Assy 105 0109

ASSYRIAN ROYAL DISCOURSE BETWEEN LOCAL AND IMPERIAL
TRADITIONS AT THE HĀBŪR
Beate Pongratz-Leisten
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Presses Universitaires de France | « Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale »
2011/1 Vol. 105 | pages 109 à 128

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DOI 10.3917/assy.105.0109
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[RA 105-2011] 109
ASSYRIAN ROYAL DISCOURSE BETWEEN LOCAL AND IMPERIAL

TRADITIONS AT THE HĀBŪR
BY
Beate PONGRATZ-LEISTEN
Investigating the ideological discourse accompanying Assur’s expansion towards the west during the
second half of the second millennium is a complex undertaking as specialists in the political history of
that period continue to disagree about the extent to which Assur exercised direct control over the area.*
What is more, the historical picture is in a continuous flux as new evidence comes to light in various sites
located in the Hābūr and Balīh rivers valleys as well as on the Upper Euphrates.1 My interest in the
emergence of the Middle Assyrian ideological discourse is twofold: 1) It is concerned with investigating
the extent to which the Assyrian-Hurrian cultural encounter had an impact on the religious practice and
theology of the Assyrians, and 2) whether the homogenous picture drawn by the Assyrians in their
commemorative inscriptions actually complies with historical reality. It seems to me that the degree of
Assyrianization as revealed by bureaucratic standardization stretching from Tell Ali/Atmannu on the left
bank of the Lower Zab to Tell Šēḫ Ḥamad/Dūr Katlimmu located on the Hābūr river during the thirteenth
century BCE cannot be used as a measuring rod for how intensely the Assyrians were inspired by and
reacted to pre-existing cultural strategies successfully practiced by the political and religious elites in the
region which came to be known as Hanigalbat, i.e. the area stretching from the Euphrates to the Hābūr
and including the Upper Tigris region. Monumental architecture, art and official inscriptions produced by
the local elites in the western regions, on the other hand, reveal their fascination with Assyrian tropes of
prestige and power and their endeavor to join into the cultural discourse of the rising empire. The purpose
of my contribution here is to clarify the diverse and scintillating picture of the intercultural encounter in
the region located west of Assur.
IDEOLOGICAL CLAIMS VERSUS CULTURAL PRACTICE
Assyria’s interest in the west is at least partially explicable by the geo-climatic situation of the city of
Assur. Assur, in contrast to the other residences of the Assyrians, which were all located in rich
agricultural zones, was instead situated on a natural spur right at the edge of the dry-farming belt, a
highly unfavorable location necessitating the carrying of water to the temples, palaces, and residential
areas. Originally founded as a hub for trade with Elam, Babylonia, and the North into Anatolia, Assur
was well located to become a gateway to the north. While its local agricultural production was yet
sufficient to meet the needs of the city during the Old Assyrian period, Assur’s small hinterland proved to
be too scarce to meet its needs once it developed expansionist ambitions. The area north and west of the
*
I would like to thank Nele Ziegler for having invited me to the Sakura workshop in 2010. My further thanks
go to Hartmut Kühne for an intense discussion of the archaeological evidence in Tell Šēḫ Ḥamad/Dūr Katlimmu. He
and Betina Faist kindly read an earlier version of this article. I am also particularly grateful to my colleague Lorenzo
d’Alfonso who provided me with invaluable comments on its final version. Last but not least I thank Karen Sonik for
having corrected my English.
1. See Mario Liverani’s model of a network empire, Liverani 1988 versus Kühne 1995, p. 72-73, Cancik-
Kirschbaum 2008, p. 94 and Ismail/Postgate 2008 drawing a picture of a more continuous territorial control; for the
most recent re-evaluation see Fales 2011.
Revue d’Assyriologie, volume CV (2011), p. 109-128
assyriologie_105.indd 109 17/12/12 15:19

110 BEATE PONGRATZ-LEISTEN [RA 105
heartland of Assyria, as a dry-farming zone and a rich source of raw metals, was thus of major interest to
the Assyrians from the Middle Assyrian period onward. The Assyrian expansion to the west,
consequently, has been interpreted primarily as a survival strategy.2 Beyond subsistence needs, trade for
luxury goods was the other major impetus for contacts with the west – and was observable already prior
to the Middle Assyrian period.3
From the beginning of the expansion, Assyrian kings, in their ideological discourse, excelled at
projecting a vision of their territory as a unified political community placed under divine control through
the agency of the king. In their endeavor to transform the intercultural heterogeneous landscape of their
controlled territory into a homogenous intra-cultural empire they created a sophisticated discourse of
cultural cohesion using visual, ritual, textual, and economic means.4 This strategy was particularly well
established by the Neo-Assyrian period such as marking their forays into far distant regions with
monuments, either in the form of steles put up at the city gates or rock reliefs carving out a sacred
topography of the empire.5 The other part of this strategy comprised the concomitant maintenance of
their relationship with these distant lands by economic and ritual means, i.e. through regular deliveries
from the provinces for the offerings of the Aššur temple6 introduced during the Middle Assyrian period,
and through ritual performance at not only the monuments such as the rock reliefs and at important
provincial centers but also in the cultural metropolis of Aššur itself as in the case of the tākultu ritual
involving the blessing of cultic centers from all over the empire for the Assyrian king, the city of Assur
and Assyria.7 Not all of these cultural strategies have been used during all periods. While the regular
deliveries to the Assur temple are attested for the Middle Assyrian period, first evidence for the tākultu
ritual is to be found already in the inscriptions of Šamšī-Adad I (1808-1776 BCE). Setting up steles in
city gates and rock reliefs, by contrast, seems to be a Neo-Assyrian revival of what has started as a
practice of the Old Akkadian kings marking their forays into Anatolia.8
We tend to perceive these strategies as homogenized expressions of Assyrian propaganda.
Religious and cultic practices in particular, such as swearing the loyalty oath by the weapon of Assur
attested during the late Neo-Assyrian period, have been interpreted by some scholars as evidence of
religious imperialism or as indicating actual conversion to the worship of the Assyrian supreme god
Assur.9 In my view, however, a distinction needs to be made between ideological claims expressed by
the Assyrian kings in their inscriptions, their legal practice of performing the oath under the surveillance
of the god Assur and the other great gods of Assyria, and the degree of their local involvement expressed
either in the import of Assyrian culture or Assyrian receptivity to and adaptation of local cultural
practice. Recent research into the monumental art set up at the periphery of the empire, for instance, has
highlighted local variants in the visual imagery.10 Moreover, salvage excavations in the region of the
Upper Tigris, as well as recent excavations along the rivers Hābūr and Balīh, have revealed a more
nuanced view of Assyrian dominance in the area, which suggests varying degrees of Assyrian penetration
2. Kühne 2000.
3. Faist 2001, pp. 128-138. As has been suggested by Stephanie Dalley, the renaming of conquered cities
with names that include the term kārum - such as the renaming of Til Barsip on the Euphrates as Kār Shalmaneser
after Shalmaneser III’s conquest - might reflect this economic interest in controlling the long distance trade between
the west and the Assyrian center, see Dalley 1996-1997, pp. 68f.; see also Galter 2004, p. 453.
4. Mann 1986.
5. Shafer 2007.
6. Postgate 2002, 3; Weidner 1935-36, p. 13 with n. 87 and p. 21 with n. 148; Postgate 1985; Pedersén 1985,
pp. 43-53; Freydank 1991; Freydank 1992; Freydank 2006; Jakob 2003, pp. 175-181.
7. See discussion below.
8. Westenholz 2000.
9. Holloway 2002, 99; McKay 1973 and Cogan 1974 argued both against this notion, which was contested by
Spieckermann 1982; it has been further debated, whether the adaptation of certain legal practices or formula of
Assyrian treaties to the formulation of stipulations in Deuteronomy and trial speeches in second Isaiah can be
considered the product of an Assyrian religious imperialism, see Machinist 2003.
10. Porter 2000.

