Ancient History - Part 3: The Babylonian Question

Once friendly relations were firmly established with Thutmose III's powerful Egypt, Assyria turned southward to Babylonia. Other than the Mitanni, who once rattled their borders with oppressive raids prior to Egypt's intervention, Babylonia, as ruled by the Kassites, was the nearest neighboring civilization. Following Egypt's grand conquest of the Near East's coast and strategic areas within the Mesopotamia, now was the perfect opportunity for the Assyrian king, Puzur-Ashur IV (1486-1460 B.C.), to address the Babylonian Question.

Would it be peace or war?

The Egyptians had seen fit to allow resident countries to preside over agreed upon boundaries as long as they continued to pay tribute (taxes) in the form of goods and precious rocks and metals used for what passed as currency at that time. How these different peoples interacted with one another was an entirely separate matter.

Not much is known of Puzur-Ashur's reign of Assyria, other than a few short pieces of note:

• He restored the temple of Ishtar, which one might surmise was thoroughly desecrated at the hands and ill-treatment by their immediate neighbors, the Mitanni, though this is unconfirmed. At present, historians have it on record that the temple did fall into a state of decay and he'd restored it back to its once pristine condition, no less fit for Assyria's chief place of reverence.

• While no major battles or wars are accounted for during his lifetime, the Assyrian king did commit strenuous efforts and time dedicated to the building of a new defensive structure, a protective wall for Ashur, their capital city, that would shield the newer southern districts that their growing population had rapidly expanded into, a much needed response to any outside danger.

• But perhaps his grandest recorded accomplishment was the negotiations with the Kassite ruler of Babylon, Burna-Buriash I (1461-1436), where the two met and agreed upon establishing the precise borders between their respective kingdoms. Assyria already carried the experience in such negotiations with the Egyptian empire, that in this case, found themselves as leading the way as opposed to following, and as it was between Thutmose III and Puzur-Ashur IV, it was with Puzar-Ashur IV and Burna-Buriash I.

For the many years that followed, there was a prolonged period of peacetime amongst kingdoms and empires. At one point Burna-Buriash I's successor, Kurigalzu II (1435-1411), was invited by the Canaanites to wage war against Egypt, with a promise of a piece of the Semitic lands that they were so desperately yearning to liberate. To this, Kurigalzu declined, and each of his successors were continually solicited to turn against the great empire of the Near East. Just as their forbearer once demonstrated, each Babylonian ruler also declined, referring to the Egyptian pharaoh as "my brother."

The Egyptians had established dominance for this century (15th century B.C.) by making friends where enemies might once had surfaced. However, as history will often remind, nothing lasts forever, especially in the case of the status quo.

Ancient History - Part 2: Tributes & Tribulations

Green: The Egyptian Empire.  Red: The Hittite Old Kingdom. Orange: The extent of Hittite control.

Both Egyptian and Hittite interest in obtaining the coastal region of the Mediterranean saw many uneasy maneuverings (in the form of short-lived strategic treaties) as skirmishes between the two were not uncommon. To their east flank, whenever a Mitannian military unit appeared on the horizon, a marriage proposal would be offered by both greater powers, an offer that would curry favor and ensure an elevated status in such a way that flattered the king of Mitanni into neutrality in all matters, an effective deterrent in their sending any assistance of Egypt or Hatti over the other.

Thus intermarriages especially became commonplace toward the beginning of 15th century BC and was not merely exclusive between these three kingdoms. Letters during this century included an elaborate recounting of a Babylonian princess marrying into the Egyptian royal harem1.

The use of gold as a bargaining tool for bribery was another tactic of advanced statesmanship between sides in their respective courts. If a king rejected a gift of gold douceurs per se, reasoning that the presentation was too meagre an offer and taken as a slight. . . Well, that could very well be the means for the Hittites to attack the Egyptians and vice versa. By the same token, it could also buy temporary friendship between sides, which was rather more the customary outcome whenever gold was utilized in this fashion.

Well into Thutmose III's reign (1501-1447), on his twenty second year, he led his Egyptian army into a large scale invasion of Palestine, leaving the prince of Kadesh (Qadesh) and his allies to scramble together an ill-prepared and futile defense. News travelled quickly and was brought before the king of Assyria, and when Thutmose's legion eventually crossed the Euphrates, they were greeted with open arms and gifts, in the form of gold, silver, and lapis2.

