Differences
This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.
Next revision | Previous revision | ||
tukulti-ninurta_i [2010/04/03 00:57] – created ong | tukulti-ninurta_i [2015/01/28 21:20] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1 | ||
---|---|---|---|
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
+ | return to [[Rulers of Assyria]]\\ | ||
+ | Return to [[rulers_of_babylon_in_the_first_millennium_bc]]\\ | ||
+ | Return to [[biographies|Biographies]] | ||
+ | \\ | ||
+ | |||
====== Tukulti-Ninurta I ====== | ====== Tukulti-Ninurta I ====== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ==== Biography of Tukulti-Ninurta I ===== | ||
+ | Following on the campaigns of his predecessor Adad-Nirari I to the west, Tukulti-Ninurta I undertook ambitious missions aimed at carving away land controlled by the Hittites and then from the staunch enemy to the south, Babylon. He is one of the better documented kings of the Middle Assyrian period. Among the sources dealing with him are remnants of an epic poem detailing his struggle with Babylonia, a number of royal inscriptions, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Tukulti-Ninurta ascended the throne at a time of great tension between Assyria and the Hittites. His father Shalmaneser I had defeated the kingdom of Mitanni (Hanigalbat), | ||
+ | |||
+ | Yet despite initially friendly overtures from Tukulti-Ninurta, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Assyrian offensive now threatened the Hittites last eastern stronghold of Isuwa with its routes leading across the Euphrates and the all important copper mines at Ergani Maden (Singer, pg. 105). Indeed, certain letters from the archives of Ugarit and Hattusa make references to | ||
+ | an important battle that took place in the Upper Euphrates, in the small state of Nihriya (Kuhrt pg. 355). This locality has not been definitively pin-pointed. Based on the place name's occurrence in the Mari archives, some scholars have argued for somewhere in the upper Habur or Balih valley. Others, on the basis of Assyrian, Hittite, and Urartean sources, believe Nihriya lay in the upper Tigris Valley, north or northeast of Diyarbakır (Singer pg. 106). | ||
+ | |||
+ | Accounts of the battle come only from the mouth of the Assyrian king himself. In a fragmentary letter likely attributable to Tukulti-Ninurta I, an Assyrian king describes to the king of Ugarit his preparations for the battle: | ||
+ | |||
+ | I called my camp herald: "Put on your cuirasses and mount your chariots. The king of Hatti arrives in battle-order." | ||
+ | |||
+ | That the battle ended in a disastrous defeat for the Hittites finds corroboration in another letter sent by the Hittite King to one of his vassals, in which he both berates his presumed ally for failing to provide military support and indirectly implores him to return to his side. The addressee is not known, but the eastern state of Iszuwa has been proposed as a likely candidate (Singer 110): | ||
+ | |||
+ | As (the situation) turned difficult for me you kept yourself somewhere away from me. Beside me you were not! Have I not fled from Nihriya alone? When it thus occurred that the enemy took away from me the Hurrian lands, was I not left on my own in Alatarma? (ibid.) | ||
+ | |||
+ | The defeat placed Tudhaliya, the Hittite king, in a politically unstable situation and left his kingdom open to further attack. Curiously, however, Tukulti-Ninurta did not pursue this option, choosing instead to begin a campaign against the Babylonians, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Tukulti-Ninurta I also undertook the construction of a new capital city a short distance from Assur, naming in Kar Tukulti-Ninurta ("Port Tukulti-Ninurta" | ||
+ | \\ | ||
+ | \\ | ||
+ | return to [[Rulers of Assyria]]\\ | ||
+ | Return to [[rulers_of_babylon_in_the_first_millennium_bc]]\\ | ||
+ | Return to [[biographies|Biographies]] |