THE RISE OF BABYLON (CA. 2000-1600 b. c. e.)

Isin and Larsa

The Ur III Empire broke up into a number of autonomous smaller states, controlling and fighting over other ancient cities. Initially the most important was Isin, whose lands stretched from Mashkan Shapir and Kazallu in the north to Uruk, Eridu, and other southern cities. These included, crucially, Nippur, which gave Isin nominal legitimacy as the successor of Ur III, theoretically appointed by the gods as the ruling state of Sumer. Ishbi-Erra of Isin regained control of Ur and eventually defeated the Elamites, avenging Ur's fall. He restored many of the buildings of Ur and other cities and deliberately followed many of the practices and norms of the Ur III Empire. A number of kings in this period have left law codes, following the earlier example of Shulgi, and consciously upholding and imitating ancient values. Sumerian continued to be the language of scholarship but was no longer spoken; Akkadian, in contrast, was used for international communication from Anatolia to Elam.

But times were changing. Whereas king and temple had generally controlled the state economically in earlier times, private enterprise now began to flourish, the government receiving taxes from the success of privately financed ventures rather than the profits of publicly controlled enterprises. The temple authorities, while still of great importance, now gave way politically to the king, who had full control of the state's administration, as is vividly shown in a number of surviving archives. Frequent records of the construction or restoration of city walls reflect the instability of the times and the need for constant defense. No ruler was strong enough to control all of southern Mesopotamia.

Many of the independent kingdoms, here and further west, had rulers with Amorite names, now clearly integrated into Mesopotamian society, while in northern Mesopotamia many of the dynasties were Hurrian. These successor states included Susa, Assur, Eshnunna, Yamhad, and, most significantly, Larsa, which by the reign of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin had thrown off Isin's authority and was challenging Isin's primacy.

Gungunum of Larsa claimed descent from earlier kings of the city, but his forebears were in reality Amorite sheikhs. He and his father had probably been governors of Isin's province of Lagash, which included Larsa. Under Gungunum, Larsa probably came to control Nippur, Susa, and perhaps Uruk, and in 1925 seized Ur from Isin, thereby gaining control of the still lucrative Gulf trade, especially in copper, now conducted through the trading entrepot of Dilmun. Political changes did not affect other, traditional aspects of life. For example, Ibbi-Sin's daughter remained entu-priestess of Nanna at Ur until her death, when she was replaced by Ishbi-Erra's daughter; similarly the Isin incumbent continued in office when Larsa took Ur. Maintenance of canals and irrigation works were crucially important for the well-being of the state. Neglect of irrigation works outside Isin's heartland probably contributed to the decline of Isin's power, and when Sumu-El of Larsa was thought to be neglecting his duties in this field, he was overthrown in a popular revolt and replaced by a commoner, Nur-Adad.

For several centuries, political power was very volatile. States expanded and contracted and from time to time new ones gained a foothold. Uruk briefly controlled Nippur and under Sinkashid (an Amorite) for a while held the balance of power between Isin and Larsa through its control of the middle Euphrates. In 1834 b. c.e., Kudur-Mabuk, Amorite ruler of Emutbal on the eastern flank of Mesopotamia, gained control of Larsa, giving the throne to his son Warad-Sin who reigned until 1823 when he was succeeded by his brother, Rim-Sin I. Their sister became entu-priestess in Ur. The family embarked on an ambitious restoration program in the southern cities, including Ur and Nippur. Rim-Sin defeated Uruk, Isin, Rapiqum, and Babylon, along with Sutu nomads from the west, in 1804 and conquered Isin in 1794, a triumph that he celebrated in his annual year-names throughout the remaining thirty-one years of his reign; he was to dominate the south until 1763.

Elam, freed of Sumerian domination, was entering a period of expansion and affluence. Its control of a major source of the important and scarce metal, tin, must have played a substantial part in its prosperity and power. Until defeated by Hammurabi in the eighteenth century b. c.e. it was a major player in Mesopotamian politics, closely involved with the states on its borders, particularly Eshnunna, which enjoyed considerable power through its control of trade routes into the Iranian plateau. competing for power with Der and Kish, Eshnunna's territories fluctuated in extent. It expanded in the later nineteenth century b. c.e. under Ipiq-Adad II, coming into conflict with neighboring Babylon, Assur, and Larsa. Under his successor, Eshnunna gained control of the middle regions as far east as Mari and as far north as the source of the Khabur, conquering Assur, capital of the small city-state of Assur (Assyria).

Babylon, seen here in a nineteenth-century C. E. engraving, became the capital of Babylonia under Hammurabi and remained the principal city of the region until replaced by the Seleucid capital Seleucia-on-the-Tigris in the fourth century B. C.E. (Ridpath, John Clark, Ridpath’s History of the World, 1901)

Assur city was easily defensible and was strategically situated to control trade and communications along the Tigris and the eastern foothills, making it a major trade center. But its cultivable land was limited, so it was unsuitable as the capital of a major territorial state: When Assur expanded, its capital was moved elsewhere. A major town in the north that had been controlled by both Akkadian and Ur III governors, Assur became the focus of a growing state after the fall of Ur. Early in the nineteenth century b. c.e., its king Ilushuma probably began Assur's role as a major trading entrepot when he established favorable free-trade conditions to attract merchants from the south. A large archive of commercial documents preserved at Kanesh (modern Kultepe) in Anatolia gives a detailed insight into Assur's trade and other aspects of life in the nineteenth century b. c.e. Smaller archives show that Assur was not alone—other major trading centers included Emar, Mari, Carchemish, Sippar, and Babylon. Assur's trade with Anatolia flourished until around 1820 b. c.e. when Kanesh was sacked; it was briefly revived in the eighteenth century, under Shamshi-Adad.

