Ethnicity in The Assyrian Empire A View
Ethnicity in The Assyrian Empire A View
Ethnicity in The Assyrian Empire A View
Literature as Politics,
Politics as Literature
Essays on the Ancient Near East
in Honor of Peter Machinist
Edited by
David S. Vanderhooft and Abraham Winitzer
www.eisenbrauns.com
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the Ameri-
can National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984. ♾ ™
Contents
v
vi Contents
1. Introduction
47
48 Frederick Mario Fales
2. See N. Luraghi, The Ancient Messenians: Constructions of Ethnicity and Memory
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 7, partially quoting the introduction
by F. Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Dif-
ference (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969) 9–38 (and esp. 17–19). On Barth’s innovative
views of ethnicity, and on their influence on subsequent studies and methodological
trends, see S. Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity, and the critical-historical evaluation
by U. Fabietti, L’identità etnica: Storia e critica di un concetto equivoco (Rome: Carocci,
1998) 95–104.
3. This dualism, which still today lies at the heart of ethnicity studies, is succinctly
but clearly presented through the parallel quote of contrasting definitions of ethnicity
by M. Roaf, “Ethnicity and Near Eastern Archaeology: The Limits of Inference,” in
Ethnicity in Ancient Mesopotamia, 307–8.
4. See, e.g., E. P. Kaufmann, ed., Rethinking Ethnicity: Majority Groups and Dom-
inant Minorities (London: Routledge, 2004), a useful conference volume regarding a
number of present-day case studies in this perspective.
Foreigners and “Special” Inner Communities 49
entirety. This has begun to filter from the post-colonial horizon into that
of historical studies, not excluding those concerning antiquity, with inter-
esting applications and innovative results, especially due to the diachronic
perspective on the formation of identities and differences that the ancient
textual, and also archaeological, records have to offer. 5
In this light, it is of obvious interest for Assyriologists and historians
of the ancient Near East to single out specific markers of identities and
differentiations among individuals or communities within the domain of
written or iconographic evidence. These markers—as is widely acknowl-
edged—allow us to derive some guidelines for an in-depth historical pic-
ture of the concepts of uniqueness or diversity within the ancient Near
Eastern record, according to the specific chronological and geographical
contexts under examination. 6 For the time being, possible markers of eth-
nicity within Mesopotamian cultures of the third and early second millen-
nia b.c. have attracted the wide majority of scholarly efforts, 7 while much
less attention has been hitherto devoted to the Late Bronze and Early
Iron Ages. 8 The present study thus wishes to address some of the issues
5. A good example of recent debate concerning the complex issues of detecting
ethnic identities in antiquity, as regards both the textual and the material/archaeolog-
ical record, may be found in the papers assembled by T. Derks and N. Roymans, eds.,
Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition (Amsterdam: Amster-
dam University Press, 2009).
6. See the wide-ranging presentation of this subject matter in G. van Driel, “Eth-
nicity, How to Cope with the Subject,” in Ethnicity in Ancient Mesopotamia, 1–10.
7. See especially K. A. Kamp and N. Yoffee, “Ethnicity in Ancient Western Asia
During the Early Second Millennium b.c.,” BASOR 237 (1985) 85–104; G. Ember-
ling and N. Yoffee, “Thinking about Ethnicity in Mesopotamian Archaeology and His-
tory,” in Fluchtpunkt Uruk: Archäologische Einheit aus methodischer Vielfalt: Schriften
für Hans Jörg Nissen (ed. H. Kühne, R. Bernbeck, and K. Bartl; Rahden: Leidorf,
1999) 272–81.
