Age II to Iron Age I. As is well known, this transitioncorresponds to a vast picture of socio-economic and political upheaval entailing the collapse of the urban cities and states and the drying up ofinternational trade networks which spanned not only the entire NearEastern horizon, particularly the Levant and Anatolia, but also the Aegeanand Southeastern Europe, with its peak in the 12th century BC.27 But

specifically as regards the circum-Euphratic region, this period of transitionwitnesses at least two main chains of political events which require to bebriefly contextualized for an overall historical perception. These are:

(1) the dissolution of the Hittite imperial polity, not only in its centralstructures but also as regards its North Syrian political and administrativeoutposts, such as Karkemi and Emar, and its substitution by a group ofregional polities centered on former Hittite provincial sites the so-calledNeo-Hittite states, some of which present real or alleged dynastic linkswith 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 toMelid to ilakku to Gurgum to Kummu to Karkemi itself, and moresparsely (or less crucially and permanently) in areas slightly to the south,from Padasatini-Pattina and Hama in the Orontes river valley to Til Barsibon the Euphrates itself;28

(2) the gradual infiltration of West-Semitic speaking peoples, whetherof 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 plainof Aleppo to the west of the the river and their gradual takeover offormerly inhabited urban and village locations, so as to constitute by theearly Iron Age a specific set of basically sedentary polities facing theAssyrian territorial possessions.29The best-known of these polities aroundthe 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 settingin place of two distinct ethno-social and political complexes which were

not, however, devoid of mutual cultural cross-references31 with the overall

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result of a highly fragmented (or Balkanized) political landscape whichcame to fill the power vacuum left by Imperial Hittite and Middle Assyrianoccupation/administration in a vast arc around the Upper Euphrates rivervalley. These newer occupants proved to require almost two centuries of

Assyrian armed intervention from the mid-10th century onward for theirneutralization, whether as the result of outright conquests or of politicalalliances. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that this first lap of renewedAssyrian military and political expansion after the long centuries of crisis which resulted in the incorporation of all the steppe-lands between the Tigrisand the Euphrates within political borders of the northern Mesopotamian

polity by the early years of Shalmaneser III (858-824 BC) was self-consciously explained by the protagonists themselves as constituting no moreand no less than a legitimate and dutiful reconquista of the territories whichthe MA kings (and mainly Tiglath-pileser I) had already secured for Assyria inthe early 12th century. In other words, as has been stated, we find here thebeginning of a multi-generational dialog which would thereupon continue todefine Assyrian culture, and indeed, Assyrian self-identity.32

***

As for the general historical interpretation of this obscure phase ofAssyrian history, I would like to focus here specifically on two well-known

interpretations, which prove to be basically in agreement, but on the otherhand present some significant differences of nuance and perspective.33ForMario Liverani, in his monumental manual of ancient Near Eastern history(1988), a decided decline began following the apex of Assyrian power underTukulti-Ninurta I, and was not entirely brought to a halt until the 10 th

century. In this light, the achievements of Tiglath-pileser I, while beingconsidered analogous in their importance to those of the Middle Assyrianking 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 ephemeralrealization, and one rather indicative of the ease with which an energeticpolitical leadership could lead a full-bodied State (such as Assyria was) towide-ranging success, even in an uncertain and unstable international

political situation.34The second perspective is by Nicholas Postgate, in his seminal article on

The Land of Assur and the Yoke of Assur.35Postgate views the entire periodfrom 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

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the Mediterranean), and a much more intense loss of power which sawAssyrian control wither to the minimal core of Assur itself and to the citiesto 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 politicalagents of this recession were not neighbouring states: Babylon was equallyweak, the Hittite Empire had collapsed and fragmented, and the Mitannianstate was only a memory. Rather, the damage was done by incursions ofAramaean tribes.... One contributory factor may well have been the climate,since poor rainfall both weakened Assyria's agricultural base and forcedAramaeans north in search of pasture.37

Liverani, with greater space of his disposal, traces instead a vast historicalscenario in which the political dissolution of Bronze Age statehood, themovement of peoples, and the emergence of new forms of community life andof economic production are to be considered tightly intertwined as elements ofthe transition from one specific age to the next. As for the Mesopotamian area,Liverani states that the main crisis of this historical phase was merelypostponed by the presence of powerful and charismatic figures such asTiglath-Pileser I, Nebuchadrezzar I in Babylonia and ilak-in-uinak in Elam.According to this scholar, a certain delay in the decline of the Mesopotamianstates 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 quotedkings showed a strong and original, albeit ultimately futile, mobilization ofmilitary, social, and cultural energies.38

These two interpretations of the crisis involving Assyria and its westernexpansion between the last centuries of the 2ndmillennium and the beginningof the Iron Age were penned some twenty years ago, and still preserve theirauthoritative character. We may however nowadays ask: how far have wecome since then, as for concrete results and theoretical perspectives, inregards 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 onsome of the more recent data and their relevant interpretations, such as havecome to refine, and at times to modify, the historical framework regardingthe circum-Euphratic geographical horizon described above.

