Great Assyrian Kings

Ashurnasirpal II
The King of Assyria was also called King of the Universe and King of the Four Corners of the World. The first great Assyrian king, King Ashurnasirpal II (883 to 859 B.C.) moved the capital of Assyria to Nimrud in 879 B.C. and then to Nineveh in 863 B.C. Semiramis was an Assyrian queen renowned for her beauty.

Tiglath-Pileser II (745-727 B.C.) took Damascus and claimed Syria. Sargon II (722-705 B.C.) built a great palace north of Nineveh that covered 25 acres. It had 1,000 rooms, far exceeding anything built up to that time, and was flanked by a seven-story ziggurat. He also made Israel an Assyrian province and brought 30,000 Israelites (“The Lost Tribes of Israel”) into the central part of his empire.

Sennacherib (705 to 681 B.C.) expanded Ninevah, built three massive palaces, one with two miles of sculptured inner walls, and led a number of military campaigns. He destroyed Babylon, conquered Sidon in Phoenicia and invaded Judia and led attacks in the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean. His attack on Tyre was thwarted.

Sennacherib was the son of Sargon II. He is probably remembered most for his unsuccessful siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C. When the leader of Jerusalem Hezekiah said he was going to seek help from the Egyptians, the Assyrians, as recorded in the Bible’s Book of Kings replied: “Thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed [of] Egypt , in which if a man leans, it will go into his hands and pierce it: So is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust in him.” The siege was cut short, according to the Bible, by intervention by angels. The account of Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem was written on six-sided clay book. An inscription on a statue found in the doorway of Sennacherib’s throne room recounts a story of Biblical story of bribery, the first known independent written account corresponding to a story in the Bible.

Sennacherib advanced into Egypt in 701 B.C. but was stopped by a Nubian army. After the failed siege to Jerusalem her returned to Assyria in disgrace and was murdered 18 years later, reportedly by his own sons. He was succeeded by Esarhaddon (681-668 B.C.) of Assyrian sacked Memphis in Egypt in 671 B.C. and conquered lower Egypt.

The last great Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (668-626 B.C.) defeated the Elamites in the east and extended the Assyrian empire to its greatest extent. He was first trained for priestly position and only made king after his elder brother was kidnapped and killed by the Babylonians . He was unique among rulers in ancient Mesopotamia in that could read and write and seems to have enjoyed literature and was proud of his literacy. He founded the world’s first serious library. Archaeologists found the library and unearthed good copies of the epic of Gilgamesh and Mesopotamia poetry there.

Websites on Mesopotamia: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; International Association for Assyriology iaassyriology.com ; Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago isac.uchicago.edu ; University of Chicago Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations nelc.uchicago.edu ; University of Pennsylvania Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations (NELC) nelc.sas.upenn.edu; Penn Museum Near East Section penn.museum; Ancient History Encyclopedia ancient.eu.com/Mesopotamia ; British Museum britishmuseum.org ; Louvre louvre.fr/en/explore ; Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org/toah ; Ancient Near Eastern Art Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org; Iraq Museum theiraqmuseum ABZU etana.org/abzubib; Archaeology Websites Archaeology News Report archaeologynewsreport.blogspot.com ; Anthropology.net anthropology.net : archaeologica.org archaeologica.org ; Archaeology in Europe archeurope.com ; Archaeology magazine archaeology.org ; HeritageDaily heritagedaily.com; Live Science livescience.com/

List of Rulers of Assyria

Shalmaneser III

Old Assyrian dynasty:
Shamshi-Adad: 1813–1781 B.C.;
Dynasty of Mari: Zimri-Lim: 1775 B.C.

Middle Assyrian dynasty:
Ashur-uballit I: 1365–1330 B.C.;
Enlil-nirari: 1329–1320 B.C.;
Adad-nirari I: 1307–1275 B.C.;
Tukulti-Ninurta I: 1244–1208 B.C.;
Ashur-dan I: 1179–1134 B.C.;
Tiglath-pileser I: 1114–1076 B.C.;
Ashur-bel-kala: 1073–1056 B.C.

Neo-Assyrian dynasty:
Ashurnasirpal II: 883–859 B.C.;
Shalmaneser III: 858–824 B.C.;
Shamshi-Adad V: 823–811 B.C.;
Adad-nirari III: 810–783 B.C.;
Shalmaneser IV: 782–773 B.C.;
Ashur-dan III: 772–755 B.C.;
Ashur-nirari V: 754–745 B.C.;
Tiglath-pileser III: 745–727 B.C.;
Shalmaneser V: 726–722 B.C.;
Sargon II: 721–705 B.C.;
Sennacherib: 704–681 B.C.;
Esarhaddon: 680–669 B.C.;
Ashurbanipal: 668–627 B.C.;
Ashur-etel-ilani: 626–623 B.C.;
Sin-shar-ishkun: 622–612 B.C.;
Ashur-uballit II: 611–609 B.C.;
Mesopotamia United [Source: Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. "List of Rulers of Mesopotamia", Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/meru/hd_meru.htm (October 2004)

Semiramis, Legendary Queen of Babylon

Semiramis is the only woman to have ruled the Assyrian Empire. The details of her rule are scarce but that didn’t stop writers and painters from the Greco-Roman era to the 19th century from making her a legendary figure.Marcos Such Gutiérrez wrote in National Geographic History: Female rulers in ancient Mesopotamia were rare. But those who did rule made their mark on history. In the Neo-Assyrian regime of the ninth century B.C., one woman commanded an entire empire stretching from Asia Minor to what is today western Iran. She was Sammu-ramat, thought to mean “high heaven.” Her five-year rule, while brief, appears to have inspired long-lasting respect among her subjects and the world. [Source: Marcos Such Gutiérrez, National Geographic History, September 12, 2017]

Centuries after her reign, Greek writers, and historians focused on Sammu-ramat and her achievements. They hellenized her name to Semiramis. From here, the Assyrian queen passed from the world of facts into the realm of legend. Some cast her as a beautiful femme fatale in a tragic love story. Classical authors attributed great accomplishments to Semiramis: commander of armies, and builder of the walls of Babylon and monuments throughout her empire.

