Assyrie

The Assyrie is old a Empire north of the Mésopotamie, whose capital was initially the town of Assur, then in 879, Kalkhu, and in 745, Ninive, on the Tigre. Assyrie controlled territories which extend on four current countries: Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq. For the Assyrians of today, to see the Assyrian article .

History

See also: History of Assyrie

The history of Assyrie is summarized in three principal periods:

  • paléo-Assyrian Period (? - beginning)

  • médio-Assyrian Period (1365-911)
  • néo-Assyrian Period (911-609)

During the first period, the Assyrian territory is confined in the neighborhoods of the city of Assur. This phase in fact is especially known by abundant documentation Cunéiforme found in the town of Kanesh, the Kültepe antique, in Cappadoce, consisted the correspondence of merchants of Assur who had established a commercial counter there. Politically, Assur is a power of low scale. About 1800, it falls under the cut from Samsi-Addu, king of Ekallatum, then under that of Hammourabi of Babylon, then finds its independence before being subjected by the kings Hourrites of the Mitanni.

The Assyrian kingdom knows his first expansion when Assur-uballit I {{er}} is released from the domination of Mitanni in the middle of, and constitutes a powerful kingdom which makes good match with its large neighbors, Babylon and the Hittites. This first period knows its apogee under the kings Salmanazar Ier and Tukulti-Ninurta I {{er}}, before the kingdom périclite after a last start under the reign of Teglath-Phalasar I {{er}}, vis-a-vis the pressure exerted by the Araméens.

The Assyrian dynasty, although considerably weakened, succeeds in even keeping the capacity in Assyrie, which constitutes the home base of a reconquest started at the end of Without rival to his size, Assyrie politically dominates all Middle East in the current it, before knowing one period of weakness during first half of eighth century BC Starting from Teglath-Phalasar III, the Assyrian kings will restructure their empire, which knows an expansion without precedent then. Under the large kings sargonides, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Assarhaddon and Assurbanipal, the borders of the empire are pushed back until in Anatolia, Egypt and Élam in the current of seventh century BC

In spite of this apparent invincibility, Assyrie is undoubtedly a kingdom exhausted by all these conquests and rather unstable. A revolt occurs inside the Assyrian dynasty after the death of Assurbanipal into 627, from which profit Babylon and the Mèdes, which cut down the Assyrian empire after long years of fight, between 625 and 609.

Political organization

See also: Political organization of Assyrie

Assyrie is directed by a king, who is in fact considered as the terrestrial representative of the god Assur, true Master of the kingdom and its inhabitants. That did not prevent the Assyrians from pushing the exaltation of the royal figure to the extreme when their empire knew his apogee, which slices with the limited capacity that the king at the time paléo-Assyrian appears to have had.

The Assyrian nobility always framed the king in the military expansion of the kingdom, in which it took an active part, and of which it drew from great benefit. She sometimes could constitute a threat for the sovereign sometimes overflowed by the ambitions of large of the kingdom, before Sargonides do not succeed in suppressing these attempts.

The territorial influence of the Assyrian kingdom is built at the time médio-Assyrian around kinds of great provincial centers aiming at primarily dominating the lately conquered territories, into High Mésopotamie Western. At the time néo-Assyrian, the first phase of conquest is often done in a brutal way, but the Assyrians are satisfied to leave vassal sovereigns in the subjected territories, with which they are bound by a treaty. Starting from Teglath-Phalasar III, one proceeds to the pure and simple annexation of the rebellious territories, which pass under direct control, after the elimination or the rallying of the local elites.

The army

The Assyrian army becomes a power on which it is necessary to count starting from the reign of Assur-uballit Ier. At the 13th century, the Assyrians gain great victories against the Babylonian and the Hittites, which indicates that they undoubtedly have as of this best period armed with the the Middle East. It is the néo-Assyrian period which remains that during which the army of this kingdom became a genuine machine gaining victory over victory, at the point this to however cut an empire of a width ever reached before.

The Assyrians developed as from the 9th century an army organized very well, very trained (campaigns being annual), framed by troops of elite consisted the nobility of the kingdom. The cavalry develops, even if the infantrymen remain the base. If most of the troops remains made up of conscripts, the Assyrians set up a professional army.