2.Let us start by a general overview of the overall documentary horizon ofnorthwestern Mesopotamia regarding this period, which has become

extremely rich in these last two decades. As for cuneiform texts proceeding

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from the region, we nowadays have at our disposal the 14 th-century archivesin Middle Babylonian ductus from Tall Munbqa Ekalte,39 which arethereupon followed in time by the letters and the administrative archives inAssyrian script from Tall Hamad Dr-Katlimmu on the Lower

br.40The Dr-Katlimmu letters, which at this time constitute, for their very

nature and their state of publication, a sort of central focus to anyinvestigation on the Middle Assyrian presence in anigalbat, are partiallycontemporaneous41to

(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 MAtablets 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 Hittiteadvanced outpost of Meskeneh - Emaron 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 12thcentury tablets from Tell Sabi Abyadon the Bal

(ancient name unknown), as yet largely unpublished,

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as well as to(d) the 13 -11 century texts from Tell Taban Tbetuon the Lower br,both of official and of administrative nature

th th

46 .47Finally, the tail end of these archives is represented by further official

texts from Tell aban betuand from Tell Bderi Dr-Aur-ketti-leer,also on the Lower br, dated squarely to the 11thcentury, and mainly tothe reign of Tiglathpileser I.48

***

The archaeological picture is decidedly more complex. NorthernMesopotamia in this general archaeological phase variously dubbedMiddle Assyrian (MA) or Late Bronze Age (LBA) by specialists can countat present on a vast number of data resulting from (intensive/extensive)survey activities, excavations, and comparative analyses of materials;49however, it must be observed that these data are not always eloquentper seor 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. Pflzner50through the classification of the pottery

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of the period in three successive phases (Stufen) between the reigns ofShalmaneser I and Tiglath-pileser (or slightly later), with a subdivision

between official and domestic production. This crucial classificatory workthus allows in general to evaluate the presence of Middle Assyrian material

culture as a unifying component between the Assyrian homeland and theJezireh, and to suggest the socio-economic functions that specificstandardized wares may have promoted or accompanied. As recently noted,Pflzner's grid also allows pottery to flank textual evidence in full for theanalysis of the territorial spread of Middle Assyrian administration, with theidentification 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'stypological and/or chronological criteria, thus suggesting that the picturemay 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 onthe area from the Tigris to the Bal.53The overall results of these surveysare still subject to discussion and interpretation. A long-term perspectiveshows a certain decrease in LBA settlement, followed by a marked increasein Iron Age settlements; and this strong intensification in settlement density

might be attributed to a shift in living patterns of previously mobile Arameanpeoples during the ages of crisis54. However, at a narrower and moredetailed focus on some of the studied areas the basins of the br andBal a more complex and vivid picture emerges. It appears that during thefirst half of the LBA (15th-14th centuries BC, corresponding to the LateMittanian 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 thesemid-LBA sites was thereupon followed by a second phase of settlement inthe river valley from the 13thcentury BC onwards, corresponding to the fullMiddle Assyrian occupation of anigalbat; these later settlements seem tohave been in the main new foundations, located toward the southern limits ofthe dry farming area.55

As for excavations, significant results regarding Middle Assyrianoccupation have been reached in numerous areas of the Jezirah during the

last half-century.56However, three sites (Tell Sabi Abyadon the Bal, Tell

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aban/betu on the Lower br, and Giricanu/Dunnu-a-Uzibi on theUpper Tigris) may be here set in particular relief for the purposes of ouranalysis of Middle Assyrian decline in @anigalbat, not only because theirrecent archeological results have been studied in detail in relation to the

latter phases of Middle Assyrian occupancy and even to the transitional MA-NA period, but also because their finds consistently comprise groups oftexts, which describe the local settings themselves.

At Tell Sabi AbyadI,57a Dutch archaeological expedition has exposed avery substantial part of a Middle Assyrian fortified farmstead, or dunnu,58for which the textual evidence (cf. above) suggests the span of approx. acentury (ca. 1225-1120 BC) of overall existence. Specifically, after 1180, thesite bears witness to vast changes in the layout and organization of thefortress, 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.59Apart from the useful correlations that the texts allow to establish betweenthe diverse buildings within the site and their respective function (cf. 3,

below), the most striking characteristic of Tell Sabi Abyad is its fortifiednature, 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 securitymeasures 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 todetermine, on the basis of the pottery, that occupation should have stretchedwell into the 11 century BC. The texts found here and at Tell Bderi indicatethat this was the seat of a dynasty of kings of Mari that had held betuand its environs for generations