Her allure did not diminish with time. She later inspired the Italian medieval poet Dante, who placed her in his Inferno where she is punished for her “sensual vices.” The French Enlightenment writer Voltaire wrote a tragedy about her, which was later made into Rossini’s 1823 opera, Semiramide.

Truth About Semiramis

Marcos Such Gutiérrez wrote in National Geographic History: Archaeologists have found four principal artifacts that offer at least some evidence to piece together her biography. In the ancient city of Nimrud (in modern-day Iraq), two statues dedicated to Nabu, the Babylonian god of knowledge and writing, mention her name. There are also two stelae, one from Kizkapanli, a town in present-day Turkey, and the other from Assur in Iraq, that mention her. Taken together, the four inscriptions establish at least the bare bones of her story: The queen definitely lived in the Assyrian Empire between the ninth and eighth centuries B.C., was married to King Shamshi-Adad V, who reigned from 823 to 811 B.C., and was the mother of King Adad-nirari III. [Source: Marcos Such Gutiérrez, National Geographic History, September 12, 2017]

With these key facts in place, historians have formed a clearer idea of her significance, and know that she entered Assyrian history at a critical moment for the empire. Her husband was the grandson of Assyria’s great ruler,Ashurnasirpal II. The empire that Ashurnasirpal II’s grandson inherited may have been stable and wealthy, but it did not stay that way for long. King -Shamshi-Adad V appears to have spent a great deal of -resources in defeating his rebellious elder brother, who wanted to take the throne. By the time Shamshi-Adad died in 811 B.C., the empire was financially and politically weakened. His young son, Adad-nirari III, was too young to rule. It would be left to Queen Sammu-ramat to restore stability to Assyria through her regency.

Although the four main sources do not spell out whether she claimed the regency, the inscriptions make it clear that Sammu-ramat exercised a degree of political power—unlike that of any other woman in the history of Mesopotamia. The stela from the city of Kizkapanli, for -example, mentions that the queen accompanied her son when he crossed the Euphrates River to fight against the king of the Assyrian city of Arpad. Her presence was unusual for the time, and the fact that the stela bothers to mention her participation gives Sammu-ramat’s actions a strong degree of honor and respect.

By the time Adad-nirari III came of age (he would reign until 783 B.C.), Sammu-ramat had impressed her subjects with her strength and steadiness, as the stela at Assur shows. Its inscription places her almost on a par with male rulers and is dedicated to “Sammu-ramat, Queen of Shamshi-Adad, King of the Universe, King of Assyria; Mother of Adad-nirari, King of the Universe, King of Assyria.”

Legend of Semiramis

Marcos Such Gutiérrez wrote in National Geographic History: After Sammu-ramat’s death, her name seems to have echoed down through the generations. In the fifth century B.C. the great classical historian Herodotus perpetuated the memory of this queen using the Greek form of her name: Semiramis. It is by this name that she is best known today. It was Diodorus Siculus, a Greek scholar writing in the Roman world of Julius Caesar and Augustus, who solidified much of Semiramis’s legend. His colossal, semi-historical work Bibliotheke surveys events from creation myths to his own day and age. In it he offers a detailed, if somewhat fantastic, narrative of the Assyrian queen. Some of Diodorus Siculus’s work is based on a previous, now lost text by Ctesias of Cnidus, a Greek doctor who had served the Persian court in the fourth century B.C. [Source: Marcos Such Gutiérrez, National Geographic History, September 12, 2017]

According to Diodorus, Semiramis was born in Ashkelon (in present-day Israel), the fruit of a pairing between the Syrian goddess Derceto (a local version of the Phoenician goddess Astarte and the Babylonian Ishtar) and a young Syrian man. Ashamed of the relationship, the goddess abandoned the baby girl, who at first was cared for by doves. Later, the chief shepherd of the king of Assyria ended up adopting the child and giving her the name Semiramis. Semiramis grew into a young woman of extraordinary beauty. The royal governor of the province of Syria, named Onnes, was struck by her beauty when he met her while inspecting the royal flocks. Onnes obtained her adoptive father’s consent to marry her. After the wedding, he took Semiramis with him to Nineveh. Later, Onnes was sent to besiege the city of Bactra in central Asia. Missing his wife, he asked that she come to join him there. Not only did Semiramis travel to this remote spot to be with her husband, she also came up with a winning strategy that made the besieged city surrender.

"Great Semiramis, Queen of Assyria" by Cesare Saccaggi.

When he learned of this amazing feat, the Assyrian king wanted to meet the heroine and had her brought before him. According to Diodorus Siculus, the king’s name was Ninus (Nineveh was supposedly named after him). Ninus fell in love with Semiramis at first sight and ordered Onnes to trade his wife for one of Ninus’s daughters. Onnes boldly refused but was subjected to so many threats by King Ninus that he finally committed suicide. The widowed Semiramis married Ninus and became the queen of Assyria.

Within a few years of the marriage, King Ninus died. At this point, Diodorus Siculus’s version of the queen’s life converges with her historical one: Semiramis took personal charge of the government, acting as regent to her son, who was still a child.According to the Greek historians, the new queen’s ambitious building projects earned admiration for her rule. Setting out to emulate the agenda of her late husband, she is said to have ordered a new city to be built on the banks of the Euphrates—-Babylon. Diodorus Siculus even suggests that Semiramis erected not only the city but also its other features: the royal palace, the temple of Marduk, and the city walls. Other Greco-Roman authors, including Strabo, claimed that Semiramis had been behind the fabulous hanging gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The historical evidence in no way supports their claims.