2011] ASSYRIAN ROYAL DISCOURSE BETWEEN LOCAL AND IMPERIAL TRADITIONS 111
into the local culture of the area. Northern Syria, although originally indebted to the cuneiform culture of
Southern Mesopotamia, reveals a remarkably strong continuity of its own local traditions interacting with
Babylonian, Mitannian, Hittite, and Assyrian cultures to varying degrees and thus generating an
extremely rich and diversified repertoire of cultural expression. And last but not least one needs to stress
that the full scope of all these strategies was only employed during the Neo-Assyrian period, to some
degree even only towards the end of the Assyrian empire, thus reflecting the kings’ awareness of the
nearly impossible task of controlling their vast geographical territory stretching from Egypt into Syria,
Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Iran.
Focusing on the area of the Hābūr valley my interest here is in the ‘landscape of power’11 as it
appears in its dynamic interaction during the first Assyrian expansion towards the west into a territory
that had been formerly controlled by the Mitanni state. Rather than working with the notion of
Assyrianization I intend to demonstrate that even with the implementation of firm Assyrian control
supported by building activities, the settlement of Assyrians in particular regions, and the importing of
Assyrian culture, the encounter with local traditions inevitably entailed the integration and adaptation of
local cultural elements into the Assyrian discourse and vice versa, particularly in the forms of ideological
expression and religious practice.
The Assyrian expansion began in the second half of the fourteenth century BCE, and by the
thirteenth century BCE Assur controlled a state that temporarily stretched from Karkemiš on the Upper
Middle Euphrates – note that Hittite presence can be observed still for Hattusili III at Tell Fray on the
East bank of the Euphrates –, along the Balīh and the Hābūr rivers, and to the region of the Upper Tigris
river, as well as to the region east of the Tigris, as demonstrated by a number of Middle Assyrian
archives.12 Part of this network, laid out along the major routes going from Assur towards the west,13
were the five centers of Hassake, Tell Tābān/ancient Ṭābētu, Aǧaǧa/ancient Šadikanni, Fadghami and
Tell Šēḫ Ḥamad/ancient Dūr-Katlimmu, located along the Hābūr river valley “at roughly regular intervals
of 20-40 km, thus allowing a continuous cover of the valley territory”,14 which had been formerly under
Mitannian dominion. Actual control and incorporation of the entire Hābūr valley into the Assyrian palace
administration must have begun during the reign of Adad-nērārī I (1295-1264 BCE) and was
consolidated during the reigns of Shalmaneser I (1263-1234 BCE) and Tukulti-Ninurta I (1233-1197),
when the Assyrian kings had embarked on the process of transforming the steppe into a rural hinterland
and installing the first provincial administration at the site of Dūr-Katlimmu, which not only was
administered by a governor (bēl pahētē) but also functioned as the provincial capital administered by the
sukallu rabiu.15
Recent archaeological research has demonstrated that the Assyrians built their administrative
centers on top of former Mitannian settlements and local seats of government.16 The co-existence of an
official ceramic style produced by Assyrians for Assyrians and a local Mitannian style provides further
evidence for the continuing impact of Hurrian culture.17
In this contribution I trace other such vestiges of Hittite and Hurrian culture in Assyrian cultic
tradition and royal ideology by contrasting the content and construction of Middle Assyrian and early
Neo-Assyrian local building inscriptions in the western part of the Assyrian empire with the
homogenizing picture drawn and disseminated by the Assyrian center. While prior research has
11. Morandi-Bonacossi 1996 with detailed bibliography.

12. In addition to the sites on the Hābūr River, see Tell Sabi-Abyad, Tell Huera/ancient Harbe, Giricano, Tell
Faharīya/Waššukanni, Tell ar-Rimah and in the region east of the Tigris, the sites of Tell Billa ad Tell Ali.
13. For the most recent map see Faist 2006.
14. Morandi-Bonacossi 1996, p. 19.
15. Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996; Kühne 2010 and 2011.
16. See the evidence in Tell Sabi Abyad on the Balīh River, Duistermaat 2008; Postgate 2010, p. 27.
17. Pfälzner 1995; Postgate 2010, p. 27.

concentrated on literary forms of legitimation and structural patterns,18 my focus here is on cultural and
religious practices revolving around deities, as divinities as carriers of identity bespeak the dynamics of
the intercultural discourse in operation during the beginning of Assyrian expansion. God lists 19
especially when drawn up in the local centers in the west, reflect syncretic processes and sensitivity to
local cultural practices, which emerge in irregularities and deviations from the centralizing rhetoric. The
various traits of Assyrian cultural discourse thus will emerge not as an accidental clustering but rather as
deliberate choices made in response to particular political and historical conditions.
THE VISION OF ADAD- NĒRĀRĪ I (1295-1264 BCE)
As a first step I intend to compare the vision of the west as delineated by the Assyrian kings in their
building inscriptions intended for conquered cities on the Hābūr but written in Assur, as opposed to
building inscriptions written by local rulers in the Hābūr area, and to explore whether they express a
similarly centralized programmatic message.
After the Assyrians had shaken off Mitanni’s control over Assur under Assur-uballiṭ I (1353-
1318 BCE),20 a concentrated effort was made to dismantle Mitannian control further in the west between
the rivers Hābūr and Balīh, i.e. the core area of the former Mitannian state, and in the northwest in the
area of the upper Euphrates and upper Tigris, i.e. the territories of Malatia and Išuwa, vassal states of the
Hittites.21 I will begin my inquiry with the inscriptions of Adad-nērārī I (1295-1264 BCE), who made the
first forays into the west even beyond the Hābūr triangle. After he had crushed an Anti-Assyrian revolt
led by Wasašatta, the son of Šattuara, king of Mitanni, several formerly important Hurrian centers were
annexed, among them the Hurrian royal city of Ta’idu,22 Kahat, and Waššukanni23 and forays were
made into the region of Iridu, Sūdu, Harrān, and Karkemiš.24 Adad-nērārī I (1295-1264 BCE) is the first
Assyrian king to provide us with major military reports, most of them dedicated to his conquest of the
Hābūr area, i.e. the area of Mitanni/Hanigalbat. In several stone tablets that were destined for the city of
Ta’idu but found in Assur,25 he describes his military success as based on the divine might of the
weapons of Assur (ina kakkī dAššur) and the divine support (ina tukulti) of the major gods of the
Assyrian pantheon, i.e. Assur as well as Anu, Enlil, Ea, Sîn, Šamaš, Adad, Ištar, and Nergal. Then his
report turns very specific with listing the various cities that fell victim to his conquest, among them the
Hurrian royal residence Ta’idu, and the Hurrian centers of Kahat, and Waššukanni. With claiming the
defeat of Iridu located between Harran and Karkemish26 and Taidu located on the Hābūr river Adad-
nērārī I (1295-1264 BCE) outlines the territory of the Mitanni state, which has now come under Assyrian
control:27
18. Tadmor 1981.

19. For a re-introduction of the term ‘syncretism’ see the recent discussion in anthropology, Leopold and
Jensen 2004; Clark 2011.
20. According to Lion 2011, p. 149 fn. 2 Assur’s liberation happened under the reign of the Mitannian kings
Artatama II and Šuttarna III who succeeded Tušratta (ca. 1360-130 BCE), for the chronology see Pruszinszky 2009,
37 Table 7.
21. Giorgieri 2011.
22. While the Helsinki Atlas locates Taidu north of Kahat, recently it has been sought in the Upper Tigris
region, see Faist 2006 with reference to Radner/Schachner 2001 and Radner 2004; Radner 2004, pp. 113-115.
23. RIMA I, A.0.76.1: 8-11. Among others Amasakku, Šuru, Nabula, Hurra.
24. RIMA I, A.0.76.1: 13.
25. RIMA I, A.0.76.3.
26. Del Monte and Tischler 1978 and del Monte 1992, p. 52.
27. Hawkins 1976-1980. Adad-nērārī I RIMA I A.0.76.3: (26) … URU ta-i-da (27) URU LUGAL-ti-šu ra-
ba-a URU a-ma-sa-ka (28) URU ka-ha-at URU šu-ri URU na-bu-la (29) URU hu-ur-ra URU šu-du-ha (30) ù URU
uš-šu-ka-na ak-šud aṣ-bat (31) nam-kur URU.DIDLI šá-tu-nu ni-ki-im-ti (32) ab-be-šu ni-ṣir-ti É.GAL-lì-šu (33) al-
qa-am-ma a-na URU-ia aš-šur (34) ub-la (35) URU ir-ri-da ak-šu-ud aš-ru-up (36) ⸢aq⸣-[qur ù ku-di]-im-me e-li-šu
az-ru.