th

,61 building here a city-wall, at least twotemples (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 ofan abundance of written materials (bricks and tablets). Thus, the mostancient MA level (9b), retrieved directly above the last Mittanian one, bore

bricks attributed to the mid-12 century; the subsequent two levels (9a-8)would seem to pertain to the late 12 century, again on the basis of theretrieved bricks. Finally, levels 7-5 should represent the 11 century, with aslight hiatus in occupation (7) followed by a continuation of MA wares (6)

and a first attestation of NA shapes (5)

th

th

th

.62

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Giricano, on the Tigris riverbank, quite close to the major site of ZiyaretTepe/Tuu/Tun, was examined by a German team in the framework ofthe Ilissu dam project in 2000-2002. A jar discovered within a pit held 15tablets, representing the archive of one Auni, said to come from Tun

or from Dunnu-a-Uzibi; the latter toponym proved to correspond to theancient 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. 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 wereforced to engage within what had been MA @anigalbat, but had become bythis time a hotbed of insurrection, invasion, and destruction. Some of thefighting 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 administrativecenter of Tun

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at least for as long as it continued to function as such.

Moving out of @anigalbat proper, a number of MA sites on the MiddleEuphrates has received archaeological attention, essentially through a newreading-out of the results of the salvage excavations held in the frameworkof the Haditha dam project in the 1980s, previously confined in the main to

an unpublished doctoral dissertation.64 Two fortification systems wouldseem to be dated at the end of the 2nd millennium BC: the first one iscomposed by Sur Jureh and Gleieh, two massive square and double-walledfortresses, facing each other on the two riverbanks, with Sur Mureh as athird site in the environs on the east bank.65The second system is composed

by the island of Bijan, where a fortress endowed with a port area allows toidentify the site with Sapirutu, an island in the Euphrates mentioned inTiglath-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 inthe area comprise e.g. irbet ed-Diniyeh, to be identified with OldBabylonian aradum,thanks to the find of a tablet archive,67and which hadsubsequently 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 theinterpretation of the double transitional crisis of the Middle Assyrian state,especially in its western reaches, by centering on the political situation under

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Tukulti-Ninurta I.68 In the course of the 13th century, Assyria gained fullcontrol of the region west of the Assyrian homeland (especially in the UpperTigris, the Upper and Lower br, and the Bal river valleys), andthereupon superimposed its own administrative structure on the land already

known as anigalbat; this structure, which was first reconstructed byMachinist and Postgate on the basis of texts from Amuda, Tell al-Rimah,Tell Billa, and Assur,69may be at present pieced together in greater detailthrough the letters from Tall Hamad Dr-Katlimmu, in conjunctionwith 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 theJezirah up to the Euphrates, with his headquarters at Dr-Katlimmu (some230 kms. as the crow flies or some 10 days' march from Assur71), whilesubordinate officials named qpus acted as links between him and the king.72The individuals who occupied this post were all part of a single family,connected to the ruling dynasty of Assur,73viz. the descendants of Ibai-ili(son of Adad-nirari I and brother of Shalmaneser I), who succeeded oneanother from father to son: from Qibi-Aur to Aur-iddin74 and to Ili-ipadda,75i.e. for some 75 years from the mid-13 thcentury to the first quarterof the 12th.76It is generally accepted that the status of thesukkallu rabi'u /ar(mt) anigalbatwas that of a viceroy of sorts, since he substituted theking

in the western areas, by overseeing rural areas and their output, supervisingworkers, supplying the Assyrian capital with tax-revenues, acting as legalauthority, hosting officials during their travels, and even took on specific

policing and military duties.77The Grand Vizier's authority apparently with the support of a direct

subordinate, thesukkallu,Vizier 78 stretched over a number of districts,for which the termphutu was used, with a district governor (bl pete)at the head of each. This Assyrian designation seems to have substitutedduring the 13th century the previous Mittanian terminology based on the

concept of alsu, fortified district, for which a alsulu/ assilu wasresponsible.79 The settlements or nodes within each Assyrian enclave ordistrict were dubbed according to their size and/or their more or lessfortified nature, as lu, city, birtu, fort, dunnu, (fortified) farmstead.80A number of sites endowed with fortifications of sorts thus systematicallydotted 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

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excavation (cf. above) of the 12th-century dunnu of 60x60 walled metres inthe name of the Grand Vizier Ili-ipadda shows a residence of the owner, atower for various purposes (from storage to treasury to jailhouse), a furtherresidence for the chief steward who administered the farmstead in the

owner's absence (maennu),83 and quarters for servants and scribes. Otherbuildings and stables, wells and threshing-floors must have lain in the ruralarea outside the walls, also accounting for the presence of some 900dependents 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 outputof the various enclaves of the anigalbat region for the benefit of the localsthemselves and for the discharge of fiscal, cultic, and honorary obligationstoward the royal capital or the figure of the Assyrian king. The overallfluidity of this structure in times of peace seems to have guaranteed a certaineconomic prosperity to the western part of the Middle Assyrian kingdom, ase.g. reflected in the combined textual and bio-archaeological data for theDr-Katlimmu of this period.85