After this exchange, the Egyptian king viewed Assyria favorably as evidenced by a certain cuneiform letter by an Assyrian man, Adadnirari, of which its text bears mention how Thutmose III had appointed his grandfather, Taku, as a chief to preside over an area known as Nukhashshi. The Egyptian king entrusted a foreigner with a position of power, the birth of a new concept:  Delegation.

At this point, Egypt's expansion claimed Halab (Aleppo) and Carchemish, and friendly relations from the empire were opened, using the successful interactions with Assyria as a reference point, and soon other nations began to accept to the absolute authority of Thutmose III. The Yezedis (Kurdish) were allowed to occupy the foothills between the two great rivers (Euphrates and Tigris) unmolested. Even the Hittites began to offer gifts suing for peace, for the reputation of Egypt's rule during 15th century BC was unquestionable and unmatched.

1. Many pharaohs possessed a number of wives and courtesans, and the royal harem was not a place of disgrace in the public eye of the Egyptian people, much to the contrary, such an inclusion meant to be recognized as an official family member of the 18th Dynasty's ruler. To be among those within the royal harem implied a certain prestige and a mutual voice of power reserved only for those who dwelt within this modest collective.
2. In Ancient History - Part 1 the Mitanni had absconded with the prized gold and silver gate of Ashur, Assyria's capital city. It can be easily understood how the Assyrians were spared from Thutmose III's wroth, yet the Mitanni were not. One hand would appear to wash the other and perhaps revenge was best served cold vis-à-vis with the blade and chariot of Assyria's new ally, the Egyptian conquerors.

Ancient History - Part 1: The Birth of an Empire

Let us travel back to 16th century BC . . .  Where the great lands of the civilized world were Egypt, Hatti (geographically: modern day Turkey; ruled by the Hattians, later the Hittites), Assyria, Babylonia (conquered and controlled by the Kassites by this time, remained known as Babylonia), and Elam (geographically: modern Iran). Of these five grand powers of the known ancient world, Egypt and Hatti rivaled near the top of the hierarchy, with Egypt in first as the power center of the Near East (what we now refer to as the Middle East). A very distant third, in terms of both military power and expansive trade, would have been Babylonia, but it was without doubt inferior in all aspects to the grander two empires above its station.

Assyria was in its infancy, and would later grow to a vast empire of its own right, but during this era was but a small state, well-protected but also isolated by the endless miles of unexplored rough terrain that surrounded its nation.

Egypt was coming off the heels of expelling the Hyksos (Asian invaders of unknown tribe or origin) and following this invaded the Semitic lands of Palestine and all the fertile grounds around them. Thutmose I pressed the might of his Egyptian military forces into Syrian lands and all the way to the Euphrates River.

Three hundred years prior, the Hittite ruler, King Murshil I, swept down from the hills of Taurus and took much of the lands of Syria, a culmination that bore witness to their taking over Aleppo. His freebooters sailed down the Euphrates to raid Babylonia, and historians debate whether or not such attacks were referenced in The Books of Chronicles in the Bible.

These attacks were the height of incursion on the part of the Hittites to Babylonian lands, for concern that too much force might expose their rear flanks to the forever-pending threat of an Egyptian invasion. Such were the political conditions and theater of war at this time.

Sharing in the western portion of their lands, the Assyrians were overshadowed in history by the strength of the Mitanni. So strong was this nation that their king, Shaushshatar, invaded Assyria's capital city, Ashur, and carried off its gate, fashioned from gold and silver and a structure of pride for the Assyrian people. Stolen, they thereafter erected it in the Mitanni capital, Washshukkani, as a trophy of Assyria's submission. This act of humiliation likely drew Assyria's ire for many forthcoming generations.

Throughout 16th century BC to 14th century BC, the Near East was engulfed by ongoing Syrian and Palestinian wars. However, the two nations of Assyria and Babylonia were prevented from taking part, largely due to two buffer zones. First, the brutish Mitanni lay directly north and west of the Assyrian people. Second, the desert east of Palestine separated Babylonia from its most direct route to the convergence of military campaigning.

Adding to this isolation, historians must also consider the geography. While the lands of Assyria and Babylonia lay to the east of the Euphrates, all of the action between Egyptian, Semitic, Hittite, and Mittanian forces fought for blood west of the great river. 

It is most interesting to note that while the Egyptian and Hittite empires exhausted time, resources, and lives in a state of perpetual mass warfare, youthful Assyria remained untouched, and thus became the genesis of its growth into a great empire, facing little resistance in slow expansion into uncontested northern lands, with an eye on the lands of Babylon to the south.