Assyria

Sites, routes and geography in Central Anatolia

by Gojko Barjamovic

Published in I. Singer (ed.), ipamati kistamati pari tumatimis. Luwian and Hittite Studies Presented to J. David Hawkins on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday. Tel Aviv: Emery and Claire Yass Publications in Archaeology. 2010: 10-25

The article is focussed on the identification of routes and sites used by the Assyrian merchants during the Old... more The article is focussed on the identification of routes and sites used by the Assyrian merchants during the Old Assyrian Colony Period. Such observations also carry implications for the understanding of the political layout of the later Hittite state. The main objective is to draw attention to a number of important, but not very well-known, archaeological sites, and to consider their potential significance for the understanding of the political landscape in the Old Assyrian period and the formative era of the Hittite Kingdom.

Beyond Aššur: New Cities and the Assyrian Politics of Landscape

by Ömür Harmansah

Harmanşah, Ömür; 2012. "Beyond Aššur: New Cities and the Assyrian Politics of Landscape," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 365: 53-77.

This article investigates the making of Assyrian landscapes during the late second and early first millennia b.c.e.... more This article investigates the making of Assyrian landscapes during the late second and early first millennia b.c.e. From the late 14th century b.c.e. onward, the Assyrians designated the emergent core of their territorial state as the “Land of Aššur” in their royal inscriptions. However, over the course of the next several centuries, the cultural geography of the Land of Aššur was continuously redefined while gradually shifting northward from the arid environs of the city Aššur to the well-watered and resourceful landscapes around the confluence of the Tigris and the Upper and Lower Zab Rivers. Contemporaneously, the landscapes of the Upper Tigris basin (southeastern Turkey) and the Jazira witnessed extensive settlement and cultivation as Assyrian provinces and frontiers. Drawing on archaeological survey evidence and a critical reading of the textual accounts of urban foundations, this paper argues that such mobility of Assyrian landscapes was part and parcel of broader processes of environmental and settlement change in Upper Mesopotamia. Assyrian annalistic texts point to an elaborate rhetoric of landscape that portrays state interventions in the form of city foundations and building programs, construction of irrigation canals, planting of orchards, opening of new quarries, and settlement of populations. Furthermore, the making of commemorative monuments such as rock reliefs and stelae allowed the Assyrian state to inscribe symbolically charged places in foreign landscapes and incorporate them into the narratives of the empire. By drawing attention to the long-term trends of settlement in Upper Mesopotamia during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages and the agency of landscapes, the article contextualizes the Assyrian political rhetoric of development at the time of a highly fluid world of geographical imagination.

Ersatzkönige in griechischem Gewand: Die Umformung der shar puhi-Rituale bei Herodot, Berossos, Agathias und den Alexander-Historikern

by Irene Madreiter

published in: : Rollinger R. (ed.), Von Sumer bis Homer, Festschrift für Manfred Schretter zur Vollendung des 60. Lebensjahres (AOAT 325), Ugarit-Verlag Münster, 2005, 339 – 398.

Layard's drawings of the incised decorations on the nimrud reliefs compared with the originals

by Peter Bartl

in: Iraq 67/part 2 (2005), 17-29

К вопросу о «переднеазиатских изображениях» евразийских номадов, История и языки древнего Востока: памяти И.М. Дьяконова. СПб., 2002, 102-118.

by Askold Ivantchik

A problem of pedubasts?

by Dan'el Kahn

Antiguo Oriente 4 (2006) 23-42

summary: A problem of pedubasts?
In this paper I shall try to show that there were two kings with the name of... more summary: A problem of pedubasts?
In this paper I shall try to show that there were two kings with the name of wsr mAat
Ra stp.n Imn PA-di-BAstt mri Imn. The frst Pedubast is to be identifed as a Theban
ruler who ascended the throne in Shoshenq III’s 8th
regnal year. He bears once the
epithet sA Ist. The second Pedubast is also called wsr mAat Ra stp.n Imn PA-di-BAstt
mri Imn but has the northern epithet sA BAstt. This king probably ruled in Tanis at
the end of the 8th
century BC and might be identifed as Pedubast, the founder of
the disputed Tanite 23rd
Dynasty. Thus, we can reconstruct a chronology of the 23rd

Dynasty, which was based in Tanis (as recorded by Manetho) and ruled northern
Egypt from Heracleopolis Magna to the Delta between *715-*671/ *701-*657 BC1
as
semi-independent vassals of the 25th
Dynasty

Rec. A. Y. Ahmad, J. N. Postgate, Archives from the domestic wing of the North-West palace at Kalhu:Nimrud (London, 2007)

by Lorenzo Verderame

published in "Rivista degli Studi Orientali", 83 (2010), pp. 466-469

Esarhaddon's glazed bricks from nimrud: The egyptian campaign depicted

by Davide Nadali

published in 'Iraq', 68, 2006, pp. 109-119

Buying a slave's freedom in Assyria: A Cuneiform Tablet in the University of Tartu's Museum of Art

by Peeter Espak

Peeter Espak - Vladimir Sazonov: Journal of the Estonian National Archives (TUNA) 2010/2, pp. 83-88.

Peeter Espak and Vladimir Sazonov. Buying a slave´s freedom in Assyria: a cuneiform tablet in the University of... more Peeter Espak and Vladimir Sazonov. Buying a slave´s freedom in Assyria: a cuneiform tablet in the University of Tartu´s Museum of Art.