The glorification of the military actions was thorough very far at this period, and the Assyrians left the image of a predatory nation, that it is by the Bible, and the redécouverte of the inscriptions of their sovereigns and the low-reliefs of their palates praising their military victories and terrible repression falling down on overcome (massacres, deportations).

Company

The Assyrian company is divided into two groups: free and not-free. Divisions exist within these two units. The free men are divided into two groups by the Assyrian Lois: amēlu (“man”) and aššurayu (“Assyrian”), first having a condition more honourable than the seconds. The true nature of the two units remains discussed. What is clear, it is that the entourage of the king has of the highest position, while after several other groups, especially definite are by their economic level, energy of the people having a rather easy level until the dependant ones working for the account on a great organization (temple, palate), or on the field notable. The slaves are also a very mixed group: one finds the slaves domestic, of the craftsmen, the slaves of great agricultural domain, and also those with which the living conditions are the least enviable, in charge of great work and installations on behalf of the king.

Economy

Agriculture

Assyrie is located in zone of dry agriculture, not requiring the irrigation, although this one is practiced to increase the outputs or to limit the hydrous stress. The basic production is the cereal culture, and one found also zones of market gardenings, in particular with the accesses of the cities, and so arboricolous. The vine growing, which is of very a positive ratio, is also practiced on the grounds of the great landowners.

The fields were generally divided into two distinct units: common grounds, and great properties controlled by the royal capacity, which could redistribute them with temples or with royal civils servant. At the time of the great médio-Assyrian, and especially néo-Assyrian conquests, the dignitaries of the Assyrian court could constitute very great agricultural domains, often made up of pieces being on various soils. The royal capacity takes nevertheless an increasingly large weight in first half of the thousand-year-old 1st, just as a restricted number the large noble ones. The fields can change hands with the peasants who exploit them, without for all this those are not regarded as slaves.

Generally, the situation of the Assyrian small farmers is precarious. The crises of subsistence are frequent, and can lead to food shortages and famines. The country debt is also important, and the current practice of the Antichrèse makes that the least rich often their grounds with the profit of the notable ones lose which are their creditors. One thus includes/understands that the low layer of the population undergoes full whip the disturbed periods and also the military conscription at the time néo-Assyrian, involving a depopulation which can explain the fall of the Assyrian Empire.

The breeding is also attested in Assyrie. Many tribes of seminomads practice the pastoralism since moved back times. The large herds can belong to the great organizations, but also to individuals. The small farmers had some animals.

Craft industry

The craft industry is only documented within the urban framework. For the paléo-Assyrian time, one has information on the textile production carried out in workshops of Assur, with an aim of exporting them in Anatolia. They are private industries there. But the major part of the artisanal production was done in the framework of the great organizations, the temple and especially the palate. The craftsmen are paid by rations. At the time néo-Assyrian is developed a system allowing the craftsman to get near the palate the raw material which it needs against an amount of money.

Trade

At the time paléo-Assyrian, the town of Assur is before all a powerful commercial town. The Assyrian merchants maintain a trade with long distance with the Cappadoce, which can be very profitable since during a voyage return ticket one tripled on average his starting setting. One made safe the roads while making from the agreements with the kingdoms being located on the commercial axes. In Cappadoce even, the trade was organized around a principal center, Kanesh, where a batch of more than 20000 fragments of wedge-shaped shelves was found, which put at the day all the organization of this trade. The Assyrians conveyed in Anatolia tin from Iran, but also from the made textiles with Assur, and they got various metals for it, before all the copper, which with tin was used with manufacture as bronze ojets. The Assyrian merchants could organize various types of partnerships, on short or long run, and involving various implications for (S) the financial backer (S) of funds, or it (S) commercial (S).

The trade is documented rather little for the later times. One knows that the Assyrian royal palace becomes the center of a trade conveying an significant amount of various products coming from the vassal territories and the provinces, especially at the time imperial. But it is more than one form of tribute or tax that a true trade.

Justice and right

Many members of the Assyrian administration have legal prerogatives. The judges with whole share only appear very seldom in the sources, and are even absent from legal documents of the néo-Assyrian time.

