Tradition and Change in the Beliefs at Assur, Nineveh and Nisibis Between 300 Bc and Ad 300

tradition and change in the beliefs 193

TRADITION AND CHANGE IN THE BELIEFS AT ASSUR, NINEVEH AND NISIBIS BETWEEN 300 BC AND AD 300

PETER W. HAIDER

The objective of this study is to demonstrate the variety of local religious life in North-Mesopotamia during the Hellenistic and Parthian or Roman times. As examples of the interplay between ‘local’ and ‘introduced’ religious aspects, I choose three towns in that region, Assur, Nineveh and Nisibis, which had all played a distinctive role in the Assyrian period. Despite the fact that they were located rela- tively close to each other, the development of their religious culture in the Hellenistic and Roman periods went in different directions.

Assur

We start with Assur, the old Assyrian metropolis, where we find not only many inscriptions, but also some ruins of the sanctuaries of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. After the fall and the destruction of the city in 612 BC, the Babylonians rebuilt parts of the town on a much smaller scale. Within the old residential and cultic centre, only two small structures which followed a Babylonian plan were con- structed within the southern forecourt of the old sanctuary of Assur.1 After the Parthian conquest of Mesopotamia, Assur came to life again. According to W. Andrae, it was possible to distinguish three phases of building activity in the city. The first phase, the most pros- perous one, might have been ended by an attack by Trajan in AD

1 Andrae and Lenzen (1933), p.2-3 and p.71-2, pl.2; Haller and Andrae (1955), p.81; Andrae (1977), p.237-40 and p.251-2, fig.216-7. A decline of the city took place during the Achaemenid and Hellenistic periods, see Oates (1968), p.61-2. Barnett (1963), p.25, thought that the city of Kainai, mentioned by Xenophon (Anab. 2.4.28) ought to be identified with Tigrit and not with Assur, as Andrae and Lenzen (1933), p.2, and Andrae (1938), p.248, tried to prove. 194 peter haider

116, and the second, poorer phase by the destruction of the city by Septimius Severus in AD 198.2 The most important religious buildings of Parthian Assur are grouped at the highest point of the town, between the ruins of the old Enlil-Assur ziggurat and the Tigris. These buildings and their inscriptions provide evidence for both change and continuity. The new sanctuaries of Parthian type were dedicated to both old and new gods, and were built over the ruins of the old temple of Assur. Even the festival house of Assyrian times, to the north of the town, was rebuilt during the Parthian period, exactly following its old plan. None of the other buildings which certainly were temples were recon- structed, and Parthian houses and kilns were erected there into a layer of debris. Andrae suggested that the principal ziggurat func- tioned as a citadel, perhaps with the residence of the satrap on its summit, though now totally vanished.3 However, it seems not only more natural that the ziggurat retained its religious function, as did the ziggurats of Anu and Eanna in Uruk, the ziggurat of Nabu in Borsippa and the ziggurat of Enlil in Nippur4, but there is actual positive evidence of cultic life in a temple on top of the ziggurat in Assur.5

Temple N and temple A The Babylonian conquerors had built two small and simple temples at the southwest corner of the forecourt of the sanctuary of the god Assur.6 The simplest one is the so-called ‘temple N’. It consisted only of one broad room, with a cult niche in the rear wall and a base for the cult statue in front of it.7 This building does not seem to have

2 Andrae and Lenzen (1933), p.2-3, p.58 and p.60. The discussion of the strati- fication by Schlumberger (1970), p.113-5, is not founded on good evidence. 3 Andrae and Lenzen (1933), p.6-7; Andrae (1938), p.250 and p.255-6, fig.227. 4 On Uruk, see Downey (1988), p.15-20 and p.33-5; on Borsippa, see ibid., p.15. For the latest findings about the ziggurat of Nabu at Borsippa, after twenty years of research, see Allinger-Csollich (1991), p.383-499; id. (1996), p.19-59 and p.216-20; id. (1998), p.95-330; Fick (2001), p.73-6, fig.7 (burial of two high dignitaries with priestly function). 5 See below, with n.46-7. 6 Andrae (1904), p.38-52, fig.4-7; Haller and Andrae (1955), p.81, pl.4-5; Andrae (1938), p.218, fig.216; Downey (1988), p.149-50, fig.66. 7 Andrae (1904), p.38 and p.43-4, fig.4,7; Haller and Andrae (1955), p.81; Andrae (1938), p.238-9, fig.216.