This article presents a transliteration, an Estonian translation and a commentary of a Middle-Assyrian cuneiform tablet located in the Museum of Art at the University of Tartu in Estonia. The text has been previously edited in a Russian-language journal Vestnik Drevnej Istorii (1989/1) by the Russian Assyriologist Ninel B. Jankovskaya (1925-2009). The text on the tablets is written in Middle-Assyrian, and the tablet dates from ca 1115 BC, from the reign of Tiglatpileser I (1115-1077). The tablet was donated to the University of Tartu by Estonian general Johan Laidoner, who headed a delegation of the League of Nations to Iraq in 1925. Laidoner probably purchased the tablet on the black market in Mosul, and therefore the tablet´s origins are unknown.

The tablet itself (including an envelope) is a legal document describing a slave, Shamash-taklaku, buying his freedom from his master Warad-Sherua, the son of Mar-Adad. The 24-line tablet also mentions several witnesses and states that the price of Shamash-taklaku was 1 5/6 minas and 5 shekels of silver. The text has not been previously published in Estonian or in international languages of modern-day oriental studies.

The Assyrian Heroic Epic Of Qa īne Gabbara: A Modern Poem In The Ancient Bardic Tradition

by Sargon Donabed

Ethno-Cultural and Religious Identity of Syrian Orthodox Christians

by Sargon Donabed

"Die Inschriftenreste auf den Obeliskenfragmenten aus Assur" (The inscriptions on the obelisk fragments from Assur), in: J. Orlamünde, Die Obeliskenfragmente aus Assur, WVDOG 135 (Wiesbaden 2011), 59-75

by Eckart Frahm

Collapse in Early Mesopotamian States: What Happened and What Didn't

by Paul B. Hartzog

2007, January, Co-authored with Norman Yoffee, University of Michigan, Santa Fe Institute

In recent years some historians and archaeologists have become interested in social science approaches, such as are... more In recent years some historians and archaeologists have become interested in social science approaches, such as are considered at the Santa Fe Institute, to issues of cultural selection and individual choice (often called “agency”) and how social institutions are shaped by these choices and in turn shape the domain in which choices are made.

Nevertheless, I argue that my work on “collapse” in Mesopotamia may well be a relevant case study of culture change that is amenable to new kinds of theorizing that may be appropriate for this working group. The paper presents examples of macro-societal change, the nature of social interaction in highly stratified societies, and principles of stability and instability in hierarchies, and it discusses the choices that humans, of high status and low, made and which affected their lives in the most profound ways.

ZAGROS PASTORALISM AND ASSYRIAN IMPERIAL EXPANSION: A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH 1 (Plates 1-2)

by Alessandro Greco

2011 “Assyria at UCL: A research project on the correspondence between the Assyrian king and his magnates in the 8th century BC.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 54/2 (2011) 125-129.

by Karen Radner

NB: These are the final proofs which correspond to the published version.

Observations on the Distribution of the Technological and Typological Features of Glass and Vitreous Materials in Assyria During the Late Bronze Age. The Case of Assur, Nuzi, Tell Rimah and Tell Brak

by Lorenzo Nigro

Co-authored with Nicolò Marchetti, in H. Waetzold - H. Hauptmann (edd.), "Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten. XXXIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Heidelberg 6.-10. Juli 1992" [= HSAO 6], Heidelberg 1997, pp. 299-313.

2011 The Assur-Nineveh-Arbela Triangle: Central Assyria in the Neo-Assyrian Period. In P. Miglus & S. Mühl (ed.), Between the Cultures: The Central Tigris Region in Mesopotamia from the 3rd to the 1st Millennium BC. Heidelberger Studien zum Alten Orient 14 (Heidelberg 2011) 321-329

by Karen Radner

Map languages Anatolia,North Syria and Upper Mesopotamia 1700 BC.

by Joost Blasweiler

Explanation of the languages of Anatolia, Upper Mesopotamia and North Syria around 1700 BC after the destruction of the karum and city of Kanesh. With gegographic and historical information.
Comments are welcome !

TRANSITION: The Assyrians at the Euphrates between the 13th and the 12th Century BC

by Mario Fales

INTRODUCTION.
As is well known, Assyria rose to the rank of major protagonist of the political scene of the Near... more INTRODUCTION.
As is well known, Assyria rose to the rank of major protagonist of the political scene of the Near East during the third quarter of the 2nd millennium specifically due to the vast military expansion that this polity undertook westwards in the Jezirah, as well as northwards in the Upper Tigris region. In the course of this enlargement of its territories, Assyria came to encompass what had once been the central territories of Mittani and in the course of time became known as the region of Ḫanigalbat, where it established a grid of administrative hubs and strongholds up to the natural border of the Euphrates. However, from the end of the 13th century BC onward, two separate, albeit closely spaced, phases of crisis came about, and these areas of Assyrian expansion were gradually relinquished, ready to fall prey to newer occupants. In the following pages, placing as central focus the times and occasions in which the armies of Assur attained the natural and mental frontier of the eastern bank of the Euphrates, I will discuss the transition into this overall period of decline for Assyria, on the basis of the relevant textual and archaeological materials which have become known in recent decades, and in the light of their ongoing interpretations.

Alle origini della traduzione di poesia: la bilingue assiro-aramaica di Tell Fekheriye

by Vermondo Brugnatelli

in: Franco Buffoni (a cura di), La traduzione del testo poetico, Milano 1989, 457-465.

[Paper in Italian] The bilingual inscription of Tell Felkeriye (in Assyrian and Aramaic) is a specimen of translation... more [Paper in Italian] The bilingual inscription of Tell Felkeriye (in Assyrian and Aramaic) is a specimen of translation of a literary composition in ancient times. Some considerations about the so called "Assyro-Aramean symbiosis".