Diodorus Siculus tells how, after the construction of Babylon, Semiramis launched several military campaigns to quash uprisings in Persia to the east and in Libya in North Africa. Later, Semiramis organized the most notable and difficult campaign of all: an invasion of India. But despite her careful planning, the invasion was a disaster, and the queen was injured.During her campaign in Africa, Semiramis had stopped in Egypt and consulted the oracle of the god Amun, which prophesied that her son Ninias would conspire against her and kill her. Following the failed conquest in India, the prophecy came true. According to Diodorus, Semiramis’s son Ninias was plotting against her to seize the throne. But in this telling of her life, she wisely decided not to fight her son. Instead she peacefully ceded power to him.

Other histories provide different endings. The first-century A.D. Roman author Gaius Julius Hyginus tells that the legendary queen killed herself by throwing herself onto a burning pyre. Third-century Roman historian Justin claimed that Semiramis was indeed killed by her son. The legend of Semiramis presents clear parallels with other ancient myths from antiquity. Her divine origins echo that of heroes such as Hercules. Her abandonment as a baby is reminiscent of the story told of the infancy of King Sargon of Akkad, as well as the biblical Book of Exodus, in which Moses is abandoned as a baby and found by the daughter of the pharaoh. Semiramis’s consultation of Amun and her attempt to invade India, were both exploits that Alexander the Great undertook, tales very familiar to Diodorus.

Herodotus on Semiramis

Herodotus wrote in 430 B.C.: “Many sovereigns have ruled over this city of Babylon, and lent their aid to the building of its walls and the adornment of its temples, of whom I shall make mention in my Assyrian history. Among them two were women. Of these, the earlier, called Semiramis, held the throne five generations before the later princess. She raised certain embankments well worthy of inspection, in the plain near Babylon, to control the river, which, till then, used to overflow, and flood the whole country round about. I.185: The later of the two queens, whose name was Nitocris, a wiser princess than her predecessor, not only left behind her, as memorials of her occupancy of the throne, the works which I shall presently describe, but also, observing the great power and restless enterprise of the Medes, who had taken so large a number of cities, and among them Nineveh, and expecting to be attacked in her turn, made all possible exertions to increase the defenses of her empire. [Source: Herodotus, “The History”, translated by George Rawlinson, (New York: Dutton & Co., 1862]

Rossini's Semiramide in Paris 1825

“And first, whereas the river Euphrates, which traverses the city, ran formerly with a straight course to Babylon, she, by certain excavations which she made at some distance up the stream, rendered it so winding that it comes three several times in sight of the same village, a village in Assyria, which is called Ardericea; and to this day, they who would go from our sea to Babylon, on descending to the river touch three times, and on three different days, at this very place. She also made an embankment along each side of the Euphrates, wonderful both for breadth and height, and dug a basin for a lake a great way above Babylon, close alongside of the stream, which was sunk everywhere to the point where they came to water, and was of such breadth that the whole circuit measured four hundred and twenty furlongs. The soil dug out of this basin was made use of in the embankments along the waterside. When the excavation was finished, she had stones brought, and bordered with them the entire margin of the reservoir. These two things were done, the river made to wind, and the lake excavated, that the stream might be slacker by reason of the number of curves, and the voyage be rendered circuitous, and that at the end of the voyage it might be necessary to skirt the lake and so make a long round. All these works were on that side of Babylon where the passes lay, and the roads into Media were the straightest, and the aim of the queen in making them was to prevent the Medes from holding intercourse with the Babylonians, and so to keep them in ignorance of her affairs. I.186:

“While the soil from the excavation was being thus used for the defense of the city, Nitocris engaged also in another undertaking, a mere by-work compared with those we have already mentioned. The city, as I said, was divided by the river into two distinct portions. Under the former kings, if a man wanted to pass from one of these divisions to the other, he had to cross in a boat; which must, it seems to me, have been very troublesome. Accordingly, while she was digging the lake, Nitocris be. thought herself of turning it to a use which should at once remove this inconvenience, and enable her to leave another monument of her reign over Babylon. She gave orders for the hewing of immense blocks of stone, and when they were ready and the basin was excavated, she turned the entire stream of the Euphrates into the cutting, and thus for a time, while the basin was filling, the natural channel of the river was left dry. Forthwith she set to work, and in the first place lined the banks of the stream within the city with quays of burnt brick, and also bricked the landing-places opposite the river-gates, adopting throughout the same fashion of brickwork which had been used in the town wall; after which, with the materials which had been prepared, she built, as near the middle of the town as possible, a stone bridge, the blocks whereof were bound together with iron and lead. In the daytime square wooden platforms were laid along from pier to pier, on which the inhabitants crossed the stream; but at night they were withdrawn, to prevent people passing from side to side in the dark to commit robberies. When the river had filled the cutting, and the bridge was finished, the Euphrates was turned back again into its ancient bed; and thus the basin, transformed suddenly into a lake, was seen to answer the purpose for which it was made, and the inhabitants, by help of the basin, obtained the advantage of a bridge. I.187:

“It was this same princess by whom a remarkable deception was planned. She had her tomb constructed in the upper part of one of the principal gateways of the city, high above the heads of the passers by, with this inscription cut upon it: "If there be one among my successors on the throne of Babylon who is in want of treasure, let him open my tomb, and take as much as he chooses---not, however, unless he be truly in want, for it will not be for his good." This tomb continued untouched until Darius came to the kingdom. To him it seemed a monstrous thing that he should be unable to use one of the gates of the town, and that a sum of money should be lying idle, and moreover inviting his grasp, and he not seize upon it. Now he could not use the gate, because, as he drove through, the dead body would have been over his head. Accordingly he opened the tomb; but instead of money, found only the dead body, and a writing which said: "Had you not been insatiate of money, and careless how you got it, you would not have broken open the sepulchers of the dead." I.188:

Tiglathpileser I c. 1115–1077 B.C.)

