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Gestures Toward Babylonia in the Imgur-Enlil Inscription of Shalmaneser III of Assyria

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Gestures Toward Babylonia in the Imgur-Enlil Inscription of Shalmaneser III of Assyria ORIENT Volume 49, 2014 Religion, Politics, and War: Gestures toward Babylonia in the Imgur-Enlil Inscription of Shalmaneser III of Assyria Amitai Baruchi-Unna The Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan (NIPPON ORIENTO GAKKAI) Religion, Politics, and War: Gestures toward Babylonia in the Imgur- Enlil Inscription of Shalmaneser III of Assyria** Amitai Baruchi-Unna* During the first third of Shalmaneser III’s reign (859-824 BCE), the great Assyrian monarch was mostly preoccupied by the expanding western frontier of his kingdom and to a lesser degree by the northern frontier. While throughout these years he campaigned in either direction or both, in two sequential years, 851-850 BCE, he led his army southward, to Babylonia. Within this ʻquarter of the land’ he peacefully visited Babylonia proper and campaigned to its adjacent eastern neighbors: the Diyāla region in the north, and the land of the Chaldeans in the south. In this article I propose seeing Shalmaneser’s inscription preserved on the bronze edging of the doors of the gate of Imgur-Enlil (Tell Balawat) as the ideological and propagandistic part of the king’s endeavor to keep the south peaceful, so as to free himself to complete his western adventure. Composed in order to convey a special message, this unique inscription was built up of a variety of literary materials carefully organized to meet the expectations of a complex audience. First, I analyze the components of the text, emphasizing their linkage to other texts within and outside the corpus of royal inscriptions, an analysis that suggests that the text appealed to various tastes. Finally, given that the place where the text was eventually displayed in antiquity and later found in modern times is not where it was first presented, I suggest a new geographical, temporal and historical setting for the text. Keywords: Shalmaneser III, Assyria, Royal inscriptions, Imgur-Enlil (Balawat), Babylonia I. Introduction Assyria was the first among the ancient Near Eastern great powers to recover from the crisis of the mass movement of peoples and the cultural and political destruction that this area faced at the turn of the thirteenth and twelfth century.1 Beginning in the second half of the tenth century, the Assyrian kings broadened their domain, recovering areas formerly lost – mostly to Aramean tribes – during the preceding centuries. When Shalmaneser III ascended the throne (859 BCE), his kingdom encompassed almost all of Upper Mesopotamia, and during his first years of reign he subdued the Aramean kingdom of Bīt Adini, thus completing the domination of this region. The military horizon of the Assyrian interest then began to reach out beyond these borders, which were perceived as Great Assyria.2 Thus, during the first third of Shalmaneser’s reign, the great monarch was mostly preoccupied by the expanding western frontier of his empire and to a lesser *Teaching Fellow, Department of History of the Jewish People, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1 See: H. Tadmor, “The Decline of Empires in Western Asia ca. 1200 B.C.E.,” in F. M. Cross (ed.), Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Cambridge, MA, 1979, 1-14. 2 M. Liverani, “Assyria in the Ninth Century: Continuity or Change?,” in G. Frame (ed.), From the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea: Studies on the History of Assyria and Babylonia in Honour of A.K. Grayson, Leiden, 2004, 213-226. Vol. XLIX 2014 3 Part I: Literary Analysis of Assyrian Royal Inscriptions degree the northern frontier.3 In almost all of these years he campaigned in either direction or both. Nevertheless in the middle of this period – during two sequential years, 851 and 850 BCE – he led his army southward to Babylonia. Across this border he peacefully visited Babylonia proper and campaigned to its adjacent eastern neighbors: the Diyāla region to the north, and Māt Kaldî to the south. Both the routine of the western campaigns and the deviation from it deserve explanation. Ascending the Assyrian throne, Shalmaneser inherited a long-standing peaceful situation in the south with Babylonia that enabled both states to recover from the long crisis the whole area had experienced, to prosper and broaden their influence in other directions. This situation had begun at the beginning of the ninth century under Shalmaneser’s great grandfather, Adad-nirari II (911- 891 BCE) following the peace agreement as well as intermarriage between the royal families. It was maintained during the reign of his father, Ashurnsirpal II (883-859 BCE), though probably without any official status.4 Shalmaneser, in his turn, renewed the formal peace agreement with Nabu-apla-iddina, the