The four centuries separating Ashur-uballit from Ishme-Dagan constitute a badly attested phase of Assyrian history, both in terms of local inscriptions and external evidence. The kingdom was reduced to its core, with few opportunities for expansion. The rising kingdom of Mitanni reached Ashur and compromised the latter’s full independence. A certain degree of political continuity in the area is attested in the Assyrian King List. The latter continued to be updated for legitimacy purposes throughout this phase of usurpations and internal revolts. This political continuity is also attested in the sequence of eponyms, and in texts mentioning the kings’ restorations of Ashur’s temples. Alongside building programmes, there was considerable commercial activity, such as the relations between king Ashur-nadin-ahhe and Egypt. There were also military interventions, such as the establishment of the border with Kassite Babylonia under Puzur-Ashur and Ashur-bel-nisheshu. However, military endeavours initially ended up in Mitanni’s favour, which resulted in winning Washshukkanni the gold and silver gates of Ashur as booty.
During the reign of Ashur-uballit, Assyria suddenly rose out of this subordinate position, in a prodigious revival that could only be explained if we had more information on the events immediately preceding it (Figure 20.1). Suppiluliuma’s expedition had unwillingly subverted the already difficult relations between Assyria and Mitanni. This led to the latter’s collapse and the death of its king, Tushratta. Having seized the Mitannian throne through Hittite support, Artatama II eventually had to submit to the Assyrian king, Ashur-uballit, who was already powerful enough to pursue expansionistic campaigns in Upper Mesopotamia. Within a few years, Hanigalbat became the centre of a heated dispute over which power had to take over the gap left by Mitanni. Ashur-uballit’s plan to keep the area under control through Artatama was ruined by the campaign of Piyashshili and Shattiwaza against Artatama’s son. For now, this move benefited the branch of the Mitannian royal family supported by Hatti. Ashur-uballit still held control over the eastern side of Hanigalbat, closer to Assyria. However, for the time being, the Assyrian king did not try to do anything else.
Despite this setback, the energy with which Ashur-uballit and his ruling elite entered the international scene remains extraordinary. Before then, the Assyrian monarchy had experienced a long depression. Moreover, it was originally conceived as a form of subordination to its main city-god, with the king acting as a mere administrator and custodian on behalf of the god Ashur. All of a sudden, Ashur-uballit took on the title of ‘great king’, thus clearly stating his intention to enter the international scene as a major player. However, neither the other great kings nor their immediate successors recognised his title. This reaction
Instigated a long controversy that only the military superiority of Assyria would eventually bring to an end.
Apart from this new titulature, Assyria’s entrance in the network of international relations of the time is attested in two letters found in Amarna. The letters were written by the Assyrian king to Amenhotep IV in order to establish diplomatic and commercial relations with Egypt. In the first letter, the Assyrian king used a cautious and humble tone, as was appropriate for whoever wrote to someone one did not know, unaware of his customs and possible reactions. However, in the second letter, which followed the positive outcome of the first, Ashur-uballit already defined himself as great king. He also called the Egyptian king by name, and defined him a ‘brother’, the standard practice among kings of equal rank. The Assyrian king also began to make demands about the amount of gold he expected to receive, the timing of emissaries, and the efficiency of the system, which in his opinion was not enough even to repay the emissaries’ journeys.
Ashur-uballit had therefore managed to establish relations with Egypt. However, he had also shown a certain degree of tactlessness in his dealings, since he explicitly expressed his economic interests in this interaction. This aspect was in marked contrast with the diplomatic tone and customs of the great kings of the time. As soon as the Kassite king, Burna-Buriash, found out that the Egyptian king had established diplomatic relations with Ashur-uballit, Burna-Buriash wrote to the Egyptian king. In the letter, he claimed that the Assyrians were his subjects and that the Egyptian king could not bypass him in this way. Although this request was unrealistic, Burna-Buriash rightly stated that the Assyrians were simply after economic gains, and were inadequate for those ceremonial and diplomatic relations established among great kings. Therefore, the tactlessness of the Assyrians and their intrinsic interest in business affairs must have been an internationally renowned stereotype.
Egypt was a distant land and not particularly interested in the issues of status among Near Eastern kings, which were anyway considered inferior to the Egyptian kings. The real rivals of Ashur-uballit were the Hittites and the Kassites. As mentioned above, the Assyrians were openly at war with the Hittites, fighting for control over Hanigalbat. This contrasts with the fact that, despite the indignant reaction of Burna-Buriash over the rise of the Assyrian king as great king, the Assyrians and the Kassites managed to come to an agreement. Burna-Buriash’s son, Kara-hardash, married Ashur-uballit’s daughter, Muballitat-Sherua. Her son, Kadashman-Harbe, was destined to succeed his father on the Babylonian throne. Even in this case, the ambition and effectiveness of Ashur-uballit’s strategy comes to the fore, showing how he used an established means to seal relations among kings, such as inter-dynastic marriages, to obtain concrete and immediate advantages.
However, this strategy caused a severe Kassite reaction, leading to the death of Kadashman-Harbe. It is not certain whether or not his Assyrian lineage was the reason for the revolt, but we can be sure that Ashur-uballit interpreted the reaction in this way. The Assyrian king marched to Babylonia, placing king Kurigalzu, the ‘little one’ and infant son of Kadashman-Harbe, on the throne. The now old Assyrian king and his daughter, a truly Assyrian eminence grise in the Kassite court, were counting on influencing the infant king, seeing in him a malleable, if not subdued, neighbour. This was indeed the situation during Ashur-uballit’s reign and throughout Kurigalzu’s childhood. However, once the young king grew up, he would eventually cause some problems to the Assyrian side of his family.
By the time Ashur-uballit died, Assyria had become a high-ranking power in the Near East in practice, but was not yet recognised by its neighbours. However, the more this recognition was delayed, the more evident and threatening the Assyrian aggressiveness and ambition became. Nonetheless, the equal status of Assyria with Babylonia, Hatti, and Egypt had by now become a reality. It was also expressed in a variety of ways, from marriages to war and trade. Ashur ceased to be a Mesopotamian outpost on the way towards a fragmented Anatolia, which was a source for raw materials and a profitable market for Assyrian and Babylonian textiles. Assyria became a regional power in a complex network of regional powers. This network offered two alternatives. One option was to integrate in the network of relations among great powers, made of contacts between palaces, and exchanges of messages and gifts, paving the way for commercial relations. The second option was the expansion in that power ‘vacuum’ in Upper Mesopotamia, which lent itself to the establishment of an exclusively Assyrian network. At the moment, however, this area was contended by the Hittites in the north and the Kassites in the Middle Euphrates. Moreover, east of Assyria there still were those tumultuous mountain populations, preventing contacts with Iran, which had been so fundamental a millennium earlier.
World History