Tiglath-Pileser I (c. 1115–1077 B.C.) reestablished Assyria's military reputation and, while respecting the common frontier with Babylonia in the south, and holding off the warlike mountaineers on Assyria's eastern and northern borders, laid the foundations for her "manifest destiny" — expansion to the west. An Assyrian campaign down the Tigris to the Babylonian frontier and then up the Euphrates and Khabur rivers to rejoin the Tigris north of Ashur had become an annual event by the time of Tukulti-Ninurta II (890–884); the petty chieftains of the Arameo-Hittite lands west of Assyria learned to expect swift retribution if they did not pay the tribute exacted on these expeditions. [Source: Aaron Skaist, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2005, Encyclopedia.com]

Morris Jastrow said: “As a counterpart to Sargon in the south, we have Tiglathpileser I. in the north (ca. 1130-1100 B.C.). He succeeded in quelling the opposition of the Hittites, carried his triumphant arms to the Mediterranean coast, entered into relations with Egypt, as some of the Kassite rulers had done centuries before, and for a time held in check Babylonia, now again ruled by native kings. Like Sargon’s conquests, the glory of the new empire of Tiglath-Pileser was of short duration. Even before his death there were indications of threatened trouble. For about two centuries Assyria was partially eclipsed, after which the kings of Assyria, supported by large standing armies, bear, without interruption till the fall of Nineveh in 606 B.C., the proud title of “King of Universal Rule,” which, as we have seen, took the place of the Babylonian “King of the Four Regions.” [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911]

“Though “Aramaean” hordes (perhaps identical with Amorites, or a special branch of the latter) continue to give Assyrian rulers, from time to time, considerable trouble, they are, however, held in check until in the reign of Ashumasirpal (884-860 B.C.) their power is effectually broken. This energetic ruler and his successors push on to the north and north-west into the indefinite district known as Nairi, as well as to the west and south-west. Once more the Mediterranean coast is reached, and at a pass on the Nahr-el-Kelb (the “Dog” river) outside of Beirut, Ashurnasirpal and his son Shalmaneser II. (860-824 B.C.) set up images of themselves with records of their achievements.

“We are reaching the period when Assyria begins to interfere with the internal affairs of the Hebrew kingdoms in Palestine. Another century, and the northern kingdom (722 B.C.) falls a prey to Assyria’s insatiable greed of empire. Babylonia, reduced to playing the ignoble part of fomenting trouble for Assyria, succeeds in keeping Assyrian armies well occupied, and so wards off the time of her own humiliation. Compelled to acknowledge the superiority of her northern rival in various ways, Babylonia exhausts the patience of Assyrian rulers, to whose credit it must be said that they endeavoured to make their yoke as light as was consistent with their dignity. The consideration that rulers like Sargon of Assyria (721-705 B.C.) showed for the time-honoured prestige of the south was repaid by frequent attempts to throw off the hated yoke, light though it was.”

Tiglathpileser I Inscription

Tiglathpileser I ruled the Assyrian Empire from 1115-1077 B.C.. In this inscription he describes his conquests. “Tiglath-pileser, the powerful king, king of hosts, who has no rival, king of the four quarters (of the world), king of all rulers, lord of lords, king of kings; the lofty prince . . . who rules over the nations, the legitimate shepherd whose name is exalted above all rulers; the lofty judge, whose weapons Ashur has sharpened, and whose name, as ruler over the four quarters (of the world), he has proclaimed forever; the conqueror of distant lands, which form the boundaries on north and south; the brilliant day, whose splendor overthrows the world's regions; the terrible, destroying flame, which like the rush of the storm sweeps over the enemy's country; who . . . has no adversary, and overthrows the foes of Ashur. [Source: R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Literature (New York; D. Appleton, 1904) pp. 12-14. Reprinted in Marvin Peryy, Joseph R. Peden and Theodore H. Von Laue, eds., Sources of the Western Tradition, Vol. I: From Ancient Times to the Enlightenment, 2nd ed., (Boston; Houghton Mifflin, 1991) pp. 20-21]

Tiglathpileser I

“Ashur and the great gods who have enlarged my kingdom, who have given me strength and power as my portion, commanded me to extend the territory of their (the gods') country, putting into my hand their powerful weapons, the cyclone of battle. I subjugated lands and mountains, cities and their rulers, enemies of Ashur, and conquered their territories. With sixty kings I fought, spreading terror (among them), and achieved a glorious victory over them. A rival in combat, or an adversary in battle, I did not have. To Assyria I added more land, to its people I added more people, enlarging the boundaries of my land and conquering all (neighboring?) territories.

“In the beginning of my government, five kings . . . with an army of twenty thousand men . . . — and whose power no king had ever broken and overcome in battle — trusting to their strength rushed down and conquered the land of Qummuh (Commagene). With the help of Ashur, my lord, I gathered my war chariots and assembled my warriors; I made no delay, but traversed Kashiari, an almost impassable region. I waged battle in Qummuh with these five kings and their twenty thousand soldiers and accomplished their defeat. Like the Thunderer (the storm god Adad) I crushed the corpses of their warriors in the battle that caused their overthrow. I made their blood to flow over all the ravines and high places of mountains. I cut off their heads and piled them up at the walls of their cities like heaps of grain. I carried off their booty, their goods, and their property beyond reckoning. Six thousand, the rest of their troops, who had fled before my weapons and had thrown themselves at my feet, I took away as prisoners and added to the people of my country.