8. See, e.g., S. Jakob, “Zwischen Integration und Ausgrenzung: Nichtassyrer in
mittelassyrischen ‚Westreich‘,” in Ethnicity in Ancient Mesopotamia, 180–88, for non-
Assyrian ethnicities in the western region of the Middle Assyrian empire, also on the
basis of “Herkunftsappelative,” i.e., the nisbe and other similar markers. The classifica-
tion of the numerous ethnic minorities in Kassite Babylonia by L. Sassmannshausen
(Beiträge zur Verwaltung und Gesellschaft Babyloniens in der Kassitenzeit [Mainz: von
Zabern, 2001] 130–51) is, instead, slightly muddled, due to the use of many paral-
lel criteria for identification—not all of which have the same cogency. See the critical
remarks by J. A. Brinkman (“Administration and Society in Kassite Babylonia,” JAOS
124 [2004]: 283–304), although it must be noted that Brinkman himself espouses an
“objective” concept of ethnicity which is far removed from the criteria of present-day
anthropology (see, for example, pp. 284–85). Finally, for a later period than the one
dealt with here, the contribution by R. J. van der Spek (“Ethnic Segregation in Hel-
lenistic Babylon,” in Ethnicity in Ancient Mesopotamia, 393–408) may be singled out
50 Frederick Mario Fales
concerning ethnicity and its markers within what was perhaps the largest
“melting pot” that the ancient Near East created during its history: the
Neo-Assyrian empire.
* * *
The last or imperial phase of Assyrian history (ninth-seventh centuries
b.c.) represents a unique observation point for the study of the mecha-
nisms of ethnicity in an ancient Near Eastern context. This is especially
true since one may nowadays view this period in its geographical vastness
and administrative complexity not only through the official utterances of
Assyrian kingship, but also through many “everyday” texts of adminis-
trative practice, deriving from the archives of Nineveh, Kalhu/Nimrud,
Assur, and other sites, available in reliable editions and translations. 9 In
a general view, the hustle and bustle of humanity in its different “hues”
of ethnicity within Assyrian cities and the outlying countryside may be
detected in a series of administrative inventories detailing specific profes-
sional groups of men and women; this forms the backdrop to the lists of
witnesses in the many hundreds of legal documents from this age. It may
be further detailed in depth through lists of palatial personnel drawn up
within loyalty oaths or queries to the sun god Šamaš on matters of fealty
to the crown. The great variety of ethnic identities that marked the popu-
lation of the Assyrian empire, which derived from military conquests and
planned displacements, may be gauged in particular through two essen-
tial markers: personal names in a linguistic perspective, and the “labels”
of geographic/ethnic provenience that were attached to individuals or
groups within the written documentation.
As material for an evaluation of ethnicity in the Neo-Assyrian empire,
personal names have hitherto occupied center stage, especially in connec-
tion with a historical-geographical evaluation of the relevant attestations.
In particular, the two factors of (a) the linguistic-cultural affiliation of the
PNs (on the basis of the etymologies of their verbal/nominal components
and of the known cultic backgrounds of the gods therein invoked), and
(b) the spatial localization of the bearers (as may be deduced from out-
right textual indications or contextual clues), have been used to derive a
number of historical “snapshots”; these have pinpointed either the ulti-
mate origins of some population groups and their distribution throughout
Assyria or, vice versa, the composite ethnicities that shared specific areas. 10
This vast onomastic material has thus given rise to a general sociolinguistic
image of the heartland of the Assyrian empire as formed in the eighth and
seventh centuries b.c. by a vast assortment of peoples of different heri-
tage—from all over western Asia, as well as from Egypt, the Arabian
peninsula, the Iranian plateau, and the eastern Mediterranean—albeit
through different incoming “waves.” In-depth evaluations of Neo-Assyr-
ian administrative and legal documents on the basis of personal names
further indicate that these peoples were either (a) allowed to reside in a
mutual (and basically unrestrained) admixture within the main cities of
the empire itself, or, to the contrary (b) organized in compact “islands” of
single ethnicities in urban or rural milieus, due to specific circumstances,
whether social (as in the case of tribal groups) or political (e.g., the forced
resettlement of entire communities of foreign deportees).