However, there is still a certain fluctuation of interpretations regardingthe underlying political problem, viz. whether a unique form of functionalcoordination cum hierarchical subordination connected the king of

anigalbat to the ruler based at Assur (i.e. somewhat on the model ofKarkemi from the time of Piyaili/arri-Kuuonwards vis--vis attuaas reflected in the Emar texts and elsewhere86), or whether, instead, a certaindegree of organizational and decisional autonomy should be envisaged forthe potentates of the Jezireh in practice with an agreed-upon subdivision ofAssyrian political authority between the Homeland and the West.

Both these theories have found their supporters. Thus, e.g., E. Cancik-Kirschbaum 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,87whereas F.Wiggermann states more bluntly that at this time The empire is divided intotwo parts, the east with Aur as its capital, and the west, anigalbat, wherea branch of the royal family rules as "grand vizier" (sukkallu rab) and "kingof 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 ofTukulti-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

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Adad-uma-usur, son of the Katilia IV who had been defeated by Tukulti-Ninurta, wrote a letter (ABL 92490) to Aur-nirari III (1202-1197 BC) andIli-ipadda jointly, calling them LUGALME KURA+urKI, albeit treatingthem with condescension, in conformity with the temporary ascendancy

regained by Babylonia over Assyria.91 Some years later, as is known, Ili-ipadda's son Ninurta-apil-ekur would become king of Assyria himself, inconnection with a campaign against Babylonia.92

Further, it should not be entirely ruled out that an impulse towarddecentralization was consistently operating within anigalbat: how to

judge otherwise the philo-Assyrian, but ideologically separate (orseparatist?), dynasty of kings of the land of Mari at betu and Dr-Aur-ketti-leer, whose written testimonials span from Shalmaneser's to Tiglath-

pileser's reigns? After all, the nmurtu-texts from Assur of Ninurta-tukulti-Assur's time employed for one of the members of this dynasty the ethnonymTabatajje,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. fromthe Grand Vizier's residence.

***

A related item, currently under discussion, is whether the inner territoryof this quite vast western area was basically organized along the working

model of a network empire, such as has been theorized by M. Liverani94a model which would continue to be in use during the earliest phases ofAssyrian reconquest of the Jezirah in the 10th-9thcenturies BC or not. Inthe period under consideration here, Liverani observes the presence of anumber of intersecting enclaves of Assyrian administrative control,characterized as a network of palaces and Assyrian cities embedded in anative (Hurrian) world.95These enclaves were connected by a complex butfunctional system of main routes which allowed political and administrative

intercommunication as well as the forwarding of produce to Assur, inrelation to the needs of the palace and temple administration of the capitalcity; and the Dr-Katlimmu letters give sufficient evidence of policingactivities over these roads, on the part of urdu-troops.96On the other hand,the intermediate areas between such enclaves would seem to have beenlargely unprotected, and open to dangers from entities which wereextraneous, when not prejudicially inimical, to the Assyrian state.

To be sure, a bird's-eye view of the evidence shows that both settled andnon-settled peoples, northerners and southerners of various ethnicities

formed this motley crew. For the 13th century, the evidence points to the

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presence of some sparsely or fully non-settled sectors, in which randombands of former Mitannian/anigalbatean subjects could have beenrelatively free to roam and ambush the merchant caravans directed betweenthe west and Assur. To what extent, and in which exact circumstances, such

hostile presences made up actually organized contingents, still remains a bithazy; thus, e.g. a letter from Dr-Katlimmu implies that Hurrian troops werein movement towards Niriya.97 And it is equally unclear what possiblyadverse circumstances led to the abrupt abandonment of Tell uwra arbe some 15 years before the death of Tukulti-Ninurta, at least as anofficial 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 Hurrianaffiliation, such as Kadmuu and Papi, resisted to Assyrian attempts atmilitary and territorial control, and proved coriaceous enemies well until thetime of Tiglath-pileser I.99

On the other hand, as H. Khne first100 and more recently E. Cancik-Kirschbaum101have argued, the western sector of the Middle Assyrian reignshows an uninterrupted territorial structure and specifically the three-tieredstructure noted above, which should have had a precise correspondence inthe settlement pattern of the age.102 And to be sure, a look at the grid ofroutes 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 capitalnot only agricultural produce and livestock, but also merchants anddiplomats, even from the Far West (a Sidonian mission, bearing letters fromPharaoh to the Assyrian king, is attested in a text from Tell uwra arbe104) does not show specific fault lines in its midst to the opposite, itsets into evidence the vast number of (archaeologically well-known) sitesthat were thus interconnected.

