Ashur, or “Assyria, (Old) Kingdom of”
State | Defunct
1813 BCE to 1365 BCE
Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is positively known.
Assyrian kings became subject to the Akkadian Empire from the late 24th century BC These kings, who dominated the region at some point during this period became fully urbanized and founded the city state of Ashur.The first written inscriptions by Assyrian kings appear in the mid 21st century BC.
Assyria then consisted of a number of city states and small Semitic Akkadian kingdoms.
The foundation of the first true urbanized Assyrian monarchy was traditionally ascribed to Ushpia a contemporary of Ishbi-Erra of Isin and Naplanum of Larsa circa 2030 BCE.
He was succeeded in succession by Apiashal, Sulili, Kikkiya and Akiya of whom nothing is yet known.
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Nineveh, strategically situated on the main river crossing in the fertile northern Mesopotamian plain, is mentioned about 1800 BCE as a center of worship of Ishtar, whose cult is responsible for the city's early importance.
Only intermittently governed by local rulers, Nineveh had been dominated in the third millennium BCE by the Agade and Ur empires, and will be dominated by the Mitanni and Kassite empires later in the second millennium.
The Assyrians had established additional trading colonies among the numerous native city-states of Cappadocia during the nineteenth century BCE, but political developments in Anatolia and Assyria in the mid-seventeenth century bring them all to an end as the Hittites begin to take over Anatolia and Assyria loses its independence to a dynasty of Amorite descent.
After an interval of abandonment of nearly four decades, the city of Kanesh had in 1798 been rebuilt over the ruins of the old, and has again become a prosperous trade center.
This trade had initially been under the control of Ishme-Dagan, who had been put in control of Assur when his father, the Amorite king Shamshi-Adad I, had conquered Ekallatum and Assur.
However, the colony is in 1740 BCE again destroyed by fire.
The cult of Marduk, Babylon’s chief deity, becomes important in the reign of Hammurabi.
The Enuma Elish, which represents the early roots of astrology based on celestial phenomena, recounts Marduk's rise to the top of the pantheon.
The son of Ea and Damkina, the immense god possessed of two heads and fiery breath, is dispatched by the other gods to do battle with Tiamat, the primordial dragon.
After killing her, Marduk creates earth, sea, and the heavens from her body.
From Tiamat's consort, Kingu, he fashions humankind.
Marduk then becomes the king of the gods.
Amorite Babylonian architecture is based on massive brick platforms elevated above the flood plain and often terraced to create the characteristic ziggurat form.
Babylon is one of the many city-states that dot the Mesopotamian plain and wage war on each other for control of fertile agricultural land.
Though many cultures co-exist in Mesopotamia, Babylonian culture had gained a degree of prominence among the literate classes throughout the Middle East.
Hammurabi, who ascends the Babylonian throne in 1728 BCE, subdues the other Mesopotamian cities and establishes an empire from the Persian Gulf to the north Euphrates, basing his code of laws on Sumerian cultural principles.
Shamshi-Adad, with the annexation of Mari, rules a large empire, controlling the whole of Upper Mesopotamia.
On inscriptions Shamshi-Adad boasts of erecting triumphal stelae on the coast of the Mediterranean, but these probably represent short expeditions rather than any attempts at conquest.
Shamshi-Adad also proclaims himself as "king of all", the title used by Sargon of Akkad.
His rise to glory natutrally has earned him the envy of neighboring kings and tribes, and he and his sons face several threats to their control throughout his reign.
Ishme-Dagan probably is a competent ruler but his brother Yasmah-Adad appears to have been a man of weak character.
Shamshi-Adad is a great organizer and he keeps a firm controls on all matters of state, from high policy down to the appointing of officials and the dispatching of provisions.
His campaigns are meticulously planned, and his army knows all the classic methods of siege craft, such as encircling ramparts and battering rams.
Spies and propaganda are often used to win over rival cities.
Hammurabi had used this time to undertake a series of public works, including heightening the city walls for defensive purposes, and expanding the temples.
He has strengthened old palaces and buildings and constructed new ones.
Hammurabi, the sixth king of Babylonia’s Amorite (or Old) dynasty, had inherited the throne from his father, Sin-muballit, in about 1792 BCE.
His predecessors had begun to consolidate rule of central Mesopotamia under Babylonian hegemony and, by the time of his reign, had conquered the city-states of Borsippa, Kish, and Sippar.
Thus Hammurabi had ascended to the throne as the king of a minor kingdom in the midst of a complex geopolitical situation, surrounded by the more powerful kingdoms of Shamshi-Adad, Larsa, Eshnunna, and Elam.
Shamshi-Addad’s next target is Mari, the city that controls the caravan route between Anatolia and Mesopotamia.
The king of Mari, Iakhdunlim, is assassinated by his own servants, possibly on Shamshi-Adad's orders.
Shamshi-Adad seizes the opportunity and occupies Mari.
The heir to the throne, Zimri-Lim, is forced to flee to Aleppo, ancient Yamkhad.
Here he puts his second son, Yasmah-Adad, on the throne, and then returns to Shubat-Enlil.