* * *
10. See, e.g., F. M. Fales, “On Aramaic Onomastics in the Neo-Assyrian Period,”
OA 16 (1977) 41–68; idem, “West Semitic Names in the Assyrian Empire: Diffusion
and Social Relevance,” SEL 8 (1991) 99–117; idem, “West Semitic Names in the Šeḫ
Ḥamad Texts,” SAAB 7 (1993) 139–50; E. Lipiński, The Arameans: Their Ancient His-
tory, Culture, Religion (OLA 100; Leuven: Peeters, 2001), and also many other works
by Lipi´nski; R. Zadok, On West Semites in Babylonia during the Chaldean and Achaeme-
nian Periods: An Onomastic Study (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1978); idem,
“Arabians in Mesopotamia during the Late-Assyrian, Chaldean, Achaemenian and Hel-
lenistic Periods,” ZDMG 131 (1991) 42–84; idem, “The Ethno-Linguistic Character of
the Jezireh and Adjacent Regions in the 9th–7th Centuries,” in Neo-Assyrian Geography
(ed. M. Liverani; Rome: University of Rome, 1995) 217–82; idem, The Ethno-linguistic
Character of Northwestern Iran and Kurdistan in the Neo-Assyrian Period (Tel Aviv:
Archaeological Center Publications, 2002).
11. There remain many attendant methodological problems in this respect as well.
Indeed, it needs to be recalled—even only in passing—that the study of onomastics in
the framework of ethnicity is generally far from foolproof, and shows specific pitfalls
when applied to linguistic-cultural contexts that are only available to us in written form.
In a nutshell, I would point out the following issues: (1) the PN reflects cultural param-
eters of the parents of the bearer, not of the bearer himself, and thus only the study of
family onomastics in a sequential-generational light (i.e., with case studies that are not
52 Frederick Mario Fales
For our present purposes it may be noted that the nisbe presents a basic
advantage over personal names in that it represents an explicit identifier
in terms of ethnicity, rudimentary though it may be, whereas onomastics,
as stated above, only allow ethnicity to be deduced. On the other hand, it
is obvious that the attestation of a nisbe cannot be considered automatic
proof of the actual, and “live,” historical existence of this-or-that ethnicity
on the scenario of the chosen documentation; rather, this merely offers the
subjective and occasional perception and communication of that ethnicity. 15
To give just one example of the challenges this raises, we may consider
the archaizing or generalizing identity markers. As in other cultures from
antiquity, these could be employed by the cuneiform scribes especially to
denote foreign and “remote” population groups; we sometimes find these
markers recorded in the very same contexts as other, much more clearly
and immediately meaningful, nisbe designations. 16
In sum, therefore, the range and extent to which the nisbe was ap-
plied to different locational and social entities attested in the documen-
tation of the Neo-Assyrian period requires a series of in-depth contextual
evaluations, from which we should not, in any case, expect to draw an
“objective” historical picture of the jigsaw puzzle of the ethnicities that
formed the Assyrian empire. What we may draw, instead, is a tentative
15. Possibly the first scholar of allied fields to use the nisbe, drawn from a specific
Oriental linguistic-cultural milieu (Moroccan Arabic), to focus on matters pertaining to
ethnicity was the anthropologist Clifford Geertz (“‚From the Natives’ Point of View‘:
On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding,” Bulletin of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences 28/1 [1974] 26–45). Geertz utilized the concept of nisbe (in Ara-
bic, nisba) to explain how Moroccan culture defined the person. He noted that, at the
highest level, a nisba is an identifier that associated a person with a specific community,
location, or ethnicity. Yet the invoked nisba seems to be a matter of reference frame;
different nisba s may be employed appropriately by dissimilar people within similar loca-
tions. In short, the nisba would seem to create “a framework within which persons can
be identified in terms of supposedly immanent characteristics” (ibid., 42) and at the
same time, to minimize the impact of those characteristics in shaping practical relations
and in how the self sees and describes itself pragmatically within Moroccan culture.
16. The culture of ancient Mesopotamia presents a number of monikers for foreign
peoples that owe more to traditions handed down over the centuries and/or to their
ideological actualizations, than to any concrete connection with observed realities and
to the commonly used (or “native”) identifiers of the relevant communities. A good
case in point—well investigated in a recent study—is that of the ethnonym Ummān-
manda (of uncertain meaning), which goes back to the so-called Cuthean Legend
of Naram-Sin, at least beginning with the late-second millennium re-elaborations of
this text, and which was applied to the Gimirrāya/Cimmerians in NA texts and to
the Medes in NB texts (S. F. Adalı, The Scourge of God: The Umman-manda and Its
Significance in the First Millennium bc [SAAS 20; Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus
Project, 2011]).