‘I captured by conquest the city Taidu, his (Hurrian king Uasašatta, son of Šattuara) great royal city, cities Amasaku,
Kahat, Šuru, Nabula, Hurra, Šuduhu, and Waššukanu. I took and brought to my city, Aššur, the possessions of these
cities, the accumulated (wealth) of his (Uasašatta’s) fathers, (and) the treasure of his palace I conquered, burnt, (and)
destroyed the city Iridu and sowed salty plants over it.'
Of particular interest for our investigation into the ideological discourse here is Adad-nērārī I’s
reference to the sowing salty plants over the ground of the vanquished city of Iridu to prevent any further
growth. Whether it was actually performed or whether this is merely a literary trope is ultimately
irrelevant. What is important is that the use of the trope reflects 1) Adad-nērārī I’s awareness of the
strategic importance of Iridu, which was located in the zone of Hittite influence and had been a site of
conflict between Hittites and Hurrians some fifty years earlier as described in the treaty between
Suppiluliuma I and Šattiwaza of Mitanni.28 2) It further demonstrates Adad-nērārī I’s knowledge of
Anatolian ideological discourse as it links Adad-nērārī I’s discourse with the annals describing the
conquests of Hattusili I in Northern Syria. These have been transmitted in later copies probably dating
from the time of Hattusili III, who was likely a contemporary of Adad-nērārī I.29 This ritual or trope,
however, occurs for the first time in the Anitta Text describing the conquest of central Anatolia,30 where
it is used to describe the destruction of Hattusa, which is to become the capital of the Hittite empire. This
text interestingly uses the Sumerogram ZA3.AH.LI = Akkadian sahlu thus suggesting a Babylonian
origin of the trope,31 Adad-nērārī I’s deliberate choice of this particular trope then reflects his claim that
with the conquest of Iridu the Hittite and Assyrian states now shared a common border.32 The trope
occurs further in the inscriptions of Adad-nērārī I’s son and successor Shalmaneser I (1263-1234 BCE) in
his account of the destruction of the city Arinu,33 to be revived only by Ashurbanipal (668-631/27 BCE)
in his account dealing with the destruction of Elam.34
Subsequent to his conquest, Adad-nērārī I reports that he built a palace in the former Hurrian
royal city of Ta’idu, an act that incorporated the city into the Assyrian provincial administration:35
‘When I saw the deserted (and) uncultivated areas of … the city Tai[du …] …. I delineated its territory (and) therein
founded a palace. I built (it) from top to bottom and deposited my monumental inscription. (61-65) In the future may
a later prince restore it. May he restore my inscribed name on its place. (Then) Assur will listen to his prayers.'
Note that Adad-nērārī I describes the conquered area as deserted and abandoned, which could be
understood as either reflecting the reality of the Hurrian people having fled upon the advance of the
Assyrian army or as a literary trope to justify the building of the city and the palace, as the former is
generally understood the prerogative of the gods in Mesopotamian mythology.
In the curse formula the king again invokes the major gods of the Assyrian pantheon, Assur,
Anu, Enlil, Ea, and Ninmah, as well as the Igigu of heaven and the Annunaku of the netherworld. So far
there is nothing unusual about the curse formula. The subsequent paragraph dedicated to Adad, however,
is unusual in two respects: (1) in its detailed account of his ability to devastate by means of a terrible
28. Beckman 1996, 42, 6A §12.

29. Haas 2006, pp. 33ff.
30. Carruba 2003, p. 37 §XIb 48.
31. Also the attestations with sahlu date to the Sargonid period, see. CAD S s.v. sahlu, p. 64 2.3’.
32. Klengel 1999, pp. 164-165.
33. RIMA I, A.0.77.1: 46-51.
34. Borger 1996, 168 Prisma T V 7-8. This ritual occurs further in the curse formula of the Aramaic treaty of
Bar-Ga’yah of Ktk with King Mati’el of Arpad see Fitzmyer 1967, 15 Curse Section IV.
35. RIMA I, A.0.76.22: 55-60; Jakob 2003, pp. 8f. RIMA I, A.0.76.22: (55) URU ⸢ta⸣-i-[da(?) x] zah-ri ha-⸢
ar⸣-bi (56) na-du-ti ŠÀ xx MA/KU(?) BE (57) a-mu-ur-⸢ma⸣ [q]a-⸢qar⸣-šu ú-me-es-si (58) É.GAL-l[a ina qé]-er-bi-
šu ad-di (59) iš-tu uš-še-ša a-di gaba-dib-bi-ša (60) e-pu-uš ù na-re-ia aš-ku-un (61) a-na ar-⸢ka⸣-at UD.MEŠ
(62) ru-bu-ú ar-ku-ú (63) an-hu-sa lu-di-iš šu-mi ša-aṭ-ra (64) ⸢a⸣-[n]a aš-ri-šu lu-te-er (65) a[š-šur i]k-ri-be-šu i-še-
em-me.

flood, deluge, hurricane, insurrection, confusion, storm, need famine, hunger, and lightning; and (2) in its
pairing with Ištar at the end:36
‘May the god Adad overwhelm him with a terrible flood. May deluge, hurricane, insurrection, confusion, storm,
need, famine, hunger (and) want be established in his land. May (Adad) cause (these things) to pass through his land
like a flood and turn (it) into ruin hills. May the goddess Ištar, my mistress, bring about the defeat of his land.'
(1) While Assyrian royal inscriptions reference Adad’s destructive forces by employing some of these
images, the particular preference for detailing the ravaging might of Adad may be explained by the role
the storm god played in Northern Syria, where he held the position of the patron deity of many cities. In
the Hābūr area, for instance, the temples of Adad in Kahat and Isani, as well as of Ištar in Talmuššu in the
area Upper Tigris, were renovated by king Shamaneser I.37 Further cities with a cult of Adad include
Šibanibe (Tall Billa),38 Šūra,39 Dūr-Aššur-kettī-lēšir (see below), and Qaṭṭarā.40
(2) What is particularly striking is the combination of Adad, written dIškur, and Ištar in the inscriptions
dealing with the west. Reminiscent of the Hurrian divine pair Teššub, who would be also written with the
sign for Iškur, and Ištar-Šauška, one wonders whether the scribe, in a double entendre – might have
intended to refer to the specifically local cult dedicated to these divinities, which would have assumed a
Hurrian garb, or whether he introduced his knowledge about the official pantheon of Mitanni, in which
Ištar-Šawuška was the consort of Teššub. The combination of Ištar and Adad in a curse formula occurs
for the first time in the reign of the Hurrian king Tiš-atal in Urkeš; after Bēlat-Nagar, the local form of
Ištar-Šawuška, and the sun god Šimige (dUTU-ga-an)41 it mentions Teššub written with the Sumerogram
d
IŠKUR. Already during the Old Babylonian period Adad/Teššub was venerated together with
Ištar/Šawuška rather than Hebat in Northern Mesopotamia, and it is not always clear whether
Ištar/Šawuška figured as his spouse or sister. Blessings in the Mitannian correspondence of the Amarna
period reveal the constellation of Adad with Ištar/Šawuška,42 and the divine pair is also attested in the
Hurro-Akkadian milieu of the Eastern Tigridian region of Arrapha.43 In Middle Assyrian inscriptions,
Adad together with Ištar is attested again in the curse formula of an inscription by Shalmaneser I (1263-
1234 BCE), commemorating his restoration work on the temple of the Assyrian Ištar,44 while Tukulti-
Ninurta I (1233-1197 BCE), in his inscription commemorating the restoration of the palace in Assur,
prefers the combined agency of Assur and Adad, known already from the Old Assyrian period
specifically the reign of Erišum45 followed by Ištar as a single agent. By contrast, in the curse sections of
his inscriptions concerned with Kār-Tukulti-Ninurta, he favors either Assur, Enlil, and Šamaš, or Assur
alone.
As a first conclusion we may state that the earlier Old Babylonian tradition of Northern
Mesopotamia, when under the control of the Mitanni during the second half of the second millennium
BCE, adopted Hurrian features which remain to some degree discernible in the early Middle Assyrian
inscriptions concerned with the region of the Hābūr valley. Adad-nērārī I (1295-1264 BCE) established a
36. RIMA I A.0.76.2: 55-60: (55) dIškur i-na ri-hi-iṣ le-mu-ti li-ir-hi-is-su a-bu-bu (56) im-hu-ul-lu sah-maš-
tu te-šu-ú a-šàm-šu-tu su-qu (57) bu-bu-tu ar-ru-ur-tu hu-šá-hu i-na ma-ti-šu (58) lu ka-ia-an KUR-sú a-bu-bi-iš lu-
uš-ba-i (59) a-na ti-li ù kar-me lu-te-er diš8-tár be-el-ti (60) a-bi-ik-ti KUR-šu li-iš-ku-un.
37. RIMA I, A.0. 77.16.
38. Finkelstein 1953, pp. 131f, 161.
39. Aynard/Durand 1980, p. 39 and pp. 46ff.
40. The Middle Assyrian texts do not evidence a cult of Adad, which is however attested in the Neo-Assyrian
period, see Schwemer 2001, p. 610.
41. Wilhelm 1998; Schwemer 2001, p. 445.
42. See the letters of King Tušratta sent to Amenenhotep III and Amenenhotep IV, referred to by Schwemer
2001, p. 460.
43. Schwemer 2001, p. 460.
44. RIMA I, A.0.77.6.
45. Erishum’s building inscription concerned with the Assur temple, see also Hirsch 1961, p. 78.