Thus, similarly to the lightly escorted diplomats from arbe, the GrandVizier Ili-ipadda seems to have had little or no difficulty in periodically

crossing the western plain linking the br and the Bal, leaving hispolitical headquarters at Dr-Katlimmu to visit his dunnuat Sabi Abyad.105This could have also ensued from the peaceful and symbiotic relations thatthe 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 theSutean chiefs of the Nisanu tribe, retrieved at Sabi Abyad.106Further, if theagricultural area of Duara, known from the Dr-Katlimmu administrative

texts, lay as has been suggested at Tall Umm Aqrbe in the Wadi A,

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i.e. smack in the middle of the barren steppe some 40 kms. east of thebr,107 the Assyrians must have relied on a situation of sufficient localsecurity in order to perform the complex task of tapping the terrain for waterrun-offs from the drainage system of the western sector of the abal

Sinar.108And finally, the Dr-Katlimmu administrative documents regarding

flocks and their products (mainly wool, but also sheep and goat skins, andhair) supplied to government officials but especially to the palaceworkshops109show a close similarity with those from an archive on exactlythe opposite flank of the 13th-century Assyrian state, i.e. from Tell Ali

Atmannuon the left bank of the Lower Zab. 110This similarity as has beensaid emphasises the degree of bureaucratic standardization between thetwo archives, which taken together illustrate vividly the level of economicand social control introduced by the Assyrian government on the territoriesunder its direct administration.111

In sum, the more the topographical and historical picture of anigalbatat the time of Tukulti-Ninurta I becomes known, the less of a network andthe more of a continuous territorial domain or the more Assyrianized butalso adaptive in its social and settlement policy112 it appears. And yet,going back once more to the consistent and dense presence of fortified siteswhich both archaeology and texts have singled out within the various settled

niches of this western territory, the words of a renowned historian ofwarfare should not be overlooked, because they seem to fit somewhat withthe situation at hand: Strongholds are a product of small or dividedsovereignties; they proliferate when central authority has not beenestablished or is struggling to secure itself or has broken down. 113Despitethe existence of numerous markers of a smoothly functioning provincialadministration directed from Assur and/or operated by relay from Dr-Katlimmu such as to judge Liverani's image of Assyrian cities embeddedin 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 Assyrianadministration and military through lu and birtu, so to speak wasconstantly in a state of work in progress.

In other words, we may envisage an unceasing effort on the part of theAssyrian administration (both central and local) to further colonise, protectand administer this largely arid and bare steppic area by thickening the mesh

of its inner communications, of its economic and political connections from

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one site to the next.114 This all-round effort met with a certain degree ofsuccess, it must be said, until the overall political system eventually brokedown, 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 tothe political centre, if at all.

4. A further recent indication by E. Cancik-Kirschbaum is that the Euphratesshould have represented the main strategic focus of the Grand Viziers

based at Dr-Katlimmu and specifically as a geopolitical boundary-linewith neighboring powers. Thus, it is evident from the Dr-Katlimmu lettersdass das Euphratgebiet von Iwa im Norden bis einschlielich der Region

Su im Sden unter intensiver assyrischer Beobachtung stand.115

Thisposition is not entirely new,116but it nowadays it enjoys a certain additionalsupport from the archaeological investigations on both riverbanks whichhave been described above (2). We may thus briefly examine theEuphrates scenario with reference to the polities that faced Assyria alongthe river, to check whether any causes of Assyrian crisis could have comefrom this horizon. In particular, we shall take a look at the relations of theHittite court with Assyrian @anigalbat; at possible intimations from theEmar 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 apiece of evidence relevant to Su on the Middle Euphrates and itsBabylonian connections.

***

From the viewpoint of the Hittites, with their line of strongholds on thewest 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 aworrisome factor in political relations all round. This point has been ratherclearly brought forth in recent research on the royal correspondence inAkkadian or Hittite retrieved at @attua which however still leaves open anumber of problematical issues.117

The Hittite kings were of course traditional allies of the Kassites, and, inthe early days of Assyrian expansion to the west, showed little else thendisdain for Assyrian royalty: thus Adad-nirari I never received the title ofLUGAL.GAL from the Hittite court although of course his widespread

