Middle Assyrian

""This book investigates the founding and building of cities in the ancient Near East. The creation of new cities was imagined as an ideological project or a divine intervention in the political narratives and mythologies of Near Eastern cultures, often masking the complex processes behind the social production of urban space. During the Early Iron Age (ca. 1200–850 BCE), Assyrian and Syro-Hittite rulers developed a highly performative official discourse that revolved around constructing cities, cultivating landscapes, building watercourses, erecting monuments, and initiating public festivals. This volume combs through archaeological, epigraphic, visual, architectural, and environmental evidence to tell the story of a region from the perspective of its spatial practices, landscape history, and architectural technologies. It argues that the cultural processes of the making of urban spaces shape collective memory and identity as well as sites of political performance and state spectacle.

Excerpt
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In this paper, I have collected some attestations in the administrative documentation referring to  foreign kings and I have tried to connect them with other sources of historical knowledge such as the royal inscriptions, chronicles and epics, in order to provide a context for the information provided by the archival documentation. The result is that the administrative documentation helps and completes our understanding of the Assyrian history, but it cannot stand alone and must be seen as a complement to other sources. It is important nonetheless because it gives us details that are not present in the other sources.

"Archaeological excavations of Mesopotamian palaces usually give us a monochrome image faded by time. Rare discoveries of plaster whose colours are well preserved allow us to reconstruct the original colours of these images. The second millennium BC provides more examples of palatial wall paintings belonging to the three prominent cultures of the Late Bronze period: Mitannian, Kassite and Middle-Assyrian. The respective palaces at the sites of Nuzi, Dur Kurigalzu and Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta have in fact preserved some of the wall paintings which originally decorated their rooms. By analysing these fragmentary painted plasters and the careful reconstructions made by different scholars, it is possible to note some differences in the use of colours and in drawing patterns according to the different cultures.
The aim of this paper is: a) to analyse and compare wall paintings belonging to these three main cultures and attempt to find analogies and differences, and b) to investigate, within the context of each culture, the role of colours and their significance."

The Malatya-Elazığ area is a mountainous part of eastern Turkey, which was geopolitically important throughout history, both because some of the main routes linking Anatolia to Syria, Mesopotamia and to the East passed through it and also because of the copper deposits that it possessed. The area became a buffer zone between the regional powers that emerged in the Late Bronze Age, namely, the Hittite, the Mittani and later the Middle-Assyrian Kingdom, who all wanted to secure access to the mineral sources and to the major trade routes. In this article, the textual and archaeological evidence are studied together for a better understanding of how the area itself was culturally and polictically affected by these struggles. It is suggested that one of the main outcomes was the emergence of the Kingdom of Išuwa.

The Assyrian King List (AKL) is central to the reconstruction of Assyrian and broader Near Eastern history and chronology. Because of AKL's significance, locating its original moment of composition has far-reaching his-toriographical implications. There is no scholarly consensus on the dating of AKL, but a closer look at the internal evidence of AKL indicates a firm, fifteenth century terminus post quem for the creation of AKL, while the bilingual tablet fragment BM 98,496 establishes the thirteenth century reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I as a secure terminus ante quem. Within this temporal range, it is possible to trace the genesis of AKL to the reign of Aššur-uballiṭ I. This period witnessed great change in Assyria, and the nature of this change provides an ideal historical, political, and ideological context for the production of AKL. No other moment in Assyrian history offers so compelling a conjunction of political motives and historical circumstances for AKL's composition.