paradigm that is twofold in its programmatic message. It expresses the expansionist ambitions radiating
from the Assyrian center to the West, which in the historical section stresses the divine support of Assur
and the major gods of the Assyrian pantheon. Concomitantly, it reflects the process of incorporating
former Northern Mesopotamian and Hurrian tradition. The latter is further apparent in Adad-nērārī I’s
introduction of the cult of the divine pair of bulls Šeriš and Hurri,46 originally associated with the
Hurrian Teššub, into the cult of Adad in the city of Assur, as well as in the continuous care for and
restoration of the Anu-Adad temple in the same city.47 A further token of the importance of the Northern
Mesopotamian storm god syncretized with the Hurrian Teššub is a Middle Assyrian ritual that included a
procession of Adad to various temples, city gates and the bīt hamri located close to the Assur temple.48
Such a link between the storm god and the bīt hamri is already apparent in Old Babylonian Šaduppum,
which by that time revealed Hurrian impact49 with the Hurrian storm god being the tutelary deity of the
king of Ešnunna. With the particular pairing of Adad and Ištar, Adad-nērārī I has set the paradigm for
constellations of divinities specifically in the curse formulas characteristic of later Assyrian royal
inscriptions the original Hurrian implications of which, however, might well have been lost over time.
In a continuous attempt to dismantle the power structure of the Mitanni state, which had built
alliances with the Hittites and the Ahlamu nomads, Adad-nērārī I’s son and successor Shalmaneser I
(1263-1234 BCE) defeated Šattuara II of Mitanni and established administrative districts in the Hābūr
triangle.50 By the time Assur had managed to firmly integrate the Hābūr river valley into its economy
and administration, the royal ideological discourse, reflecting the military effort of conquering the region
formerly under Mitannian control, had been transformed in the inscriptions of Shalmaneser I (1263-1234
BCE) into standardized formulas. These were either cast into epical language:51
‘merciless crusher of criminals, great dragon of conflict, curser of enemies, who weakens fierce (enemies), trampler
of the rebellious, subduer of all the mountains, who flattened like grain the extensive army of the Qutu to remote
regions, conqueror of the Lullubu and Šubaru, who carrier off hostile foes above and below'
or into abbreviated epithets referencing the cosmic dimensions of the territorial state:52
‘conqueror of the land of the Šubaru (north and northwest),53 Lullumu (northeast), and Qutu (east).'
Such rhetoric seems indicative of the fact that the process of conquest had by this time entered a
different stage with the Upper Tigris area, the Hābūr triangle, and the western territories up to the
Euphrates now under firm Assyrian control.
It seems, however, that the surviving elites of the former Mitannian state did not easily submit to
Assyrian overlordship, organizing their resistance in the mountainous area of the Ṭūr ‘Ābdīn, and
explaining why Shalmaneser I’s son and successor Tukulti-Ninurta I (1233-1197 BCE) felt compelled to
d
46. III R 66 ii 21f: er-me-ši dhur-me-ši
d
STT 88 ii 46f: e-ri-[šu] dhur-me-š[u]
d
GAB 61: še-riš dhur-miš
d
III R 66 rev. vii 13: er-mès dhur-iš Schwemer 2001, p. 482.
47. Adad-nērārī I, RIMA I A.0.76.17: 4ff; Aššur-rēša-iši RIMA I A.0.86.7: 7f, A.0.86.8: 2. A.0.86.1004;
major renovation under Tiglath-Pileser I RIMA II A.0.87.1 vii 60-117, viii 1-16; A.0.87.2: 24; A.0.87.3: 16ff;
A.0.87.4: 24ff; A.0.87.10: 28ff; A.0.87.13: 10’ff; A.0.87.22: 3f; A.0.87.23: 3f; A.0.87.1011: 1’ff.
48. For the bīt hamri attested in Akkadian, Hurrian and Hittite sources see Schwemer 2001, pp. 247-256.
49. Goetze 1958, no. 22 and pl. 11.
50. With the cities of Amasakku, Ta’idu and Nahur as seats of district governors (bēl pāhete), see also Jakob
2003, 9. Tall ‘Amuda/Kulišhinaš and Tall Fekherīya in the north reveal an Assyrian presence in archaeological and
textual records.
51. RIMA I, A.0.77.4: 5-16, (5) qa-mu-ú tar-gi-gi la pa-⸢du⸣-ú (6) ⸢ú⸣-šúm-gal qa-ab-li (7) [a]-ri-ir za-a-a-ri
ka-šu-uš la ma-gi-ri (8) mu-la-ak-ku aš-ṭu-ti (9) da-⸢iš⸣ muš-tar-[h]i mu-ša-ak-ni-šu (10) na-ga-⸢ab hur⸣-ša-ni (11) ša
a-na ši-id-di na-ás-ku-ti (12) ra-ap-ša ⸢um-ma⸣-an qu-ti-i (13) ú-na-i-lu ki-i [šu-ú]-be (14) ka-ši-id lu-ul-lu-bi-i ù šu-
ba-ri-i (15) ša-li-il ge-ru-ú za-ma-ni (16) e-li-iš ù šap-li-iš.
52. RIMA I, A.0.77.17: 3.
53. My addition.

first secure again the northern frontier before moving towards the west. 54 He then pursued a
progressively invasive policy in the Ǧezīra, re-establishing firm control over Hanigalbat, which since
Shalmaneser I had been placed under the dominion of the great vizier, sukallu rabiu, residing in Tall Šēh
Ḥamad/ancient Dūr-Katlimmu, which operated as the provincial capital for that region.55 The grand
vizier stemmed from the royal line of Assur and acted as some sort of a viceroy of the king “by
overseeing rural areas and their output, supervising workers, supplying the Assyrian capital with tax-
revenues, acting as legal authority, hosting officials during their travels, and even” taking on “specific
policing and military duties.” 56 The precarious state of Assyrian control over formerly Mitannian
dominion might be reflected in the grand vizier’s title ‘king of Hanigalbat’ (šar māt Hanigalbat) as a
signal directed against Hittite royalty and the residual Hurrian polities to the north-east.57 Further
towards the west, Middle Assyrian garrisons east of the Balīh River emerge as represented by the steppe
garrisons Tell Ṣābi Abyad (Amīmu?),58 Tell Hammam at-Turkman,59 and Hirbat aš-Šanaf. In the latter
part of his reign Tukulti-Ninurta I (1233-1197 BCE) managed to bring also under his control the region
of the Middle Euphrates between the Balīh River and the Hābūr River.60
LOCAL VARIANTS: THE TWO CASES OF ṬĀBĒTU AND ŠADIKANNI
Surveys performed in the area between the Tigris and the Balih have revealed a decrease in settlements
during the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries BCE with the abandonment of previously inhabited
nucleated centers in favor of smaller often newly founded rural settlements, pointing to a renewed
agricultural exploitation of marginal areas. 61 Such ruralization, however, does not preclude the
continuous presence of Hurrian population in various other sites, as demonstrated by the local centers of
Ṭābētu and Šadikanni located on opposite banks of the Hābūr.
The degree of Assyrian political control prior to Shalmaneser I (1263-1234 BCE) over the
various local polities along the Hābūr river might have varied slightly, but overall, with the growing
pressure exercised by the Ahlamû nomads marauding in the area,62 these polities must have had an
interest in maintaining a good relationships with their powerful Assyrian neighbor. Such a policy is
discernible in the local kingdom of Ṭābētu/modern Tall Ṭābān which together with its satellite city Dūr
Aššur-ketta-lēšir/modern Tell Bderi located just to its north on the Hābūr river yielded rich
archaeological and textual information. The history of Ṭābētu goes back to the Old Babylonian period,
54. Jakob 2003, p. 9 with reference to RIMA I A.0. 77.1: 56-72.