54 Frederick Mario Fales
derive from the highly formalized and repetitive contexts of the (ono-
mastically rich) legal documents. The so-called administrative texts, i.e.,
accounts and inventories for diverse practical purposes, fall more or less
between these, but show a particularly interesting “peak” in a number of
detailed Fort Shalmaneser lists concerning the military personnel during
Sargon’s reign. Finally, important pieces of information may also be gained
from the small corpus of treaties and loyalty oaths contemporaneous with
the “everyday” texts. 22 In sum, the material regarding the use of the nisbe
in the Neo-Assyrian documents is altogether vast and varied; its range of
detail in some domains makes it an interesting functional marker of the
ethnicities that made up the Assyrian empire.
* * *
The most basic and transparent use of the nisbe in Neo-Assyrian “every-
day” documents 24 is its application to the subjects that modern bureaucra-
22. All in all, however, the most intriguing evidence on the nisbe as a marker of
ethnicity is to be drawn from a textual category that at first sight might seem unpro-
ductive: extispicy reports, specifically the parallel lists in Cole, Nippur in Late Assyrian
Times, 139 and 142, with their variants (see F. M. Fales, L’impero assiro: Storia e am-
ministrazione, IX-VII sec. a.C. [Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2001] 59–60, 77–78, for a presen-
tation in chart form).
23. Considerations of space also force me to limit the presentation to a number of
particularly significant case studies, although some indications on parallels to these may
be found in the footnotes.
24. As well as the one most frequently attested in the contemporaneous ARI.
Foreigners and “Special” Inner Communities 57
cies may dub, somewhat crudely, as “aliens,” that is, individuals or groups
whose origin or homeland lay outside the borders of the Assyrian state,
and who were subjects of a non-Assyrian territorial or political complex
(defined as such by the prefixed determinative KUR). More precisely, this
application of the nisbe within non-official documentation usually concerns
peoples who entertained political and/or economic relations with the As-
syrian empire but who were not incorporated (yet/any longer) within its
boundaries and thus were not subjected to the “inner” jurisdiction of the
provincial areas. The best-known cases thus refer to the peoples of the
Levant, of the Zagros mountain range (especially under Sargon), and of
southern Anatolia—in sum, to the populations of the outer “rim” of lands
that entered most intensely into contact with Assyrian imperial policies.
As shall be seen, however, some “ethnic-group terms” of the same type
also were applied to breeds of horses originally raised in far-off areas and
were employed to mark out particular technical specializations developed
abroad and imported into Assyria through the mechanism of deportation.
In sum, there is enough material in this particular bracket to single out a
number of historical issues underlying the use of the nisbe.
* * *
Bring down your timber, and perform work on it, but do not sell it
to the Egyptians (KUR.Mu-ṣur-a-a) or the Philistines (KUR.Pa-la-áš-
ta-a), or I shall no more allow you to go up to the mountains. 27
The case of the Philistines mentioned in this letter is worth lingering on,
since this mid-eighth-century nisbe 28 gives the second earliest attesta-
tion—and the earliest in terms of contextually clear evidence—to suggest
that the Assyrians knew and recognized a specific and distinct territorial
entity corresponding to the strip along the southern Levantine coastline
and its immediate hinterland. This same area is circumscribed by some
250 attestations in the Old Testament as occupied by the Pelešet/Pelištîm,
according to the biblical record this area was centered on the “Pentapolis”
of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath. 29 Earlier scholarly thought
had insisted that these Philistine cities had been wiped out around around
1000 b.c., positing that the population had suffered a similar fate; how-
ever, the survival of the ethnonym in the ARI, notably in Sennacherib’s in-
scriptions, paints a completely different picture, as do the results of recent
archaeological investigations. 30
The case of Tel Miqne-Ekron, excavated from 1981 to 1996, is in-
structive in this respect. It is now accepted that the local population had
not abandoned the 50-acre fortified site it had inhabited for some three
centuries in the LB-IA 1 periods. Rather, it had merely withdrawn to the
upper tell, whence it began rebuilding and greatly expanding the urban
settlement (to some 85 acres)—especially owing to favorable industrial
and commercial policies stimulated by the Assyrians after Sennacherib’s
conquest of the Judean Shephelah. 31 In particular, the Assyrians greatly
27. ND 2715 l.e. 1–2 (= H. W. F. Saggs, The Nimrud Letters, 1952 [CTN 5; Lon-
don: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2001] 155–58; Yamada, “Qurdi-Assur-
lamur,” 301–2). Both Saggs and J. N. Postgate (who aided Saggs extensively in his
long-awaited comprehensive edition of the Nimrud letters) translate KUR.Pa-la-áš-
ta-a as “Palestinians,” which is patently erroneous in view of the remarks given below.