The first judge of the kingdom is initially the king, with whom one has recourse in the most serious businesses. In other complex cases, one can also rely directly on the gods by the means of the Ordalie. At the time paléo-Assyrian, one knows primarily businesses of commercial disputes between the merchants who make deals in Cappadoce. It is then the council of the Town of Assur which regulates the businesses. Generally, the municipal authorities always keep an important legal role, in particular the council of the City, but also the mayor. Certain members of the royal administration can also carry out judgments. With time, the legal personnel packs itself, and of the solicitors, or of the indicters (of the kinds of prosecutors to the service of the king) appear.

A code of Assyrian Lois was written under the reign of Teglath-Phalasar I {{er}} at the 12th century. They are in fact a compilation old decisions taken by preceding kings, arranged by topic (marriage, property, slavery). As for the other codes mésopotamiens, it is acted in fact of a kind of treaty aiming at being used as examples for the judgments to come, and not of a code to be applied systematically like our Codes. These judgments appear harder than those of the other areas of Mésopotamie.

Religion

Assur, the national god

The principal divinity of Assyrie was Assur, god éponyme of the city from which this kingdom was formed, where its large temple is, the Esharra. In Assyrian theology, he is the true Master of the kingdom, and the king is only his “vicar”, and his “high priest”. It is the god who orders to him what it must make, and the sovereign must return accounts to him, as the reports/ratios testify some to campaigns which are sometimes addressed to him by kings. Assur takes an increasingly important dimension as its kingdom grows, until becoming a kind of “divinity imperialist”. On the model from what occurs to Babylon for Mardouk, clergy of Assur made of him the King of the Gods.

Other important divinities

Other divinities have a certain importance in Assyrie. The large traditional god High-Mésopotamie is the god of the Storm, Adad for the Assyrians (but Addu for the Amorrites, Teshub for the Hourrites and Hadad for the Araméens). He occupies an important place in Assyrie. Mention must be also made of the goddess Ishtar, who has two great places of worship in Assyrie, with Ninive and Arbélès.

Specificities of the Assyrian religion

The Assyrian religion takes again the traditional aspects of the religion mésopotamienne. The Assyrian theology of the capacity is resulting from this matrix, and the Pantheon of Assyrie is the same one as that of Babylonia, except Assur. Besides the South mésopotamien exerts a strong influence on Assyrie in the cultural field, and the religion. Assyrie however has characteristics, in addition to the presence of Assur, in particular in the field of the clergy, whose titles and undoubtedly functions vary compared to Babylonia.

Structure

Town planning

Assyrian town planning is difficult to study being given the long story of the Assyrian cities, and consequently because of complexity of stratigraphies. The towns of Hard-Sharrukin Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta and , built ex-nihilo , are exemplary town planning programmed by the Assyrian sovereigns.

According to the tradition of the towns of high Mésopotamie, the Assyrian cities are divided between a low city and a high city. The most exemplary case is Assur, whose old center is built on a rocky outcrop, but it is also the case of Ninive, whose center is on the Tel. of Quyundjik (with a second Tel. on Nebi Yunus) and Kalkhu (Nimrud, and also Such 'Azar comprising the arsenal). The high city comprises the royal residences, or those of the capacity in general, as well as the principal temples of the city, and it is defended by an internal wall. The low city more residential, artisanal and also commercial, with the kāru , district of the merchants, along the river with a port, and is surrounded by the external enclosure.

Few districts of dwelling were excavated in the Assyrian cities. Seule Assur has the appearance of an exception, since several residences were released there. The houses follow the traditional plan of the residences mésopotamiennes: organization around a central space, which opens on several rooms. The streets are often narrow and tortuous, except in the cases of cities built of a blow, where the plan is organized along principal arteries which are vaguely perpendicular, and also when one carries out urban developments and that large avenues are created, as when Sennacherib renovates Ninive.

Assyrian palates

See also: Assyrian Palates

The oldest Assyrian palate is the “Old Palate” of Assur, built at the time paléo-Assyrian. This building is presented then according to the same plan as a normal residence, only its size confirms its function of royal residence.

At the time médio-Assyrian, Tukulti-Ninurta I {{er}} makes build in Assur the “New Palate”, located in the north-western angle of the citadel. It could not be excavated, but one knows by the texts that it is about the precursor of the royal large palaces of the néo-Assyrian time. One there finds already division between public space ( babānu ) and spaces private ( bītānu ), and undoubtedly also the first low-reliefs carved on orthostates.