Shamshi-Adad and Assur

Shamshi-Adad's father was apparently an Amorite sheikh operating in the town of Terqa north of Mari, though the region of Ekallatum (north of Assur) may have been their ancestral kingdom. Shamshi-Adad succeeded him around 1836, but around 1818 an invasion by Eshnunna forced him to flee to Babylon. Within a few years he had regained control of Ekallatum and expelled the Eshnunnites from Assur. Other areas followed, including Mari, Karana, Nineveh, parts of Elam and the Zagros region, and as far south as Rapiqum. Shamshi-Adad was a fine example of the charismatic ruler of the age, the force of his personality enabling him to carve out a state that disintegrated shortly after his death. Under him all northern Mesopotamia was united into a single state, with its capital at Shubat-Enlil (probably modern Tell Leilan) and subsidiary centers at Ekallatum and Mari, ruled respectively by the king's sons, the energetic Ishme-Dagan and his indolent and spineless brother, Yasmah-Addu. These subsidiary centers controlled the surrounding regions, Yasmah-Addu's being known as "the Banks of the Euphrates." The kingdom's influence extended as far as the Mediterranean, separated from it by a series of well-disposed states, including Qatna, whose ruler's daughter was married to Yasmah-Addu. While Yasmah-Addu achieved little but controlled a relatively peaceful area, Ishme-Dagan spent much of his viceroyalty fighting the Elamites and Eshnunna. The Elamites found many opportunities to intervene in regional affairs, for example in 1771 (after the death of Shamshi-Adad) when they combined forces with Eshnunna successfully to invade Assur, capturing Shubat-Enlil and penetrating into Syria but failing to establish lasting control over the region. At the same time, the king of Yamhad also attacked the crumbling state. His son-in-law, the rightful king of Mari, Zimri-Lim, now regained his throne and began a prosperous reign, details of which are well known from the palace archive preserved when the city was sacked in 1757. Like other lesser rulers of the period, he trod a skillful path between diplomacy and force, making alliances with neighboring rulers, often cemented by marriage with one of his daughters, and counteracting raids with his armies.

Around 1764 the Elamites attacked again, capturing Eshnunna and Shubat-Enlil, although again their occupation was short-lived. Ishme-Dagan, still tenuously maintaining his hold on the remnants of Assur, took refuge with Hammurabi in Babylon and probably remained Hammurabi's vassal for the rest of his reign. Defeating the Elamites and their allies encouraged Hammurabi to make his own bid for power.

Hammurabi and Babylon

Babylon had begun to grow in importance early in the millennium when a major westward shift in the course of the Euphrates deprived traditionally powerful states farther east of its waters. Babylon's First Dynasty, founded in 1894 by Sumu-abum, was like many others an Amorite royal house. Babylon began to play a major role in the region under Hammurabi's father, Sin-muballit,

Stela showing King Hammurabi, creator of the Babylonian empire. (Zev Radovan/Land of the Bible Picture Archive)

Who spent much of his reign strengthening the kingdom's defensive city walls and who joined a coalition with Isin, Uruk, and others against Rim-Sin of Larsa, the most powerful ruler at that time. Babylon now controlled a small territory that included Sippar, Dilbat, and Kish. Hammurabi came to the Babylonian throne in 1792 and in 1787 was able to seize Uruk and Isin from Larsa's domains. For the next twenty years or so he quietly ruled Babylon, initially probably as a vassal of Shamshi-Adad. But by 1764 he had gained enough strength, in collaboration with others including Mari, to defeat Elam and its allies, and in 1763 he was able to challenge and defeat Rim-Sin. He conquered Eshnunna in 1762, completing its destruction in 1755 by diverting the Diyala to flood the city, an irreversible disaster. Hammurabi then turned on his longtime ally, Mari, possibly following the death of Zimri-Lim. Defeating Mari in 1759, over the following two years he stripped its palace bare and then set fire to it. Hammurabi now controlled a substantial empire, stretching from Nineveh in the north to Mari in the west and encompassing all of Babylonia. Hammurabi was a strong ruler who took most of the business of government into his own hands, delegating little. His conquests coupled with major programs of land reclamation and irrigation gave him control of substantial lands, which he exploited as a source of raw materials and manufactured goods and issued as landholdings in payment to public servants.

Hammurabi was succeeded by his son Samsu-iluna, who experienced revived difficulties with the south. Eshnunna rebelled and was crushed; Rim-Sin II of Larsa also revolted, occupying Nippur in 1742, although he was defeated the following year. Samsu-iluna's tactics involved diverting the Euphrates to cut off Nippur. This spelled economic ruin in an area already suffering decline due to salination. Within eighty years of Hammurabi's death, the state of Babylon was reduced to the region around the city that had been controlled by Hammurabi's predecessors. Larsa, Ur, and Uruk were deserted by 1738, Nippur and Isin by 1720, their populations often moving north to towns like Kish. Other southern cities were also abandoned or reduced to small settlements of little importance, ruled by the First Dynasty of Sealand. At the same time the towns of the north were also experiencing problems, possibly because of a succession of bad harvests. As frequently happened when climatic and environmental conditions deteriorated, the nomads of the periphery began to put pressure on settled lands. But it was from the Hittites, a developing kingdom in Anatolia, that Hammurabi's dynasty received its deathblow, when in 1595 they sacked the city of Babylon.