aged Babylonian king, in accord with what seems to have met the apparent interests of both monarchs: Nabû-apla-iddina’s aspiration to leave his heir with a stable kingdom,5 on the one hand, and Shalmaneser’s ambition to broaden the Assyrian domain to the far north and west, on the other hand.6 After the death of the Babylonian king, two of his sons – Marduk-zākir-šumi and Marduk- bēl-usāte – fought each other and divided his land between them. The satisfactory peaceful situation on Assyria’s southern border was about to change, threatening the achievement of the important imperial plans. This threat was severe, considering the difficulties the Assyrian army faced on the western frontier, where a coalition of many Syro-Palestinian states has blocked the southward advance of the Assyrian army in the vicinity of the land of Hamath.7 Guaranteeing tranquility to the Babylonian frontier was therefore a strategic goal of first rank – and, indeed, 3 See: S. Yamada, The Construction of the Assyrian Empire: A Historical Study of the Inscriptions of Shalmanesar III (859-824 B.C.) Relating to his Campaigns to the West (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, 3), Leiden, 2000. It should be noticed that at this stage, the campaigns are of razzia character, i.e., they were not conquest endeavors that were accompanied by administrative changes and annexation to Assyria. These campaigns set the stage for the change that occurred a century later, when Tiglath-pileser III (745-727 BCE) annexed the whole region which the Assyrian army had earlier raided. 4 J. A. Brinkman, A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia (1158-722 B.C.) (Analecta Orientalia, 43), Rome, 1968, 301-303. This situation is reflected in the Assyrian royal inscriptions of the era by the addition of Marduk to the group of great gods, whose names and epithets are mentioned at the opening section of many inscriptions – e.g., in an inscription of Shalmaneser: dMarduk apkal ilāni bēl têrēti (god Marduk, sage of the gods, [and] lord of omens; A.0.102.10 line 8) see: A. K. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC, Part II: 858-745 BC (The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: Assyrian Periods, 3), Toronto, 1996, 51 (reference to Assyrian royal inscriptions follows the numbering of this series); before Shalmaneser, from the beginning of the ninth century on: Adad-nirari II (A.0.99.2 line 2). See: idem, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC, Part I: 1114-859 BC (The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: Assyrian Periods, 2), Toronto, 1991, 147; Tukultī-Ninurta II (A.0.100.1 line 8; ibid., p. 165); Ashurnasirpal II (A.0.101.17 line 5; ibid., p. 238); and after Shalmaneser, at the end of the ninth century, within an inscription of an official of Adad-nīrārī III (A.0.104.2010 line 5; Grayson [1996; above], 232). This pattern resulted from the good neighborliness with Babylonia, and its appearance only in relatively late inscriptions of Shalmaneser should be seen as a mere chance. 5 Cf. J. A. Brinkman, “iv. The Revival and Decline of North-Western Babylonia c. 911-811 B.C.,” in J. Boardman et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume III, Part 1: The Prehistory of the Balkans, the Middle East and the Aegean World Tenth to Eighth Century B.C.E.2, Cambridge, 1982, 303. 6 Cf. A. K. Grayson, “x. Shalmaneser (858-824 B.C.),” The Cambridge Ancient History III/1 (ibid), 267. 7 For a detailed discussion of this historical situation, see: Yamada (above, note 3), 150-163. 4 ORIENT Religion, Politics, and War: Gestures toward Babylonia in the Imgur-Enlil Inscription of Shalmaneser III of Assyria according to the Assyrian sources, Shalmaneser devoted two years of his precious time in response to a request by one of the Babylonian royal brothers.8 The aim of the present study is to show the presence of an ideological-propagandistic expression of his endeavor to keep the south peaceful within the inscription of the Imgur-Enlil gates.9 The Imgur-Enlil Gate inscription, two copies of which are engraved on each of the bronze inner edgings of the doors at the gates of ancient Imgur-Enlil (modern Tel Balawāt), six and seven columns of six to eight lines, is unique among Shalmaneser’s inscriptions as well as the whole corpus of Assyrian royal inscriptions, in several aspects. It is unique in its heterogeneous language and literary style, as well as the way it presents the different literary units and moves the narrative forward.10 In what follows I will argue that, because it was composed to covey a special message, this inscription was built of a variety of literary materials carefully organized so as to enable it to meet the expectations of a complex audience. As a rule, only the gods and a potential future ruler, who might find the object on which the inscription is engraved, are mentioned as audience of Assyrian royal inscriptions.
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