55. The surviving correspondence between the governor of Dūr Katlimmu and the king of Assyria proves
that at that time this region was under the tight control of Assur, governed by a firmly established administration,
supported by a communication system consisting of a canal and a steppe route with regular road stations, Tall Umm
‘Aqrēbe being one of the most important of these, see Kühne 1995, p. 72; Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996.
56. Fales 2011, p. 19.
57. Fales 2011 fn. 70 with reference to Faist 2008 and former suggestions by Machinist 1982 and Astour
1996, and Fales 2011, p. 22 discussing the extreme northern piedmont area of the Jezirah which had a number of
Hurrian polities which resisted Assyrian control until the time of Tiglath-pileser I (1145-1076 BCE).
58. Jas 1990; Wiggermann 2000; Tenu 2009, p. 142. The texts will be published by F. A. M. Wiggermann.
For the tentative identification with Amīmu see Luciani 1999-2001, p. 97. Tell Ṣābi Abiyad was not an
administrative center, but the property of Ilī-pada, sukkallu rabi’u “great vizier” probably granted to him by the
crown, see Faist 2006, p. 151 fn. 19.
59. Van Loon 1988; van Soldt 1995.
60. This is confirmed by the mention of a district governor of the city of Tuttul by the name of Aššur-šuma-
ēriš in an administrative document from Tall Ṣābi Abyad, see Jakob 2003, p. 9 fn. 71 with reference to
communication from Wiggermann. During the thirteenth century BCE, the administrative district of Dūr Katlimmu
“might have comprised much the same territory as the later province of Raṣappa, that is the steppe area between the
southern flanks of the Sinǧar mountains in the north, the Euphrates in the south and the Habur in the west.” (Kühne
2000, p. 274). After Shalmaneser III’s conquests in 856 BCE, it became part of the province of the turtānu and at that
time extended to the Euphrates with Til Barsip as the provincial capital, see Radner 2006-2008, p. 48, §3.2.
61. Fales 2011, p. 16 with bibliography.
62. Kühne 2009, p. 46.

when it operated as a local center under the district governor of Qaṭṭunan during the time of Zimrilim, an
internal political organization, that was continued by the kings of Terqa.63 Its status as a local center is
reflected in the textual record, including letters, administrative, legal texts, and scribal exercises,64
among them a land grant especially notable for its oath formula, which mentions Dagan (of Terqa) and
Addu of Mahanum, a cultic center of the Bedouins in the western part of the Upper Jezirah not far from
Ṭābētu, representing the sedentary and pastoralist populations respectively.65 The particular choice of the
divinities as represented in the texts as well as the local calendar, which was practically identical with the
one of Mari and also later with the one of Terqa,66 anchors Old Babylonian Ṭābatum in the Syro-
Babylonian tradition.
Ṭābatum subsequently must have come under Hurrian control as indicated by a brick inscription
recently found in three exemplars written by a local ruler named Adad-bēl-gabbe who traces his lineage
back to an individual bearing a Hurrian name: King Adad-bēl-gabbe, son of Zumiya, king of the Land of
Mār[i], son of Akit-Teššub, [also] ki[ng of the Land of Māri]”.67 The rest of the Middle Assyrian
inscriptions from Ṭābētu are divisible into two groups, the first group comprising 12th to early 11th
century building inscriptions of the local rulers of Ṭābētu, who called themselves ‘king of Mari’ (šar māt
Māri).68 and the second belonging to the royal administrative archive and dating from the middle of the
13th century BCE to the first part of the 12th century BCE.69 By the time of Ninurta-tukulti-Assur around
1133 Ṭābētu must have reclaimed a semi-independent status as suggested by nāmurtu documents,
recording gifts of the local ruler to the Assyrian king. Such evidence suggests that at that time the ruler
had the status of a vassal rather than a governor in the direct service of the Assyrian king.70
From this first Adad-bēl-gabbe onward all subsequent rulers had Assyrian names, displaying the
effort exercised by this formerly Hurrian dynasty by adopting Assyrian names also to appropriate an
Assyrian lifestyle.71
Ṭābētu’s former Hurrian component explains Ṭābētu’s strong familiarity with Babylonian
tradition, as close interaction between these two cultures had occurred since the third millennium BCE in
Mesopotamia as well as in Northern Syria. Due to the strong presence of the Hurrians in the Hābūr
valley, the storm god Adad, local patron deity of Ṭābētu, must have appropriated traits of the Hurrian
storm god Teššub. His temple was restored by Adad-bēl-gabbe III (end of the 12th cent. BCE).72 Another
temple was dedicated to the goddess Gula and had the same name as that known from Babylonian
tradition, É.GAL.MAH.73 Both inscriptions commemorating the building of the temple are fragmentary,
and beyond naming the divine owners of the temple they do not provide further information regarding the
local cultural-religious tradition. In contrast, the inscriptions of Aššur-ketta-lēšir II, the successor of
Adad-bēl-gabbe III, which commemorate the building of the city Dūr Aššur-ketta-lēšir (modern Tell
63. Yamada 2008, pp. 164f. and 2010.

64. Yamada 2008.
65. Yamada 2008, p. 160 and in this volume Durand 2011 and Shibata 2011.
66. Yamada 2008, p. 164 and Shibata 2010.
67. Shibata 2011.
68. Maul 1992, pp. 48f. and 2005, pp. 18f.; Shibata and Yamada 2009; and now the fragment published by
Shibata 2011 in this volume.
69. Yamada 2008, p. 153; for the publication of these tablets see Shibata 2007, who on the basis of the
Eponyms dates the texts to the period between Shalmaneser I (1263-1234 BCE) and Ninurta-apil-Ekur (1181-1169
BCE).
70. Shibata 2007, p. 63.
71. Liverani 1988, p. 89. Formerly Maul 2005, p. 15 with reference to Freydank 1991 still ignorant of this
recent find had suggested that Adad-bēl-gabbe (now Adad-bēl-gabbe II) might have been a member of the royal
family in Assur similar to the vizier or governor, who in Middle Assyrian times, were members of the royal family,
see Cancik-Kirschbaum 1999; see also Jakob 2003, pp. 59-65.
72. Maul 2005, no. 3.
73. Maul 2005, no. 2.

Bderi) located just to the north of Ṭābētu, provide a little more insight into the local culture of this small
kingdom on the Hābūr river.
Aššur-ketta-lēšir II’s cylinder inscriptions are notable with regard both to the language used for
the writing and for the carriers of the writing itself. As demonstrated by Stefan Maul these display the
transitional character from the Middle Assyrian to the Neo-Assyrian dialect on the one hand and contain
Babylonian verbal forms on the other. The choice of the carrier of the inscription, the cylinder, likewise
corresponds to Babylonian tradition as the Assyrian kings before Tiglath-Pileser I (1114-1076 BCE)
tended instead to write their inscriptions on stone tablets and clay cones. That said, the style and content
of the inscriptions indicates a familiarity with the Assyrian tradition. The indication of ownership at the
beginning of the inscription is typical of clay cones and other objects of the Middle Assyrian period, not
of the stone inscriptions, however, and continues in the time of Tiglath-Pileser I to be used for brick
inscriptions. The name and genealogy of Aššur-kettī-lēšir follow and the text continues with a historical
introduction before proceeding to the actual building account of the city.
S. Maul, Tall Bderi, no. 1 Cylinder Inscription of Aššur-ketta-lēšir II:
‘(1) Palace of Aššur-ketta-lēšir, king of the Land of Mari, son of Adad-bēl-gabbe, king of the land of Mari, son of
Adad-bēl-apli, king of the Land of Mari.
(2-5)
(In the time) when this tell – whose name I do not know – was located upstream of Ṭābētu on the bank of the
Hābūr river, none among the former kings, my forefathers who controlled Ṭābētu and its surroundings, have
conquered it and surrounded it with a wall.
(6-8)
However, Aššur-ketta-lēšir, king of the Land of Mari, son of Adad-bēl-gabbe, king of the land of Mari, son of
Adad-bēl-apli, king of the Land of Mari – I consulted with myself, and amidst rejoicing of my heart I seized it. I
surrounded the tell with a wall. I established the name of that city as Dūr Aššur-ketta-lēšir.
(9)
I built it from its foundation up to its parapet and brought it to its completion.
(10)
Ea and the Anunnaku love its foundation, Sîn and Šamaš watch over its parapet.
(11-13)
If this city in future days and year and day without number should become dilapidated and should become old,
and should its wall collapse, a future prince who will ascend (the throne) should look at its dilapidation and renew it.
(14-15)
May he deposit my inscription together with his inscription in its original place. Of the one who deposits my
inscription together with his inscriptions in its original place, the great gods of Ṭābētu will listen to his prayers.
(16)
(By contrast), the one who erases my inscription and writes his name instead of my name,
(17-18)
Adad, Sîn, Šamaš, and Marduk, the great gods of the heavens and underworld will destroy his seed and their
names in the Land of Mari.
(19-21)
In the time of Tiglath-Pileser, king of the land of Assyria, his lord. In the month Tašrītu, day 22, līmu was Bēlu-
lībur. Aššur-ketta-lēšir, king of the Land of Mari, has laid the foundations of Dūr Aššur-ketta-lēšir.'
It is worth noting that in the inscriptions of Aššur-ketta-lēšir II, neither Assur nor Enlil and Anu, nor the
warrior gods Nergal and Ištar play a role as divine carriers of identity. In view of the propaganda
promulgated from the center, which emphasizes Assur’s agency behind the actions of the Assyrian king,
this is strikingly unusual, and further supports the non-Assyrian background of the dynasty. The gods
mentioned in Aššur-ketta-lēšir’s inscription, as well as in those of his predecessors – Ea and the
Anunnaku, Sîn and Šamaš listed in the historical section, and Adad, Sîn and Šamaš, Marduk, and the
great gods of the heavens and the netherworld listed in the curse section, seem to represent a deliberate
choice that was rooted in a local tradition going back to the Old Babylonian period.
A perusal of the Babylonian foundation rituals preserved from the first millennium BCE shows
that Ea plays a major role in these rituals as did deities of chthonic nature, which could explain the
mention of Ea and the Annunaku in the curse section. Proof for the existence of such rituals in the second
half of the second millennium can only be found in the archives of the Hittite capital Hattuša, which
provide us with a building ritual in which offerings are made to figurines of Ea in his hypostasis
Nin.é.mu.un.dù, “Lord who builds the house” and to the goddess Gula.74 Numerous Sumerograms used
in that ritual suggest that knowledge of that ritual might have originated in Babylonian tradition and
reached Boghazköy through the mediation of the Hurrians.
74. Haas 1994, p. 255f. and Boysan-Dietrich 1987, pp. 60-79, CTH 415.