“At that time I marched also against the people of Qummuh, who had become unsubmissive, withholding the tax and tribute due to Ashur, my lord. I conquered Qummuh to its whole extent, and carried off their booty, their goods, and their property; I burned their cities with fire, destroyed, and devastated.

Assur-nasir-pal (prob. r. 883 to 858 B.C.)

Concerning Assur-nasir-habal or Assur-nasir-pal (i.e., "Assur preserves the son") we possess fuller historical records than of any other of the Assyrian monarchs. From the inscription upon his statue discovered the ruins of one of the Nimroud temples, we learn that he was the son of Tuklat-Adar or Tuklat-Ninip, that he reigned over a territory extending from the "Tigris to the Lebanon, and that he brought the great sea and all countries from the sunrise to the sunset under his sway." [Source: "Babylonian and Assyrian Literature", Translator: Rev. J. M. Rodwell, M.A., Publisher: P. F. Collier & Son, New York,, 1901]

There is considerable difficulty and a consequent divergence of opinion as to the precise date when Assur-nasir-pal ascended the throne. But he most probably reigned from 883 to 858 B.C. It need scarcely be remarked that Assur-nasir-pal is a different person from the well-known Sardanapalus of classic writers, or Assur-bani-pal, the son of Esar-haddon, who reigned from about B.C. 668 to 625.

From the inscription on his statue we see that the campaigns of Assur-nasir-pal took place in the mountains of Armenia, in Commagene and the provinces of the Pontus, inhabited by the Moschi and other tribes. He probably advanced into Media and a portion of western Persia. The countries on the banks of the Euphrates submitted to his arms, and in one of his expeditions he vanquished Nabu-bal-iddin, King of Babylon. Westward, he reduced the southern part of Syria, and advanced to the mountain chains of the Amanus and Lebanon, but though he penetrated as far as to Tyre and Sidon and exacted tribute from both as well as from Byblus and Aradus, he did not subdue Phoenicia. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah, under the sway of Ahab and Jehosaphat, were no doubt too powerful, as is evinced by the armies which they must have maintained for their struggle with the Syrians, for Assur-nasir-pal to have ventured upon attacking them. This feat was reserved for his successors on the throne of Assyria.

Annals of Assur-nasir-pal

Column 1 of the Annals of Assur-nasir-pal, written on his statue at one of the Nimroud temples, reads: To Ninip most powerful hero, great, chief of the gods, warrior, powerful Lord, whose onset in battle has not been opposed, eldest son,
crusher of opponents, first-born son of Nukimmut, supporter of the seven, noble ruler, King of the gods the producers, governor, he who rolls along the mass
of heaven and earth, opener of canals, treader of the wide earth, the god who in his divinity nourishes heaven and earth, the beneficent,
the exalted, the powerful, who has not lessened the glory of his face, head of nations, bestower of sceptres, glorious, over all cities a ruler,
valiant, the renown of whose sceptre is not approached, chief of widespread influence, great among the gods, shading from the southern sun, Lord of Lords, whose hand the vault of heaven
(and) earth has controlled, a King in battle mighty who has vanquished opposition, victorious, powerful, Lord of water-courses and seas,
strong, not yielding, whose onset brings down the green corn, smiting the land of the enemy, like the cutting of reeds, the deity who changes not his purposes,
the light of heaven and earth, a bold leader on the waters, destroyer of them that hate (him), a spoiler (and) Lord of the disobedient, dividing enemies, whose name in the speech of the gods... [Source: "Babylonian and Assyrian Literature", Translator: Rev. J. M. Rodwell, M.A., Publisher: P. F. Collier & Son, New York,, 1901]

King of multitudes, a Prince unequalled, Lord of all the four countries, powerful over hosts of men, the possession of Bel and Ninip the exalted and Anu
and of Dakan, a servant of the great gods in the lofty shrine for great (O Ninip) is thy heart; a worshipper of Bel whose might upon
thy great deity is founded, and thou makest righteous his life, valiant, warrior, who in the service of Assur his Lord hath proceeded, and among the Kings
of the four regions who has not his fellow, a Prince for admiration, not sparing opponents, mighty leader, who an equal
has not, a Prince reducing to order his disobedient ones, who has subdued whole multitudes of men, a strong worker, treading down
the heads of his enemies, trampling on all foes, crushing assemblages of rebels, who in the service of the great gods his Lords
marched vigorously and the lands of all of them his hand captured, caused the forests of all of them to fall, and received their tribute, taking
securities, establishing laws over all lands, when Assur the Lord who proclaims my name and augments my Royalty
laid hold upon his invincible power for the forces of my Lordship, for Assur-nasir-pal, glorious Prince, worshipper of the great gods
the generous, the great, the powerful, acquirer of cities and forests and the territory of all of them, King of Lords, destroying the wicked, strengthening

Shalmaneser III

Aaron Skaist wrote in the Encyclopaedia Judaica Under Shalmaneser III (858–824), the Assyrian policy took on all the earmarks of a grand design. The repeated hammer blows of his armies were directed with an almost single-minded dedication and persistence against Assyria's western neighbors and brought about the first direct contact between Assyria and Israel. The battle of Karkar in 853 pitted Shalmaneser against a grand coalition of Western states, including Israelites, Arameans, Cilicians, Egyptians, Arabians, Ammorites, and Phoenicians. King Ahab of Israel contributed significantly to the infantry and more especially the chariotry on the allied side, which held the Assyrians to a draw if it did not actually defeat them. Ahab died within the year, but the coalition survived with minor changes, and met Shalmaneser four more times (849, 848, 845, and 841). [Source: Aaron Skaist, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2005, Encyclopedia.com]

Only after the last of these encounters could the Assyrian king truthfully claim the submission of the western states, and the triumphal march across the now prostrate westland by "Shalman" (i.e., Shalmaneser) was recalled more than a century later in the first explicit, if elliptic, biblical reference to an Assyrian king (Hos. 10:14) other than the legendary Nimrod. The extinction of the Israelite house of Omri ensued in the same year, together with the accession of Jehu in Israel, the Omride Queen Athaliah in Judah, and Hazael in Damascus. The prompt submission of Jehu and other kings is graphically depicted on Shalmaneser's Black Obelisk which conceivably preserves not only the first but the only contemporary pictorial representation of an Israelite figure known from the Bible.