In II millennium BC Mesopotamia, astral representations
spread in art, assuming an important role as a symbolic
representation of deities and a mirror of real sky
observations. This book focuses on symbols with an astral
value as represented on Mitannian, Cassite, and Middle
Assyrian seals and seal impressions. Starting from the
analysis of the symbols on a corpus of 1090 seals and seal
impressions, those with an astral value have been detected
and individually analyzed, also according to their position
in the scene. Furthermore, the study of the relationship
between the symbols - both astral and non-astral - allowed
the identifi cation of some recurring patterns. Their
comparison with textual sources (e.g. astral omina and
astronomical compendia) and with the reconstruction of
the Mesopotamian sky in the Late Bronze Age period
allowed the understanding of the Mitannian, Cassite, and
Middle Assyrian perception of heavens and its link with
religious behaviour and divination.
The fi rst part of the volume (Chapter 1 and Chapter 2)
focuses on a preliminary analysis of the idea of symbols,
signs, emblems, and attributes, both theoretically and in
relationship with Mesopotamian religion, thanks to the
study of the passage from the anthropomorphic to the nonanthropomorphic
and symbolic representation of deities.
The study of the symbolic heritage of the Late Bronze
Age glyptic and the link between deities and astral bodies,
allowed to identify of 20 symbols, divided into four groups
- astral bodies; geometrical shapes; fauna and fl ora; and
composite beings - with an astral value.
Chapter 2 focuses on the analysis of the symbolic groups
with an astral value and their symbols, both generally
and within the Mitannian, Cassite, and Middle Assyrian
cultures. Each symbol is described and analyzed from an
iconographical point of view as well as linked to its previous
representations in Mesopotamian art, in order to identify
both the continuity and the innovation as compared to the
previous symbolic tradition, and the relationship with the
divine world. The frequency of each symbol, its position
in the scene and its relationship with the other symbolic
elements present on the same seal, are the nucleus of the
analysis, allowing to defi ne of the Mitannian, Cassite, and
Middle Assyrian astral symbolic heritage.
In Chapter 3 the symbolic associations of astral value, yet
identifi ed through the study described in Chapter 2, are
individually analyzed, in order to identify their meaning
and their relationship with the astral world. Furthermore,
each symbolic association has been compared both with
textual sources (e.g. omina and astronomical compendia),
and with several reconstructions of the Late Bronze Age
sky, carried out with softwares able to reconstruct changes
in the sky through the calculation of the equinoctial
precession, the proper motion of the stars, and the position
of the planets, using kinematic models of the Solar System
(Solex v10.0, Stellarium v0.14.1).
Finally, Chapter 4 analyzes the polysemantic value of
symbols, identifying the symbolic elements that seem to
have diff erent meanings, depending on their position in the
scene, the cultural horizon to which they belong and the
historical period taken into account, such as the rosette, the
lozenge, the fi sh, the cross and the seven dots or globes.
Furthermore, the symbol of the tree has been analyzed,
representing the connection of the astral and chtonic
worlds, linking the sky, the earth, and the underworld.
In the concluding chapter (Chapter 5), a synthesis of
results obtained in previous chapters is off ered, identifying
the characteristics of Mitannian, Cassite and Middle
Assyrian symbolic heritages, each analyzed identifying
its characteristics, its innovations and its connections with
the previous Mesopotamian symbolic heritage. Finally,
the connections and the relationships between the cultural
horizons have been identifi ed, taking into account the
biunivocal relationship of cultural interactions. In this
synthesis the meaning of the astral symbols and their
associations are directly linked to the artistic expression
connected with the religious behaviour and the conception
of the sky, typical of each culture.

Trough this article we will try to look closely to the iconographyc program which the neoasirian soverign Sennacherib wanted to develop in its “Palace without Rival”. The many reliefs which Layard exposed, have shown not only a vivid interest for the graphic representations of the sovereign power through their military victories, but also the style innovations which wanted to offer the image of the empire. “The Palace Without Rival” was conceived like more distinction of between all the neoassirian palaces, and in his reliefs one shows us great part of his history and of his reign.

This paper deals with the second millennium BC ceramics, and a short excursus regarding the settlement pattern, in the region east of the Tigris and north of the Upper Zab, delimited to the north by the Dohuk plain and the Zagros foothills, to the west by the Mosul Lake and the Tigris river, and to the east and south by the Navkur Plain and the Bardarash region, the so-called Land behind Nineveh. This is the survey area of the Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project, led by Daniele Morandi Bonacossi and active since 2012. The focus of this paper is the Middle and Late Bronze Age, which surface ceramic assemblages will be illustrated and discussed along with problematics that arise from their analysis, especially concerning the definition of Mittanian and Middle Assyrian ceramic assemblages. The picture emerging from the assemblages combined with results from the analysis of the settlements pattern allow to assert the strategic importance of the Land behind Nineveh in the landscape of settlements from the Middle Bronze Age to the formation of the Middle Assyrian state.

Статья посвящена хорошо сохранившемуся новоассирийскому договору Асархаддона со своими вассалами, который восходит к 672 г. до н.э. Настоящая работа является частью более обширного исследования и посвящена переводу и анализу содержания текста договора. Автор обращает особое внимание на причины появления подобного договора, на то, чем этот документ является по существу, зачем договор был заключен. Исследование данного текста позволяет лучше понять взаимоотношение между Ассирией и Мидией в период расцвета Новоассирийской империи и дает возможность рассмотреть сложную проблему наследования ассирийского престола с новой стороны. Особое внимание уделено термину, которым ассирийцы обозначали этот документ, и грамматическим конструкциям, наиболее часто используемым в документе.

This article deals with a surviving Neo-Assyrian Esarhaddon Vassal treaty which dates 672 BC. The present article, which is the part of the more extensive research, is dedicated to the translation and analysis
of the text. The author pays special attention to the problems related to the reasons of concluding the treaty and its special characteristics. The investigation of this text leads to more profound understanding of the mutual relations between Assyria and Media at the dawn of Neo-Assyrian Empire. Besides it provides a great opportunity to examine the complicated problem of the Assyrian throne succession. The author gives special attention to the term which Assyrians used to designate this document and to the grammar constructions particular to the text.

Starting from the 14th century BC, the Assyrian kings began a process of territorial expansion from their capital city, Aššur, extending their domain to the Middle Euphrates. At the peak of their power, they controlled virtually all the Mesopotamian world.  The able use of a favourable international conjuncture, military prowess, energetic leaders and the control of economic resources indicate the execution of a coherent strategy for territorial expansion, which extends beyond reigns’ temporal limits. The strategy success and the fast pace expansion were also dependent on Assyrian capability to secure the control of new territories, and perhaps more significant, the potentiation of these new lands to support the expansion’s dynamic.