28. One in less than a handful in the “everyday” NA texts, which consistently show
the variant Pi-li-is/lis-ta-a-a; Bagg, Orts- und Gewässernamen, 189–90.
29. The earliest evidence of Philistia (KUR.Pa-la-as-tú) appears in a summary list
of conquests of Adad-nirari III (RIMA 3 213 line 12). For the Pelešet/Pelištîm in a
historical-archaeological light, see A. E. Killebrew, Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An
Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel, 1300–1100
b.c. e. (Atlanta: SBL, 2005) 217–67, with ample bibliographical references.
30. See S. Gitin, “The Philistines: Neighbors of the Canaanites, Phoenicians and Is-
raelites,” in One Hundred Years of American Archaeology in The Middle East (eds. D. H.
Clark and V. H. Matthews; Boston: ASOR, 2003) 57–87, with earlier bibliography.
31. The majority of mentions of “the land of the Philistines” dates in point of fact,
from Sennacherib’s royal inscriptions; and it may be recalled that the “crime” of Heze-
kiah of Judah in the Assyrians’ eyes was the support he had given to the insurgents who
Foreigners and “Special” Inner Communities 59
had overthrown Padî, king of Ekron, actually holding the Philistine king captive in Je-
rusalem (see D. D. Luckenbill, The Annals of Sennacherib [Chicago: Oriental Institute,
1924] 31 II 73–77). However, a letter from an officer to Sargon indicates that Philis-
tines were among the foreign (subjected/allied) populations from which the Assyrian
king had drawn armed contingents, making them part and parcel of the Assyrian army:
“The Philistines (KUR.Pi-lis-ta-a-a), whom the king my lord formed into a cohort
and gave me, refuse to stay with me; in the town of Luqaše, near Arbaʾil, they [reside]”
(Parpola, Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I, 155 obv. 4–10). It is interesting to note
that the ARI of Sargon do not mention this fact, while recalling on the other hand the
cohorts of Samarians and of other population groups drawn by the ruler (see S. M.
Dalley, “Foreign Chariotry and Cavalry in the Armies of Tiglathpileser III and Sargon
II,” Iraq 47 [1985] 31–48), and that no Philistines are attested in the contemporane-
ous “horse lists” from Fort Shalmaneser (S. M. Dalley and J. N. Postgate, Tablets from
Fort Shalmaneser [London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1984]). At the same
time, the place of chosen residence of the Philistine military in Assyria is close to one of
the cities (Arbaʾil) which was famed for a “city contingent” within Sargon’s army itself
(cf. §3 below).
32. See Gitin, “The Philistines,” 61–63 (esp. p. 62: “As the political and economic
superpower of its day, Assyria was the major influence in shaping the development of
the nation-states of the eastern Mediterranean basin, including Philistia”). However,
the detailed historical interpretation of the prosperity of Ekron in the seventh century
is still somewhat open to debate; a more nuanced view of events, with an emphasis
on Assyrian self-interests coming before everything else, is suggested by N. Naʾaman,
“Ekron under the Assyrian and Egyptian Empires,” BASOR 332 (2003) 87: “We may
. . . conclude that the prosperity of certain western vassals arose from the stability pro-
duced by the pax Assyriaca and from the new economic opportunities created by the
empire—rather than the result of a deliberate imperial policy of economic development
of these states.”