Adad- nērārī I Aššur-kettī-lēšir

Historical Section Historical Section
Anu Ea
Assur Anunnaku
Šamaš Sîn and Šamaš
Adad Ištar
šangû ṣīru ša dEnlil
Curse Section Curse Section
Assur Adad
Anu Sîn and Šamaš
Enlil Marduk
Ea
Ninmah
Igigu of heaven great gods of the heaven
Annunaku of the netherworld and the netherworld
The particular sequence of the first three deities listed in the curse section, Adad, Sîn and Šamaš, on the
other hand, recalls the Hurrian gods listed as witnesses to the oath in Hittite – Hurrian treaties such as that
between Suppiluliuma I and Šattiwaza of Mitanni,75 which starts out with the weather god Teššub, and
continues with the moon god and sun god. As we are looking at an area formerly dominated heavily by
Hurrian culture one could again interpret this particular choice in Aššur-kettī-lēšir II’s inscription as
reminiscence of his Hurrian heritage.
The mention of Marduk is another interesting feature of the curse section, as this Babylonian
god arrived in Assur only with Marduk-nādin-ahhē, the royal scribe and scholar to the Assyrian king
Assur-uballiṭ (1353-1318 BCE). In that period there is evidence for a Babylonian quarter in Assur that
included a sanctuary dedicated to Marduk.76 Marduk, however, is never mentioned in the god lists of the
Middle Assyrian or even of the Neo-Assyrian inscriptions far into the Late Assyrian period, and his
mention in Aššur-ketta-lēšir’s curse section in the area represents a striking exception. Rather than an
Assyrian import, it must be explained on the basis of earlier Babylonian control of the region, as Marduk
always occured in oath formulas in the region of the kingdom of Hana when it was under Babylonian
control.77 It thus appears that at the site of Ṭābētu, we can observe a multi-layered cultural discourse that
relied equally on Babylonian and Hurrian tradition. Tiglath-Pileser I (1114-1076 BCE) at some point
destroyed Dūr Aššur-ketta-lēšir and the region of Ṭābētu passed under Aramean control, while the lower
Hābūr seems to have remained in the hands of the Assyrians.78
Šadikanni, modern Tall ‘Aǧaǧa, located a little south across from Ṭābētu on the western bank of
the Hābūr river, is another city the archaeological and textual evidence of which provides an insight into
the first Hurrian-Assyrian and subsequent Assyrian-Aramean cultural encounter. Originally a Hurrian
foundation, probably due to its strategic location as a potential crossing point over the Euphrates,
Šadikanni had come under Assyrian control during the Middle Assyrian period.79 It is listed among the
districts sending regular deliveries to the Assur temple in the thirteenth century BCE,80 and its status as a
district in the Middle Assyrian provincial system is again attested during the twelfth century BCE with
75. Haas 1994, p. 543; Beckman 1999, nos. 6A and 6B; Kestemont 1976.
76. Wiggermann 2008.
77. Rouault 1992, pp. 251-254 and Podany 2002, p. 197.
78. Jakob 2003, p. 13.
79. Cancik-Kirschbaum 2006-2008 with reference to Kühne/Mahmoud 1993/1994.
80. Freydank 1997.

the reference to a district governor bearing the Assyrian name Kidin-Ninua.81 With the eleventh century
BCE it must have been lost to direct Assyrian control but the Broken Obelisk of Aššur-bēl-kala (1073-
1056 BCE), in its report on the campaigns against the Arameans, shows that the local dynasty of
Šadikanni acknowledged Assyrian overlordship.82 Such vassal status applies also to the local ruler Bēl-
ēreš, a contemporary of Aššur-rabi II (1013-973 BCE) and Aššur-rēš-iši II (972-968 BCE), whose
building inscription commemorating the restoration of the temple of the god Sam(a)nuha refers back to
the time of his forefathers, which must have overlapped with the end of the dynasty of Ṭābētu. Though
modeled after Assyrian building inscriptions, the choice of divinities mentioned in the inscription of Bēl-
ēreš is indebted to former Hurrian tradition. Bēl-ēreš calls himself “vice-regent of GN” and “beloved of
the god Sam(a)nuha,” thus using a Tigridian title that originated with Old Assyrian Assur and Old
Babylonian (Hurrian) Ešnunna83 and that came to be adopted as the chief title of the Assyrian kings. He
combines the title with the local Hurrian divinity Sam(a)nuha, who in the Šattiwazza treaty ranks among
the divine witnesses before the storm god of Waššukkanni.84
Inscription of Bēl-ēreš, RIMA II, A.0.96.2001:
(1-4)
Bēl-ēreš, vice-regent of [GN?], beloved of the god Sa[manuha …], at the time of Aššur-rabi (II), [king of
Assyria, son of Ashurnasirpal (I)], [N] + 3 years [… (5-9) Aš]šur for delineation […], at that time the god Samanuha
…] the banks of the River Hābūr, from [… to …] he took possession. […] the banks of the River Hābūr the vice-
[regent ….]. (10-14) At that time the god Samanu[ha …] with his exalted strength, 3,000 […]. The abandoned canal
which [goes] from the land [… to …] (and) in which water no longer flowed, […] I constructed a facing for the
(quay wall). The abandoned meadows […] (15-19) water the mooring pole of the city Šadikanni […]. At the time of
Aššur-rēš-iši (II), king of Assyria, son of [Aššur-rabi (II) (who was also) king of Assyria], the temple of the god
Samanuha which my forefathers [had built …] had not become dilapidated, with age had not deteriorated, with […].
With the exalted strength of the god Samanuha, my lord, […] (20-23) I mustered his numerous workers. Bricks [… in]
wooden carts, I sent. In the Euph[rates …]. A temple of joy, rejoicing, and pleasure [I built] for the gods [Samanuha
(and) Gubaba], the great gods, my lords, forever. […]
(24-28)
When this temple becomes old [and dilapidated ….], may a later vice-regent restore its weakened (portions).
May he anoint with oil [my clay inscriptions ….]. My clay inscriptions from […]. You must not destroy (my)
inscribed name, [may] the gods Samanuha (and) Gubaba, the great gods, [my lords, curse/kill him].
(29)
Mannu-pān-ili [ the scribe (…)].
The cult of the god Sam(a)nuha seems to have continued long after the disappearance of the
Mittanni state as the god’s name reappears as a theophoric element in the name of Sam(a)nuha-ša-ilāni,
vice-regent of Šadikanni at the time of Assurnaṣirpal II (883-859 BCE).85 His grand son Mušēzib-
Ninurta dedicated a seal to the same deity.86 Similar to the textual expression found in the titulary of the
local ruler, the style of monumental sculpture of ninth century Šadikanni is heavily indebted to the
Assyrian style as revealed by the image of a winged bull in front of a sacred tree on an orthostat
discovered near gate 1. Its inscription identifies it as belonging to the palace of Mušēzib-Ninurta, the
local ruler of Šadikanni:
Mušēzib-Ninurta, RIMA II, A.0. 101.2007
É.GAL mmu-še-zib-dMAŠ ŠID (Property of) the palace of Mušēzib-Ninurta, vice-regent.
Another stele, however, deviates from the Assyrian stylistic repertoire: It shows the frontal
representation of a male figure crowned with a horned cap and holding a kid in one arm in front of his
chest with one arm and a branch with stylized rosettes with the other,87 an image reminiscent of the genii
81. Millard 1970.