The first royal large palace of the néo-Assyrian time is built with Kalkhu by Assurnasirpal II. To its continuation, other sovereigns will build or restore palates in the citadel of this city: Adad-Nerari III, Teglath-Phalasar III, Sargon II and Assarhaddon. Sargon II built in its turn a large palace in its capital, Hard-Sharrukin. This construction is quickly supplanted by the large “North-eastern Palate” built by Sennacherib in the new Assyrian capital, Ninive. It is undoubtedly more the néo-Assyrian royal large palace. Assurbanipal makes in its turn restore a palate with the opposite angle of the citadel of Ninive. An example of palate of province was found with Til-Barsip, in the area of the Khabur.

The Assyrian royal palaces follow all the same plan. One enters by a monumental door which directs towards a first court around which the public space of the palate ( babānu ) is organized: stores, workshops, offices of the administration palatiale. The throne room separates this zone from the private space ( bītānu ), including/understanding the royal apartments and the harem, also organized to him around a central big space. The decoration of the royal palaces consisted of long low-reliefs carved on orthostates. For Til-Barsip, provincial palate, one had substituted painted frescos to them. Generally the subjects had an identical goal: glorifier the person of the king.

Assyrian art

See also: Assyrian art

Sculpture

The Assyrians especially expressed their taste for the low-reliefs, found in great quantity in the néo-Assyrian royal palaces. Relatively little examples of sculpture in the round reached us.

The low-reliefs of the Assyrian palates were carved on orthostates, large stones placed against the walls of the building. The subjects were represented of profile. One can observe the artistic evolution of the Assyrian sculptors between the palate of Assurnasirpal II with Kalkhu and those of Sennacherib and Assurbanipal to Ninive, which constitutes the height of the art of the Assyrian low-reliefs, impressive of realism (in particular in the representation of the movements).

The subjects represented on the low-reliefs are primarily profane. The famous bull-winged ones protecting the entries from the palate against the demons, like some representations of geniuses and pertaining to worship scenes constitute the rare examples of properly religious subjects. The remainder of the low-reliefs is very dedicated to the glory of the sovereign, and devotes his peaceful acts (constructions of monuments, of gardens, scenes of banquet) and especially its military victories. The scultpeurs represented the course of many battles, adding inscriptions sometimes explaining what is represented (with the manner of bubbles of band-drawn). Often one can compare the representations of battles on the low-reliefs with the accounts that one made some in Annals of the sovereigns. These representations do not save any detail as for the punishment which the recalcitrant people with the Assyrian authority encourrent, and sounds like a warning with the foreign ambassadors remaining in the palate.

Painting

The low-reliefs of palate-Assyrian were painted, but that made well a long time that they lost all their colors. One found some examples of painted walls with Assur or Kalkhu. But the most impressive series of Assyrian paintings was found in the palate of Til-Barsip in the years 1930. Unfortunately, a great part was degraded and disappeared, and is known only by the copies which were made by it at the time. The style and the subject were the same ones as those of the low-reliefs of the royal large palaces. The use of painting was to have been privileged because this technique was less expensive than scultpure on orthostate, considered to be superfluous for a simple provincial palate.

Ivory

Many objects in Ivoire carved were found in the large néo-Assyrian capitals, especially Kalkhu. It is undoubtedly among the most beautiful works of art found in these sites. The ivory was that of teeth of Hippopotame or defenses of elephant then always present in their regions.

The objects out of carved ivory present for the majority of the artistic characteristics specific to Syria and Phénicie, and not to Assyrie, whether it is by their style or the subjects represented. They are thus achievements made by artists coming from these countries, which perhaps worked in the royal workshops of Assyrie. Quantity of objects out of ivory found in Assyrie even watch which they were very appreciated by the elite of this country.

The objects out of ivory are various types: make-up boxes, elements of furniture, decorative plates.

Languages and writing

The Assyrians used two languages during their history: initially an alternative of the Akkadien, the Assyrian, written in Wedge-shaped, then the Araméen, introduced at the time néo-Assyrian.

See too

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