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victories would have entitled him to this status de facto.118 But Uri-Teup/Murili III (1272-1267 BC), despite having witnessed the defeat ofhis Hurrian ally Wasaatta at the hands of the Assyrian king and thesubmission 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 long-winded 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 topersuade the by now elderly Assyrian king to accept his Hurrian allyattuara 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 withBabylonia, and specifically with the new king Kadaman-Enlil. The well-crafted letter KBo I 10+ by the Hittite king to his Kassite counterpart seemsto imply his desire for all-round good relations with the Mesopotamianstates, especially concerning the thoroughfare along the Euphrates leadingsouthwards. In a rebuke for not having yet received any Babylonianambassadors (ll. 44-54), Hattuili implies that Kadaman-Enlil might try tomake up the excuse that his messengers were always turned back by theAssyrians, and pointedly notes that, to the opposite, the Hittite messengerswere never blocked by the Assyrians where the respective zones met,

possibly at Tuttul (modern tell Ba) at the confluence of the Balwith the

Euphrates.121

Despite these diplomatic moves, however, the military thrust of Assyria especially concerning the Euphrates boundary proved very soon to bedifficult to check.122After attuara II rebelled against Assyria with the aid ofHittites andAlam and was defeated by Shalmaneser I, with the entire areaof anigalbat falling firmly into Assyrian hands, the relations between thetwo courts became necessarily very strained.123On the other hand, with theadvent to the throne of Tudaliya IV, new attempts were made to re-establish 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 aGreat 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).125Whether, in this light, the Hittites had any doings in a revoltthat seems to have shaken the mountain regions of anigalbat and pointseast late in the reign of Shalmaneser an episode that is recalled by Tukulti-

Ninurta (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

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to the younger ruler in a letter to Baba-au-iddina, brother of the king andsukkallu rab, viz. that the best thing would be, to attack a country muchweaker than his own

126

possibly with reference to Babylonia.127However asthis 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 anumber of residual Hurrian enclaves between the Tr Abdin and the UpperTigris valley.128

According to a number of authors,129it was essentially as a consequenceof this warring action which perhaps gave the Assyrians control over theroutes over the Euphrates into Anatolia and access to the Ergani Madencopper mines and specifically in order to forestall further Assyrianadvances towards the river, that Tud~aliya would have planned and set inmotion a retaliation, bringing the two powers to a direct armed engagementat Niriya.130 The main evidence usually invoked for the Hittite king'shostile 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, inwhich passages such as the following are attested:

I sent this message to the king of atti: Ni~riya is at war with me. Whyare 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 ina 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 nothaving 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~riyaalone? When it thus occurred that the enemy took away from me theHurrian lands, was I not left on my own in Alatarma? 132

The battle of Ni~riya remains at the fore of recent historicalcriticism.133But in any case, the very presence of a letter on Ni~riya fromthe Assyrian king in the archives of the ruler of Ugarit has been interpretedas an attempt by Tukulti-Ninurta to draw the traditional allies of the Hittitesover to his side, or at least to obtain their neutrality. 134Good relations with

Assyria in this general period may be certainly envisaged for the Hittite

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vassal state of Amurru, at least judging from a text from Tell uwra/@arbewhich acts as safe-conduct for one Jabnana, bringing tablets and gifts fromthe Syrian state to Assur.135 Thus, the treaty imposed by Tudhaliya toaugamuwa of Amurru (KUB XXIII 1 +), and usually dated in Tukulti-

Ninurta's reign136 might have been written after the armed encounter atNi~riya, since it is unambiguous about establishing an embargo on Assyriaas regards international commerce:

As the king of Assyria is the enemy of My Sun, so must he also be yourenemy. No merchant of yours is to go to the Land of Assyria, and youmust allow no merchant of Assyria to enter your land or pass through yourland. If, however, an Assyrian merchant comes to your land, seize him andsend 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 moremeant to uphold Hittite supremacy from an ideological-political point ofview, or conversely to block the negative impact of the defeat with Assyria,than to actually enforce an embargo in practice138which it might have beeneven impossible to do, given Assyria's economic potential and commercial

penetration.139 Viewed in general, in point of fact, the Hittite-Assyrianrelationship would seem to have continued as an entente cordiale which

basically held, willy-nilly, in good times or bad even if Hittite-Kassiterelationships also continued in some way at the same time as the mangledtext of KBo XXVIII 61 + would seem to suggest.140Hittite interpreters were

present at the Assyrian court on a permanent basis;141an open caravan routelinked the two states through Karkemi, involving the participation ofAssyrian and Hittite merchants alike;142and a text from Tell Sabi Abyad, asyet unpublished, would seem to regard Ili-ipadda coming to the help of theking of Karkemi with his army during the reign of Aur-nirari III (1193-

1188 BC).143

In sum, whatever the judgment on the chronology of the letters fromattusa and on the battle of Ni~riya, one point regarding Assyrian-Hittiterelationships seems to have been cleared up, through the re-examination ofthe available evidence regarding @anigalbat and it is a point which had

been raised by more than one historian of Hatti in the past.144The Assyriansappear to have been in no way involved in precipitating the ultimate crisis ofthe Hittite state (however this may have taken place), either per se or inalliance with other powers; and conversely, it must be averred that after the

mid-13th century, when the Assyrians established themselves definitely in

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@anigalbat, the Hittites prove to have been incapable of wielding enoughpower in the Euphrates river valley so as to change the political equilibriumtherein.