82. Kühne 1995.
83. Hurrians are attested since the Ur III period.
84. Beckman 1999; Wilhelm 2006-2008.
85. RIMA II, A.0.101.1 i 78. For other names with the theophoric element Sam(a)nuha see Baker 2002,
pp. 1084-1085.
86. RIMA II, A.0.101.2005 and Cancik-Kirschbaum, 2006-2008, p. 487.
87. Mahmoud 2008; Kühne 2009, p. 51 fig. 7.

depicted in the throne room of Assurnaṣirpal II’s palace at Nimrud, which slightly precede the reign of
Mušēzib-Ninurta. In the Assyrian heartland such figures are represented exclusively in profile: they are
never pictured on a stele and never turned en face and the cap is never fluted or domed by a rosette.
These features, especially the en face rendering, prevail in the art of Tell Halaf, which was strongly
influenced by the Aramean culture, even while the conception of the figure is totally different.88
H. Kühne, Syria 86, 2009, p. 51 fig. 7
Cultural memory of Sam(a)nuha in the Hābūr area is preserved in the Assyrian tākultu ritual in a
version dating to the time of Ashurbanipal,89 which mentions Samanuha together with the Hurrian-Hittite
deities Kumarbi and Nambarbi, though it locates them in Ta’idu rather than in Šadikanni. The tākultu
ritual represents a major evocation of the gods of the Assur temple and other temples in Libbi-āli, as well
as of the gods of Niniveh, Calah, and Kurbail, before it moves to evoke deities from the periphery of the
Assyrian empire, among them the gods of the city of Ta’idu:
Tākultu for Ashurbanipal 3 R 66 viii 25’-40’:
Šamaš of Kilizi, Sunšit of Assur, the lady of Akkad of Bīt Bēlti, Tammuz of ditto, Papsukkal of ditto, Šitagam of
ditto, Nanaya of ditto, Mīna-amnû of ditto, Biṣillu of ditto, Kanisurra of ditto, the Lady of Akkad of Bīt Ilti, Kumarbi
of Tidu, Nabarbi of ditto, Samanuha of ditto.
All these deities are requested to provide their blessing for the Assyrian king, the city of Assur, and the
land of Assyria, thus ritually binding the periphery with the Assyrian center.
The tākultu ritual is mentioned for the first time in an Old Babylonian vase inscription by Šamšī-Adad I
(1808-1776 BCE) dedicated to the god Dagan. Unfortunately the tablet is broken but it seems that already
at that time the festival was part of the cult of the city of Assur:90
88. Kühne ibid.

89. Menzel 1981 3 R 66 25’-40’.
90. Charpin 1984, pp. 50-51 = RIMA I A.0.39.7: (1) [dUTU]-ši-d[IŠKUR] (2) ⎡LUGAL⎤ da-[núm] (3) ša-ki-
in [EN.LÍL] (4) ENSI2 da-š[ur] (5) na-ra-am dda-g[an] (6) mu-uš-te-em-k[i ma-]a-tim (7) bi-ri-it i7IDIGNA (8) ù
d

‘Šamšī-Adad mighty king, governor of Enlil, stewart of Assur, beloved of Dagan, pacifier/unifier91 of the land
between the Tigris and the Euphrates, prince of Mari, king of Ekallatum, governor of Šubat-Enlil, twin vase for
Dagan and the tākultum-banquets … Assur …'
The tākultu ritual is mentioned again only in inscriptions from the Middle Assyrian period onwards,
starting with the inscriptions of Adad-nērārī I (1295-1264 BCE), as evinced by potsherds have been
found in the Aššur temple:
Adn. I, RIMA I A.0.76.27
(Property) of the [temple of the god Aššur]. Of the tākultu at the beginning of the sovereignty of Adad-nērārī,
overseer.
Adn. I, RIMA I A.0.76.28
(Property) of the temple of the god Aššur. Adad-nērārī made it at his third (var. fourth) tākultu.
Similar inscriptions have been found by his son and successor Shalmaneser I.92 As meager as is
the evidence, it seems that Šamšī-Adad I’s vision of territorial dominion over Upper Mesopotamia and
the subsequent expansionist ambitions of the Middle Assyrian kings from Adad-nērārī I (1295-1264
BCE) onwards were concomitant with a deliberate attempt to foster territorial control also by ritual
means, with the tākultu ritual being one of the major constituents of such a cultural strategy.
The last piece to be discussed here is a stele of Tukulti-Ninurta II (890-884 BCE) that was
discovered in Tell Ašara/Terqa and that refers to events in the Hābūr region.93 Together with a stone slab
identifying it as property of the palace of that king from Kahat, these monuments are further proof of
continuous Assyrian presence in the Hābūr region just before Assurnaṣirpal II (883-859 BCE). The
inscription on the stele, unfortunately, is very hard to understand.94
I. Gerlach in G. Bunnens (ed.), Essays on Syria in the Iron Age, 2000, p. 239
i7
BURANUN.NA (9) ru-ba [ma-r]iki (10) LUGAL é-ká[l-la-ti]mki (11) ša-ki-in š[u-ba-at-dE]N.LÍ]Lki (12) tu-a-mi a-
na [dd]a-gan (13) ù ša-ku-la-at […] (14) [x] x da-šur a-n[a …] (…) (rev.) na-ru-x x x […].
91. See AHw II, 643 s.v. mekû and Durand 1998, p. 107 ; Šamšī-Adad I uses the same epithet in his
inscription on stone tablets from the Assur temple, see RIMA I A.0.39.1: 5-6.
92. RIMA I, A.0.77.25-27.
93. RIMA II, A.0.100.1004; for the imagery see Gerlach 2000, 239 fig. 2.
94. RIMA II, A.0.100.1004.

It states that the king represented on the stele is Adad-nērārī II (911-891 BCE) and that the author is his
son Tukulti-Ninurta II (890-884 BCE). 95 It further refers to the storm god smiting a snake. Its
iconography, however, is most unusual as the pictorial scenes are Southern Anatolian in style while the
content seems to point to Hurrian tradition. The stele shows a weather god smiting a snake dragon
flanked by an apkallu. The entire scene again is flanked to the right by the image of the Assyrian king
which, in contrast to the other scene, is Aramean in style and bespeaks its later addition.96 In Assyria
proper, the first representation of an apkallu occurs only in the Assyrian reliefs of Assurnaṣirpal II in the
Ninurta temple at Nimrud, while the Middle Assyrian evidence remains confined to the glyptic.97
The scene is most unusual in its composition and seems to be a conglomeration of various
motives, the origin of which can be traced to various cultural traditions. Text and iconography of the
storm god smiting a snake dragon are reminiscent of the Labbu Myth, which tells the story of Enlil who
annoyed by the noise of humankind decides to create a monster designated as MUŠ.[x x] and as LAB-
bu.98 The moon god Sîn tries to convince the younger god Tišpak to kill Labbu in order to prevent the
disaster. As a reward Tišpak is offered kingship not over the gods but over the land as it seems. Similar to
the Babylonian combat myths of Anzû and Enūma eliš the younger warrior god is advised by an older god
how to conduct the battle. The fragmentary state of the tablet leaves it open whether Tišpak kills Labbu,
but as he is equated with Ninurta in the god lists, this ending of the story seems most likely.99 What is
relevant for our discussion on the Hurrian-Assyrian cultural interaction is that sealings from the city of
Ešnunna, and from Tell Harmal show Tišpak sitting on a mušhuššu-dragon 100 indicating that the
mušhuššu was the symbolic animal of Tišpak in the time from the Akkad period to the early Old
Babylonian period. The Labbu Myth served as a tool to legitimize Tišpak’s rise to the status of the city
god when a Hurrian dynasty came to the throne thus usurping Ninazu’s former role as the patron deity of
the city.101 The adversary of Tišpak is conceived as a sea dragon also in an Old Akkadian school tablet in
which Tišpak is called “steward of the Sea” (abarak Tiāmtim).102 The Old Akkadian Tišpak mythology
was transmitted into the first millennium B.C. and survived in the text of the Labbu Myth from
Ashurbanipal’s library.103 Thus although Southern Anatolian in style and probably since long absorbed in
Hittite culture, the origin of the iconography of the Terqa stele can be traced back to early Hurrian
tradition. As comparisons in iconography and iconology are completely lacking in Assyrian predecessors,
it has been assumed that this monument was usurped by Adad-nērārī II (911-891 BCE).
During the end of the ninth and first half of the eighth centuries BCE, the rulers of Assyria were
rarely able to exert their control beyond the immediate region of their royal residences. Several Assyrian
officials and local rulers of regions formerly controlled by the Assyrians took advantage of the weakness
of the rulers in Calah and carved out autonomous realms.104 Among these were Nergal-ēreš,105 high
official under the Assyrian kings Adad-nērārī III (810-783 BCE), Shalmaneser IV (782-773 BCE), who
95. Grayson 1976, p. 112.

