Ancient History - Part 49: The Lion In The Room

Surprisingly, Carchemish was left off the Treaty of Kadesh. This has to led to some speculation that either a non-Hittite entity (such as Assyria) had absorbed the city during the negotiations between Hatta and Egypt, or more likely, Carchemish had already become a recognized part of king Hattushil's home capital, thereby needing no such formally written recognition in the agreement.

During this period, Shalmaneser I, the king of Assyria, had reached the Middle Euphrates, with his armies frequently setting raids from across the water. The target of these raids primarily included Hatta's ally, the Mitanni, who sustained the brunt of these attacks, and included their capital, Hanigalbat. Thusly, it is not unreasonable to put Assyrian occupation of Carchemish outside the realm of possibility here.

Whilst previously Egypt was frantic to accept swift Hattic friendship due to pressure from their alliance with Babylonia, it was soon the Hittite people's turn to ask the same of their former enemy. As westward expansion by Assyria encroached upon their lands, Hattushil drew upon letters to Babylonia and Egypt both, reporting aggressive movements of this powerful new threat. However, as we know, not much was done in the manner to curb the Hattic king's worry.

Even still, thirteen years after signing the Treaty of Kadesh, Hattushil concentrated on fulfilling strategic maneuvers to strengthen the bonds with his allies, and began by marrying one of his daughters to Egypt's pharaoh, Ramses, who would join his Royal Harem. The correspondence at this junction actually included Hattushil's queen, Pudukhipa, directly addressing matters concerning her daughter and the Egyptian lifestyle, and also Ramses asked for large supplies of smelted iron from his new kingly friend.

Generally speaking, it is very difficult to create a reasonably sized conglomerate of allied nations to defend against the level of danger that the war-hungry Assyrian army posed to the rest of the Near East. Egypt and Babylonia did not appear to treat this threat with the same manner of heightened care that Hatta did, and instead demonstrated clumsy foresight by the hands of Babylonia's king, and an agnostic interest at best on behalf of Egypt's, due to distance.

It's a reasonable basis in hindsight that the Hittites and their king were correct in fearing Assyrian expansion, but unfortunately their voices were drowned out in a sea of disinterest, a price all players with the exception of perhaps Elam, in the far east, would later pay at a supreme cost.

[KING HATTUSHIL II]

Ancient History - Part 28: The Madness of Marduk

After his prayer, Nebuchadrezzar stepped out of Great Temple of Marduk to be greeted by the overwhelming growth of fugitives, who had also retreated to Babylon, for sanctuary within the city's battlements. He made a grand speech, elevated in a declaration of calling upon the power of his god, that this was their final moment and battle for survival. The hero king rallied the populace, intent on facing the Elam's army once again.

Historical record tells us that this last march occured during the most sweltering of days, the temperature having reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit. This translated cuneiform tablet that described what transpired next gave this opening: 

"The axehead burnt like fire ... and the roads scorched like flame..." 

Yet still, Pashe's New Babylonia marched for over two hundred miles to meet the enemy, who as it was discovered, did not pursue chase following the previous engagement.

King Nebuchadrezzar and his chariot master, Ritti-Marduk, replenished their units' horses at the last waterhole, the river of Eulaeus, and then both the Pashe Babylonia and Elam met each other on the battlefield, thirsty and fatigued but no less eager. In that very moment, as if divine intervention had taken place, a dust-storm enveloped the area, blinding the two opposing sides. Those from Elam broke for retreat, perhaps the tormenting climate's final trick too much for the threshold of the cool mountain land natives.

While some might say that in perfect conditions, the battle's result might have remained the same, most tend to believe that king Nebuchadrezzar's forces were on their last legs, and the belief at that time was that Marduk himself truly had interfered on Babylonia's behalf, so the lands that rightfully belonged to his people could be reclaimed. And with Elam fully expelled from their lands, Babylonia reinforced the once occupied expanse of her country.

For his role, Ritti-Marduk was rewarded with kingly favors, and in a final counter-attack, claimed just a meagre portion of Elamite land at the border, a warning, chasing off any remaining enemies back into their mountains. The commander then turned back and noting off the newly extended boundaries, later recorded by kudurru (land marker), that no Elamite may pass without knowingly encroaching again.

Nebuchadrezzar and Ritti-Marduk provided the Near East with a valuable lesson: 

Strategy may win battles but morale wins war.

[LAND BOUNDARY MARKER (KUDURRU) DURING NEBUCHADREZZAR I'S REIGN]  

Ancient History - Part 27: The Hero Who Was Promised?

New Babylonia, referred to as Pashe, had a total of eleven kings spanning less than 150 years. Initially plagued by the rule of a number of petty kings, it wasn't until the throne had succeeded to its first great king, Nebuchadrezzer I (1146-1123) that this new Babylonia began its traction in the direction of regaining long lost prestige. Blood-hungry for vengeance, the Pashe king declared his intent to wage two wars against the very two kingdoms that wracked ruin upon his nation: Assyria and Elam.

In Babylon, the Kassites had fully embraced and were embraced by the temples, learnt of the native tongue, and practice-tablets were used to conduct their full integration into the nation's faith. In Isin, administrative tasks were taught to overseers that once mastered were sent to other areas of the kingdom to manage organized governmental policy of the king. Dresswear advanced as the Kassite culture fully blended with the Pashe and a new cultural identity was bred out of the pain this generation and its previous ones had endured.

Lastly, new weapons that included sharper metal carved arrows, longer ranged bows, stern maces, and daggers were fashioned for the soldiery that had been waiting for a strong leader to call upon them to strike back against their invaders.

At this time, Assyria faced hardships within her dominion, the Mushkai people (former Hittites that migrated within Assyria's borders) began to rebel, and overran two key outposts, Purukuzzi and Alzi, creating civil unrest. Elam on the other hand cooled on its encroachment of Babylonia, especially as defensive armed forces grew under new Pashe organization.

This powder keg readied explode as the leverage of the two oppressors waned, and a new Babylonian "hero" was born in Nebuchadrezzer. Elam did not approve. Shilhak-In-Shushinak, king of Elam, invaded further into Babylonia where he was met in battle by Nebuchadrezzer along the banks of the Ukni River, in the southeast. It was April when Nebuchadrezzer and his forces were soundly beaten and driven back, and whilst a valiant stand was made, the invading Elamite units were much too battle-tested by the comparison of Nebuchadrezzer's hot-blooded youths.

No choice than to consolidate his remaining forces in a grand retreat back to the capital, Babylon, with the Elamite army potentially on his trail, the bold young leader prayed before Marduk, seeking out an answer for his people.

[MARDUK - PATRON GOD OF BABYLON]

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.