33. See E. Lipiński, On the Skirts of Canaan in the Iron Age: Historical and Topo-
graphical Researches (OLA 153; Leuven: Peeters, 2006) 66, with previous bibliography.
34. B. J. Stone, “The Philistines and Acculturation: Cultural Change and Ethnic
Continuity in the Iron Age,” BASOR 298 (1995) 7–32; see also Lipiński, Skirts of
Canaan, 50.
60 Frederick Mario Fales
* * *
38. Lanfranchi and Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II, 164. Of inter-
est in this text are the numerous idiosyncratic writings of names and nouns on the part
of the scribe, with various omissions of signs: KUR.Zi-ki-ra-a-a for *Zikirtāya (obv. 6),
KUR. Zi-ki-ti-a for *Zikirtia (obv. 15), KUR.Ḫu-ub-ka-a-a for *Ḫubus/škāya (rev. 3),
and ma-di-tu for *mardītu, “stage, lap” (rev. 4).
39. See the indexes of place names in Parpola, Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I;
and Lanfranchi and Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II.
40. Lanfranchi and Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II, xxii. On the
localization of Hubuškia, see G. B. Lanfranchi, “Assyrian Geography and Neo-Assyrian
Letters: The Location of Ḫubuškia Again,” in Neo-Assyrian Geography, 127–37. Indica-
tions of this type are, however, by no means limited to the Zagros area: see, for example,
in the letter of Qurdi-Aššur-lāmur quoted above, the initial clause (obv. 3–4): “Con-
cerning the ruler of the city of Tyre (URU.Ṣur-a-a), about whom the king my lord
62 Frederick Mario Fales
Finally, a somewhat exceptional case from the same area and date is
represented by the nisbe KUR.Gimirrāya. Recent scholarship has rec-
ognized unanimously that the Gimirrāya should be compared with the
Herodotean ethnonym “Cimmerians.” At present, however, the specific
linguistic-cultural identity of this population and its ultimate geographical
origin—such as may be made out through a combined “reading out” of
the Assyrian sources and Greek historiography, along with the archaeo-
logical record from Iranian, Anatolian, and even circum-Caucasian sites—
has given rise to complex and partially conflicting views. 41 Moreover, as a
mobile armed community, the Gimirrāya might rather warrant inclusion
among the nisbe s employed by the Assyrians for tribal groups. 42
* * *
Horses in great number represented a major requirement of the Assyr-
ian army. 43 Contrary to the idea that horses were caught consistently in the
wild and then tamed, 44 it seems preferable to assume that horses had been
foaled in Assyria over generations, since horse “corrals” are noted in legal
documents all over the empire. 45 Moreover, non-agricultural areas like the
foothills of the eastern provinces appear to have been quite suitable for
said, ‘Speak kindly to him’ . . .” (for the political implications of this clause, see F. M.
Fales, “‘To Speak Kindly to Him/Them’ as Item of Assyrian Political Discourse,” in Of
God(s), Trees, Kings, and Scholars: Neo-Assyrian and Related Studies in Honour of Simo
Parpola [eds. M. Luukko, S. Svärd, and R. Mattila; StOr 106; Helsinki: Finnish Orien-
tal Society, 2009] 27–40); and, from the age of Sargon, Parpola, The Correspondence of
Sargon II, Part I, 226 lines 7–10: “the ruler of the country of Suhu (KUR.Su-ḫa-a-a)
and the local people are also bringing saplings from the country of Laqê,” with refer-
ence to the semi-independent status of the Middle-Euphrates polity of Suhu.