Shalmaneser's reign nevertheless ended in disaster. His last six years (827–822) were marked by revolts at home and the loss of all his western conquests abroad, and not until 805 did Assyria reassert itself there. It was Adadnirâri III (810–783) who, by relieving the Aramean pressure, was regarded as a veritable deliverer in Israel (II Kings 13:5), and his stele from Tell al-Rimah records the grateful tribute of Jehoash of Israel (797–82) among others. However, Assyria was not yet strong enough to reclaim its western conquests. Urartu (biblical Ararat), a state based around Lake Van in the later Armenia, rallied the remnants of the Hurrian populations who had fled upper Mesopotamia in the wake of the mass migrations at the end of the Bronze Age, and now sought to restore its influence in Northern Syria. Throughout the first half of the eighth century, Assyrians, Arameans, and Urartians thus fought each other to a standstill in Syria while the Divided Monarchy briefly regained the economic strength and territorial extent of the Solomonic kingdom. Israelite tradition reflected the memory of these four decades of her resurgence and Assyrian weakness by attaching the legend of the near-collapse of Nineveh to Jonah, a prophetic contemporary of Jeroboam II (793–753; sole rule 781–53) or, conversely, by assigning the Jonah of legend to the reign of Jeroboam (II Kings 14:25).

Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (d. 823 B.C.)

Shalmaneser III

Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (d. 823 B.C.) is a five-foot-high bacl marble obelisk found by the archaeologist Austen Henry Layard in the centre of the Mound at Nimrod, and now is in the British Museum. Each of its four sides is divided into five compartments of sculpture representing the tribute brought to the Assyrian King by vassal princes, with Jehu of Israel being among them.Shalmaneser, whose annals and conquests are recorded upon it, was the son of Assur-natsir-pal, and died in 823 B.C.. after a reign of thirty-five years. The Shalmaneser here has been renumbered as III rather than II. [Source: British Museum]

Face A reads: [Source: 1] Assur, the great Lord, the King of all
[2] the great gods; Anu, King of the spirits of heaven
[3] and the spirits of earth, the god, Lord of the world; Bel
[4] the Supreme, Father of the gods, the Creator;
[5] Hea, King of the deep, determiner of destinies,
[6] the King of crowns, drinking in brilliance;
[7] Rimmon, the crowned hero, Lord of canals; the Sun-god
[8] the Judge of heaven and earth, the urger on of all;
[9] (Merodach), Prince of the gods, Lord of battles; Adar, the terrible,
[10] (Lord) of the spirits of heaven and the spirits of earth, the exceeding strong god; Nergal,
[11] the powerful (god), King of the battle; Nebo, the bearer of the high sceptre,
[12] the god, the Father above; Beltis, the wife of Bel, mother of the (great) gods;
[13] Istar, sovereign of heaven and earth, who the face of heroism perfectest;
[14] the great (gods), determining destinies, making great my kingdom.
[15] (I am) Shalmaneser, King of multitudes of men, prince (and) hero of Assur, the strong King,
[16] King of all the four zones of the Sun (and) of multitudes of men, the marcher over
[17] the whole world; Son of Assur-natsir-pal, the supreme hero, who his heroism over the gods
[18] has made good and has caused all the world to kiss his feet;

Face B reads:
[Source: 19] the noble offspring of Tiglath-Adar
[20] who has laid his yoke upon all lands hostile to him, and
[21] has swept (them) like a whirlwind.
[22] At the beginning of my reign, when on the throne
[23] of royalty mightily I had seated myself, the chariots
[24] of my host I collected. Into the lowlands of the country of 'Sime'si
[25] I descended. The city of Aridu, the strong city
[26] of Ninni, I took. In my first year
[27] the Euphrates in its flood I crossed. To the sea of the setting sun
[28] I went. My weapons on the sea I rested. Victims
[29] for my gods I took. To mount Amanus I went up.
[30] Logs of cedar-wood and pine-wood I cut. To
[31] the country of Lallar I ascended. An image of my Royalty in the midst (of it) I erected.
[32] In my second year to the city of Tel-Barsip I approached. The cities
[33] of Akhuni the son of Adin I captured. In his city I shut him up. The Euphrates
[34] in its flood I crossed. The city of Dabigu, a choice city of the Hittites
[35] together with the cities which (were) dependent upon it I captured. In my third year Akhuni
[36] the son of Adin, from the face of my mighty weapons fled, and the city of Tel-Barsip,