96. Kühne 2009, p. 49 with fig. 5 on p. 50.
97. Gerlach 2000, p. 241; The glyptic evidence, interestingly shows the apkallu flanking the sacred tree
together with the king represented on the other side or with a frontally pictured (royal?) figure supporting the winged
disk.
98. For the double designation of which labbu may be just an epithet for the mušhuššu of Tišpak see
Wiggermann 1989, p. 118.
99. Lambert 1985, p. 55.
100. Frankfort 1955, pl. 61, no. 649 (= Boehmer 1965 no. 567) and Porada 1980, fig. b and Lewis 1996, figs.
3 and 4; Lambert 1984.
101. Sommerfeld 2002.
102. Westenholz 1974-77, p. 102.
103. CT 13, 33-34.
104. Grayson 1994, pp. 74-75.
105. For the reading of the name of governor of the province of Raṣappa, which is written dIGI-KAM, see
Karen Radner in Kühne/Radner 2008, pp. 28ff.

brought the region west of Assur as far as the banks of the Middle Euphrates and Hābūr rivers under his
control, and Šamšī-ilu, general of the Assyrian army, who controlled the region of the Upper Euphrates
from his residence at Til Barsip and recorded several campaigns and conquests in his own name during
the reigns of Shalmaneser IV (782-773 BCE), Aššur-dan III (772-755 BCE), and Aššur-nērārī V (754-
745 BCE).106
Towards the west and the south, for two generations, Šamaš-rēša-uṣur and his son Ninurta-
kudurri-uṣur adopted the title ‘governor of Sūhu and Mari,’ fought against the Arameans, and founded
cities and garrisons in the desert. The former represented himself in Assyrian and earlier Hurrian tradition
as standing in front of the deities Adad and Ištar,107 while the latter is known to have restored the temple
of Apladad in Anat and built a new palace.108
Finally, Bēl-Harrān-bēl-uṣur, palace herald under Shalmaneser IV (782-773 BCE) and Tiglath-
pileser III (744-727 BCE), founded a town in the heartland of Assyria and put up a stele commemorating
his achievement in which he represented himself in the iconography of the Assyrian kings but performing
a greeting gesture directed towards the symbols of Marduk, Nusku, Šamaš, Sîn, and Ištar,109 thus
subscribing to the Babylonian tradition with regard to his divine carriers of identity. This friction between
the centralizing efforts of the capital and the centrifugal force of the powerful nobility only abated with
Tiglath-Pileser III’s restructuring of the bureaucratic apparatus.110
To conclude: With the beginning of the Assyrian expansion towards the west, after having
shaken off Mitannian control, the royal inscriptions of Adad-nērārī I destined for Ta’idu but found in
Assur, while demonstrating imperialistic ambitions and the attempt to construct a typical Assyrian royal
discourse, reveal the syncretic processes between Hurian and Assyrian populations in Upper
Mesopotamia. The continuity of some elements of Hurrian culture, particularly evident in the cult of
Adad and Adad’s pairing with Ištar, are not surprising in view of the fact that Assur was under Hurrian
overlordship during the 15th century BCE and, when developing into a territorial state, wavered between
absorbing Hurrian cultural practices, such as their bureaucratic expertise and elements of their cult and
engaging in military actions that ultimately led to the destruction of the former Hurrian strongholds.111
The local rulers at Ṭābētu, despite their choice of Assyrian throne-names, adhered to a cultural
identity anchored in a Syro-Babylonian tradition that had been established during the Old Babylonian
period, continuing through the time of the kings of Hana and Hurrian occupation into the Middle
Assyrian period. Beyond the choice of the local calendar in the administrative context, the choice of the
cylinder instead of stone tablets as a carrier of writing for the royal inscriptions, the use of the Babylonian
rather than the Assyrian language, and the choice of the divinities called upon to sanction their rule and
building activities all bespeak a strong multilayered local tradition, indebted equally to the former
tradition of Mari and the kings of Hana and to the Hurrians. Such indebtedness to the local tradition
continued into the first millennium, as apparent in the inscription of Bēl-ereš, the vice-regent of Aššur-
rēš-iši II (969-965 BCE), which was found at Tell Aǧaǧa just south of Tell Taban. Although admitting to
the Assyrian overlordship, in its choice of divine carriers of identity this inscription evinced an
exclusively local tradition belonging to former Hurrian tradition. In iconography and iconology, pictorial
representations also wavered between a typical Assyrian style on the one hand, Aramean style on the
other, and unusual choices with regard to the usurpation of a monument in Southern Anatolian style.
Such evidence demonstrates once more how much identity in this period was bound up with the
city and its deep history, and the extent to which all rulers had to comply with the existing local tradition
of any realm newly added to their controlled territories. It further reveals that, even when constructing
106. Grayson, RIMA III, A.0.104.2010: 8b-11a.

107. Börker-Klähn 1982, no. 231.
108. Cavigneaux/Ismail 1990.
109. Börker-Klähn 1982, no. 232. RIMA III, A.0.105.2.
110. Lumsden 2001, p. 34.
111. Parpola 2007.

their cultural discourse in the center, the Assyrians made deliberate choices in the course of the
emergence of their territorial state that reflected the integration of the local traditions of newly
incorporated geographical regions. With regard to the Hābūr area that cultural discourse – either text or
image – was at least partially indebted to the local Syro-Babylonian tradition carved out during the Old
Babylonian period, to the Hurrian tradition, and, later, during the first millennium BCE, also to the
Aramean culture of Northern Syria, which in pictorial art, might itself have been indebted to earlier
Hittite artistic traditions. Such evidence demonstrates that the local elites, in the second half of the second
millennium BCE, while sharing a common lifestyle, re-invented known tropes and styles to create an
ideological self-representation that complied with their local individual visions. The Hābūr region thus
presents itself as an excellent case study through which the dynamics of cultural interaction and the
tension between the ideological homogenous visions of the imperial center and the local heterogeneous
realities in their discursive, practical and material aspects may be explored.
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ASSYRIAN ROYAL DISCOURSE BETWEEN LOCAL AND IMPERIAL

TRADITIONS AT THE HĀBŪR

2011/1 Vol. 105 | pages 109 à 128

Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses Universitaires de France.

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ASSYRIAN ROYAL DISCOURSE BETWEEN LOCAL AND IMPERIAL

IDEOLOGICAL CLAIMS VERSUS CULTURAL PRACTICE

Revue d’Assyriologie, volume CV (2011), p. 109-128

assyriologie_105.indd 109 17/12/12 15:19

assyriologie_105.indd 110 17/12/12 15:19

11. Morandi-Bonacossi 1996 with detailed bibliography.

assyriologie_105.indd 111 17/12/12 15:19

THE VISION OF ADAD- NĒRĀRĪ I (1295-1264 BCE)

18. Tadmor 1981.

assyriologie_105.indd 112 17/12/12 15:19

28. Beckman 1996, 42, 6A §12.

assyriologie_105.indd 113 17/12/12 15:19

assyriologie_105.indd 114 17/12/12 15:19

assyriologie_105.indd 115 17/12/12 15:19

LOCAL VARIANTS: THE TWO CASES OF ṬĀBĒTU AND ŠADIKANNI

54. Jakob 2003, p. 9 with reference to RIMA I A.0. 77.1: 56-72.

assyriologie_105.indd 116 17/12/12 15:19

63. Yamada 2008, pp. 164f. and 2010.

assyriologie_105.indd 117 17/12/12 15:19

assyriologie_105.indd 118 17/12/12 15:19

Adad- nērārī I Aššur-kettī-lēšir

assyriologie_105.indd 119 17/12/12 15:19

81. Millard 1970.

assyriologie_105.indd 120 17/12/12 15:19

88. Kühne ibid.

assyriologie_105.indd 121 17/12/12 15:19

assyriologie_105.indd 122 17/12/12 15:19

95. Grayson 1976, p. 112.

assyriologie_105.indd 123 17/12/12 15:19

106. Grayson, RIMA III, A.0.104.2010: 8b-11a.

assyriologie_105.indd 124 17/12/12 15:19

assyriologie_105.indd 125 17/12/12 15:19

assyriologie_105.indd 126 17/12/12 15:19

Menzel, B. (1981) Assyrische Tempel, 2 vols., Rome

assyriologie_105.indd 127 17/12/12 15:19

assyriologie_105.indd 128 17/12/12 15:19

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