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 flankedby a form of traditional communal government depended directly from theviceroy of Karkemi (endowed with an increasing degree of autonomy in theage of Tudaliya IV), through the mediation of the high officer known asugula.kalam.ma. 145The extant archives, first published in 1986 but whichhave since received numerous additions, span some four generations. Whilein the vast majority they tend to deal with local issues, and hold in point offact very few mentions of relations with Assyria, there are a few intimationsthat Hurrian troops were hostile to the city, and conquered nearby centers.These mentions have stimulated speculations concerning a possible role ofAssyria in the matter.

In his monographic study on Emar, M. Adamthwaite146maintained thatno organized Hurrian entity could have been any longer active in the vicinityof Emar at the time of Tukulti-Ninurta I; thus, he started out by playing withthe possibility that the mentions of the hostile troops of KURur-ri in theEmar documents could have referred to the army of thesukkallu rabin hisfunction as king of anigalbat.147 But, all said and done, such a

description for an Assyrian intervention appeared highly unlikely;148

and soAdamthwaite himself ended up by suggesting quite to the contrary thatthere could have been a gap within the Assyrian control of the Jezirah, inwhich a self-styled ruler of Hurrian marauders could have penetrated andattacked the cities on the riverbank. Most recently, however, this scenariohas been rejected in the light of a full chronological review of the Emararchives; the date of the texts mentioning the king of urri, etc., shouldrefer to the time of the Hittite protectorate over @anigalbat at the beginningof the 13thcentury, 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 smallgem of textual information of direct concern for the history of theAssyrians in their western territories and specifically as regards theEuphrates. The text Emar VI/3, 263 which has of late received a newreading and interpretation by J.-M. Durand and L. Marti150 is a report froma subaltern to the ugula.kalam.ma of the city; among various news, thesender relates (ll. 17-29) that

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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 ofMari!. I will write to my lord all the booty that they have pillaged as aconsequence of this action.

All the protagonists of this passage are well known. As for the peopledesignated by the socionym/ethnonym Alam,151 not only the royalinscriptions of Shalmaneser I naming them as allies of the rebelliousWasaatta and of the Hittites, but also the letter KBo 1 10+ and a number ofEmar texts mentioning their presence on the Euphrates riverbankcharacterize their role as essentially antagonistic to Assyrian power in the@anigalbat area.152Not by chance, the two Alams in our document act asinformers 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 above-

named KBo XXVIII 61 + may lead us to suspect,153 and as we positivelyknow from the 9thcentury annals from this area, which trace the allegianceof S~u to the southern Mesopotamian state back to Hammurabi's time. Thusit may be surmised that the attack on the part of the prefect of Shu couldhave been executed explicitly on the Babylonians' behalf, with the aim ofdestabilizing a sector of Assyrian @anigalbat.

Now for Mari. The reading of this toponym (KURMa!-ri!KI), proposed byDurand and Marti as against the previously understood KURQa-at-naKIrepresents a decided shift in perspective. However, this shift is crucial onlyinsofar as some previous interpretations had focused on Qatna in centralSyria, well known for the MB age from the Mari letters and from the el-Amarna letters, and local cultic inventories, epistolary and administrativedocuments, as well as from recent excavation results, for the age ofMittanian demise under uppiluliuma I.154 On the other hand, numerousresearchers had already suggested that the toponym could instead refer to theAssyrian town of Qatnion the Lower br, to be identified with present-day Tell Fadami, and which was the seat of a bl pete in this age.155Specifically, a MA offering list from Nineveh (BM 122635+) mentions thegovernor 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 ageographical approach, moving upriver from the governorships just north ofDr-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

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should be localized on the Lower br with their adjacent hinterland inthe steppe to the east. Specifically, the two Alam spies should beinforming on an attack of the army of Su on a city fully located withinAssyrian-controlled territory and fully part and parcel of the mesh of

political and economic communication that the Assyrians had createdbetween Assur and the Euphrates.157Now, the later Assyrian-Sutean treatydocument from Sabi Abyad explicitly bade the Nisanu tribe not to givefood, drink or shelter to the enemies of Assyria, among which were the

people of Su;158it was the possibility of hostile incursions from the pro-Babylonian reign of the Middle Euphrates area, such as the one recorded inthe quoted Emar text, that would seem to have been foremost in thesukkalluIli-ipadda's mind.