Palace of Sargon II

Face C reads:
[Source: 37] his royal city, he fortified. The Euphrates I crossed.
[38] The city unto Assyria I restored. I took it. (The town) which (is) on the further side
[39] of the Euphrates which (is) upon the river 'Sagurri, which the Kings
[40] of the Hittites call the city of Pitru,
[41] for myself I took. At my return
[42] into the lowlands of the country of Alzi I descended. The country of Alzi I conquered.
[43] The countries of Dayaeni (and) Elam, (and) the city of Arzascunu, the royal city
[44] of Arame of the country of the Armenians, the country of Gozan (and) the country of Khupuscia.
[45] During the eponymy of Dayan-Assur from the city of Nineveh I departed. The Euphrates
[46] in its upper part I crossed. After Akhuni the son of Adin I went.
[47] The heights on the banks of the Euphrates as his stronghold he made.
[48] The mountains I attacked, I captured. Akhuni with his gods, his chariots,
[49] his horses, his sons (and) his daughters I carried away. To my city Assur
[50] I brought (them). In that same year the country of Kullar I crossed. To the country of Zamua
[51] of Bit-Ani I went down. The cities of Nigdiara of the city of the Idians
[52] (and) Nigdima I captured. In my fifth year to the country of Kasyari I ascended.
[53] The strongholds I captured. Elkhitti of the Serurians (in) his city I shut up. His tribute
[54] to a large amount I received. In my sixth year to the cities on the banks of the river Balikhi

Tiglath-Pileser II

Tiglath-Pileser II(745-727 B.C.) took Damascus and claimed Syria.Aaron Skaist wrote in the Encyclopaedia Judaica: Tiglath-Pileser's first great campaign against the West (743–738 B.C.) involved organizing the nearer Syrian provinces under Assyrian administration, regulating the succession to the king's liking in a middle tier of states, and waging war against the more distant ones. The semiautonomous Assyrian pro-consulates were broken up into smaller administrative units, and their governors thereby deprived of the virtually sovereign power which the interval of royal weakness had allowed them to assume. The Urartians were conclusively driven out of northern Syria, and the northern and eastern frontiers were pacified (737–735 B.C.). [Source: Aaron Skaist, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2005, Encyclopedia.com]

The second great campaign to the west (734–732 B.C.) was in response to Judah's call for help according to II Kings 16:7 (cf. II Chron. 28:16) and reduced Israel to a mere fraction of its former size as more and more of the coastal and Transjordanian lands were incorporated in the growing empire or reduced to vassalage. If Israel was allowed to remain a vassal for now, it was because the king's attention was briefly diverted by the rebellion of Nabu-mukin-zeri (Mukin-zeri) in Babylonia (731–729 B.C.). When this was crushed, Tiglath-Pileser himself "seized the hands of Bel," that is, he led the statue of Bel (Marduk) in procession in the gesture of legitimation and ostensible submission to the Marduk priesthood that was traditionally demanded of Babylonian kings. As the first Assyrian king who ventured to take this step since the ill-fated Tukulti-Ninurta i, he was duly enrolled in the Babylonian King List (see above) under his nickname of Pulu, a name that passed, more or less intact, also into the later biblical and Greek accoun I Chron. 5:26).

The first Neo-Babylonian ruler Nabonassar was but a minor figure until he enlisted the help of his greater Assyrian contemporary Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 B.C.) in his struggles against both Chaldeans and Arameans, the step proved as fateful as did that of Ahaz of Judah (735–716; sole ruler 731–716 B.C.) against the Syro-Ephraimite coalition. Tiglath-Pileser III was a usurper, the beneficiary of still another palace revolt that had unseated his weak predecessor. He and his first two successors changed the whole balance of power in the Near East, destroying Israel among many other states, and reducing the rest, including Judah, to vassalage. They found Assyria in a difficult, even desperate, military and economic situation, but during the next 40 years they recovered and consolidated its control of all its old territories and reestablished it firmly as the preeminent military and economic power in the Near East. Only the outlines of the process can be given here.

Sargon II

Sargon II (722-705 B.C.) built a great palace north of Nineveh that covered 25 acres. It had 1,000 rooms, far exceeding anything built up to that time, and was flanked by a seven-story ziggurat. He also made Israel an Assyrian province and brought 30,000 Israelites (“The Lost Tribes of Israel”) into the central part of his empire.

Aaron Skaist wrote in the Encyclopaedia Judaica: His short-lived successor, Shalmaneser V (726–722 B.C.), followed this example, reigning in Babylon as Ululaia, but left few records of his reign in Assyria. His greatest achievement was the capture of Samaria in 722 and the final incorporation of the Northern Kingdom into the Assyrian empire, but the event is better attested in the Babylonian Chronicle and the Bible (cf. especially II Kings 17:6; 18:10) than in the Assyrian annals. He is thoroughly overshadowed by his successor. [Source: Aaron Skaist, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2005, Encyclopedia.com]

Sargon II of Assyria (721–705 B.C.) took the name of the great founder of the Akkadian empire and lived up to it. He founded the last royal house of Assyria, called Sargonid after him. Perhaps the most militant of all the neo-Assyrian kings, he conducted a major campaign every single year of his reign (or had his annals edited to this effect); he frequently led the army in person and commissioned elaborate reports of his exploits en route in the form of "open letters" to the god Ashur; he even died in battle on his last campaign, a fate unknown for Mesopotamian kings since Ur-Namma of Ur. His major opponents were Merodach-Baladan II, the Chaldean who tenaciously fought for Babylonian independence; the Elamites, allied with Babylon at the great battle of Dêr before the Iranian foothills (720 B.C.); the supposedly impregnable island fortress of Tyre, which he finally reduced to submission; and Egypt, which for the first time was defeated by an Assyrian army and forced to pay tribute.

The rump kingdom of Judah was no match against a figure of this stature, and Ahaz wisely heeded Isaiah's counsels of caution. When the accession of Hezekiah (715–687 B.C.) restored the anti-Assyrian party in Judah, retribution was not slow in coming. In 712, Sargon dispatched his commander in chief (turtānu; cf. the tartan of Isa. 20:1) against Ashdod, a city allied with Judah, which was captured. The recent discovery of steles of Sargon at Ashdod, on the one hand, and in western Iran (Godin Tepe) on the other, typify the monarch's far-flung exploits, as does his death on the northern frontier.