***

Thus, to conclude our quick investigation into the Euphrates scenario:it does not seem nowadays counter to older opinions that any particularhostility between Hittites and Assyrians could have had an influence in thedownturn that affected both polities beginning in the late 13th-early 12thcentury. On the other hand, other subjects would seem to have lurked in asinister fashion on the horizon: the Alam, despite their defeat as Hittiteallies at the hands of Shalmaneser I, were nonetheless fully capable of

moving up- and downriver with their flocks (and arms) without encounteringdecisive obstacles in later phases. For their part, the Suheans seem to havehad a large military capability, befitting a reduced but well-organized reignthat wished to hold its own on the crucial thoroughfare represented by theterraces and straits of the Middle Euphrates. And finally, the Babyloniansseem to have been eager for revenge after the despoliation of their cities andsacred places by Tukulti-Ninurta and the Euphrates route was presumablyviewed 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 betaken into account for the Middle Assyrian state in the light of its repeatedthrusts 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 duringthe 12th century BC, remains quite apt and might even account for laterdevelopments. In other words, perhaps it was exactly such a slow butunavoidable erosion of the Assyrian hold on the Jezirah due to dynastic

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troubles at Assur, to the diversion of military energies toward Babylonia, toan increasing separatism in the diverse lands (@anigalbat, Mari) thatformed the western territories of the reign, and finally to an ever-growingmenace posed by West Semitic gentilic groups on the Euphrates that

prompted Tiglath-pileser I to engage into a forceful attempt to restore theborders of Assyria established by his forebears Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I. This attempt, which not only led the ruler to regain a strongfoothold on the Euphrates, as witnessed by the occupation of Pitru, highabove the western riverbank, but even to effect a foray with no realopposition into the Transeuphratic area to the Mediterranean, remained inAssyrian memory long after its relatively short-lived military and politicalconsequences 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 duringthe 11th century, with such intensity as to efface all of Tiglath-pileser'smilitary and political results, and to actually drive back on the defensive hissuccessors within their home frontiers thus leaving some far-off enclavesof former Assyrian @anigalbat, such as Dunni-a-Uzibi/Giricano, to fendentirely for themselves. However, somewhat in opposition with this acceptedimage of Assyrian retreat and decline, the late 11th-century inscriptions ofthe 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 ofBel-ere, a ang of adikanni, who was a contemporary of Aur-rabi II(1013-973 BC) and Aur-re-ii II (972-968 BC)160would seem to indicatethat, at least in some enclaves of the Lower br, the political connectionswith the Assyrian state were never entirely severed.161 And at Dur-Katlimmu, despite Aur-bl-kala's (1073-1056 BC) claim in the BrokenObelisk of having fought the Arameans here,162no archaeological evidenceof disturbance in the overall pattern of culture during the dark age ofAssyria has hitherto come to light, and the reaffirmation of Assyrian power

in the late 10th-early 9th century seems to have brought the city quitesmoothly again under the political sway of the Mesopotamian reign as asurface find of an orthostat in the classic style of the sculptures ofAurnasirpal II might exemplify.163

The situation of this Dark Age for the western reaches of the Assyrianreign should thus be viewed as presumably more complex than hithertothought, and even possibly open to new perspectives as archaeologicalexcavations 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

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final burst of expansion under Tiglath-pileser I, we may ask: could it havebeen caused by climate changes, with social and economic repercussionswhich caused mass migrations of tribal elements into the steppeland betweenthe Twin Rivers, as has been postulated by various authors?164Or should we

instead take into account the possibility that plagues or other epidemicdiseases caused widespread alterations in health conditions, thus depletinglarge population groups and putting others on the move toward theJezirah?165Despite the use of socio-anthropological modelling, of chemical-

physical analyses on specific materials, of sophisticated geo-referentialtechniques, and computerized information systems for a cross-referentialview of all such factors, any answer on these and other related counts isstill at present very difficult to provide.

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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

M.R. ADAMTHWAITE, Late Hittite Emar. The

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

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

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Fig. 2. Middle-Assyrian expansion in the Jezirah in the reigns of Assur-uballit 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.

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

* I wish to express my warm thanks to Dr. C. Pappi, Dr. L.Turri, Ms. R. DelFabbro, and Ms. C. Coppini for their kind aid in the retrieval of publications whichwere 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 stillremains that of Harrak 1987, although it is impressive to note to what extent theitems of information acquired since the time of its publication have changed therelevant historical perspective.

2Or obscure phases, as defined by Liverani 1988a, 84. On the other hand,Klengel 2000 prefers to classify the 13th and 12th centuries altogether as CrisisYears by drawing on the title of the well-known monograph by Ward Joukowsky1992. Other scholars seem to prefer Dark Age(s): cf. e.g. Khne (H.) 1995;Szuchman 2007. This definition however risks creating some ambiguity with twohomonymous designations: (a) the "Dark Age"

fales transition eothen 17 2011

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