Sennacherib

Sennacherib

The siege was cut short, according to the Bible, by intervention by angels. The account of Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem was written on six-sided clay book. An inscription on a statue found in the doorway of Sennacherib’s throne room recounts a story of Biblical story of bribery, the first known independent written account corresponding to a story in the Bible.

Ashurbanipal

Ashurbanipal (r.668-627 B.C.) was the ruler of ancient Assyria when it was at its military and cultural peak. David Giles of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga wrote: He is known in Greek writings as Sardanapalus and as Asnappeer or Osnapper in the Bible. Through military conquests Ashurbanipal also expanded Assyrian territory and its number of vassal states. However, of far greater importance to posterity was Ashurbanipal's establishment of a great library in the city of Nineveh. The military and territorial gains made by this ruler barely outlived him but the Library he established has survived partially intact. [Source: David Giles, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Library of King Ashurbanipal Web Page]

Ashurbanipal by George Stuart

Morris Jastrow said: “Shortly before the end, however, Assyria witnessed the most brilliant reign in her history—that of Ashurbanapal (668-626 B.C.)who was destined to realise the dreams of his predecessors, Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon; of whom all four had been fired with the ambition to make Assyria the mistress of the world. Their reigns were spent in carrying on incessant warfare in all directions. During Ashurbanapal’s long reign, Babylonia endured the humiliation of being governed by Assyrian princes. The Hittites no longer dared to organise revolt, Phoenicia and Palestine acknowledged the sway of Assyria, and the lands to the east and northeast were kept in submission. From Susa, the capital of Elam, Ashurbanapal carried back in triumph a statue of Nana,—the Ishtar of Uruk,—which had been captured over 1600 years before, and—greatest triumph of all—the Assyrian standards were planted on the banks of the Nile, though the control of Egypt, as was soon shown, was more nominal than real. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911]

“Thus the seed of dominating imperialism, planted by the old Sargon of Agade, had borne fruit. But the spirit of Hammurabi, too, hovered over Assyria. Ashurbanapal was more than a conqueror. Like Hammurabi, he was a promoter of culture and learning. It is to him that we owe practically all that has been preserved of the literature produced in Babylonia. Recognising that the greatness of the south lay in her intellectual prowess, in the civilisation achieved by her and transferred to Assyria, he sent scribes to the archives, gathered in the temple-schools of the south, and had copies made of the extensive collections of omens, oracles, hymns, incantations, medical series, legends, myths, and religious rituals of all kinds that had accumulated in the course of many ages. Only a portion, alas! of the library has been recovered through the excavations of Layard and Rassam (1849-1854) and their successors on the site of Ashurbanapal’s palace at Nineveh in which the great collection was stored.”

Ashurnasirpal II

Ashurnasirpal II was a flamboyant monarch who built a magnificent palace at Nimrud in the early ninth century B.C. This event is commemorated by the famous Banquet Stela, which recorded thousands of guests and a celebration that lasted for 10 days. Ashurnasirpal II stabilized the empire, putting down revolts with a degree of violence and cruelty that he boasted about. One inscription tells of the retribution he took against rebels in on city of his empire: I had a column built at the city gate and I flayed all the leaders who had rebelled and I covered the column with their skins. Some, I impaled upon the column on stakes and others I bound to stakes around it. [Source: Marcos Such Gutiérrez, National Geographic History, September 12, 2017]

The Banquet Stele of Assurnasirpal II was found in Nimrud and is written in the Akkadian language. It currently resides the Mosul Museum in Iraq, which was savagely destroyed by the Islamic State extremist group. Eva Miller of the University of Oxford wrote: “The Banquet Stele of Assurnasirpal II records the ninth century Neo-Assyrian king's renovation of the city of Kalhu (modern-day Nimrud), which he made his capital. It boasts of the lavish palace and gardens he built, the restoration of temples, and the resettlement and rejuvenation of surrounding towns. The 'banquet' moniker derives from its most unique claim: that in 879 B.C., Assurnasirpal II celebrated his new capital with a lavish feast at which he served 69574 people–male and female, local and foreign envoy–with an obscene amount of meat, poultry, vegetables, and alcohol. This number seems impossibly high, and was likely a typically bombastic royal exaggeration. All the same, this is good evidence that luxurious mass public feasting was one possible feature of royal events.

Assyrian leaders were infamous for their boasting. The Banquet of Ashurnasirpal II account comes from the Royal Archives of Assyria and dates from the seventh century B.C. The speaker is the Emperor Ashurnasirpal (883-859 B.C.) displaying his royal power. The feast was held to commemorate the inauguration of his new palace in the capital city of Calah. The text reads: “[This is] the palace of Ashurnasirpal, the high priest of Ashur, ... the legitimate king, the king of the world, the king of Assyria, ... the heroic warrior who always acts upon trust- inspiring signs given by his lord Ashur and [therefore] has no rival among the rulers of the four quarters [of the world]; the shepherd of all mortals, not afraid of battle [but] an onrushing flood which brooks no resistance; the king who subdues the unsubmissive [and] rules over all mankind; the king who always acts upon trust-inspiring signs given by his lords, the great gods, and therefore has personally conquered all countries; who has acquired dominion over the mountain regions and received their tribute; he takes hostages, triumphs over all the countries from beyond the Tigris to the Lebanon and the Great Sea, he has brought into submission the entire country of Laqe and the region of Suhu as far as the town of Rapiqu; personally he conquered [the region] from the source of the Subnat River to Urartu.... [Source: "The Banquet of Ashurnasipal II," translated by A. Leo Oppenheim, in “Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament,” 3rd ed. with Supplement, edited by James B. Pritchard, Princeton University Press, 1969, 558-561]

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu , National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, especially Merle Severy, National Geographic, May 1991 and Marion Steinmann, Smithsonian, December 1988, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated June 2024