41. See G. B. Lanfranchi, I Cimmeri: Emergenza delle élites militari iraniche nel
Vicino Oriente (Padua: S.A.R.G.O.N., 1990); A. I. Ivantchik, Les Cimmériens au
Proche-Orient (OBO 127; Fribourg: Editions Universitaires/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1992); Adalı, Scourge of God, 107–32; K. Strobel, “‘Kimmeriersturm’ und
‘Skythenmacht’: Eine historische Fiktion?,” in Leggo! Studies Presented to Prof. Frederick
Mario Fales (eds. G. B. Lanfranchi et al.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011) 771–820.
42. In at least one such case, the ethnonym is preceded solely by the determinative
LÚ.
43. On the use of horses in the Assyrian armed forces, see most recently F. M. Fales,
Guerre et paix en Assyrie: Religion et impérialisme (Paris: Cerf, 2010) 117–30, with
previous bibliography.
44. K. Radner, “An Assyrian View of the Medes,” in Continuity of Empire(?), 43.
In point of fact, the custom, reported by Sargon for the Manneans, was quite extraor-
dinary; see F. Thureau-Dangin, Une relation de la huitième campagne de Sargon (714
av. J.-C.) (Paris: Geuthner, 1912) 28–29, Sargon’s seventh campaign account, lines
163–75; also Dalley, “Foreign Chariotry,” 42.
45. J. N. Postgate, Taxation and Conscription in the Assyrian Empire (Studia Pohl,
series maior 3; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1974) 14.
Foreigners and “Special” Inner Communities 63
selective breeding purposes. 46 But the needs of the imperial chariotry and
cavalry were such that horses were regularly imported from abroad, either
through direct trade or as imposed tribute on allied regions (as in the case
above for horses from the Levant), at times with considerable ceremonial
paraphernalia of ideological-political value. In this light, it appears that to
a certain extent the ebb and flow of horse imports followed the vagaries
of Assyrian foreign policy. The early imports came from the plains of in-
ner Anatolia; but in the wake of Urartu’s rise as a rival force to Assyria,
Iran, and later Egypt, became ultimately the most important sources for
Assyrian horses—to the extent, that is, that these two areas gave rise to
distinctive and well-recognizable horse breeds, through the nisbe s Kusāya
and Mesāya. 47
Kusāya undoubtedly refers to the land of Kush, the name by which Up-
per Egypt and Nubia was known; horses of Egyptian origin are attested
also in the Old Testament. 48 The second species most likely originated in
Iran: the Mesay race should be tied to the region of Mēsu/Mīsu, located
by the official inscriptions of Sargon in northwestern Iran. 49 The resem-
blance of the Assyrian moniker to that of Xerxes’ “Nesaian” horses, said
by Herodotus to come from Media (Histories VII 40–41), should also be
noted, since Mēsu/Mīsu came to be considered by the Assyrians a part of
Media. A further geographical term of origin, Ḫaršāya, appears in con-
temporaneous administrative texts, 50 and may be connected to Anatolia.
Still, it should not be ruled out that Kusāya and Mesāya horses were, in
the course of time, bred as such within the confines of Assyria. If so, then
it follows that the two main nisbe s employed for these horses progressively
took on a technical meaning, referring to different physical and functional
characteristics of the relevant breeds in their domesticated state. This state
of affairs may be surmised from some forty inventories of incoming horses,
which Nabû-šumu-iddina/Nadinu, “mayor” (or inspector) of the Nabû
temple at Kalhu, had sent to Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, apparently
on a quasi-daily basis. 51 In these texts, which follow an epistolary form,
the incoming groups of animals are listed in relation to their most recent
administrative area of foaling or stabling within Assyria, and are further
classified by breeds, as in the following example: 52
To the king my lord, your servant Nabû-šumu-iddina. The very best
health to the king my lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king my
lord!
4 Kusāya horses, from the Treasurer of the Queen Mother; [7] Mesāya
horses, trained to the yoke, the deficit from Dur-Šarrukku; [14] Mesāya
horses, trained to the yoke, 34 cavalry mounts, 2 mules—in all, 50
(equids) from Tille.
A total of 4 Kusāya horses, 21 Mesāya horses, trained to the yoke, 34
cavalry mounts, and 3 (sic!) mules: 53 horses and mules in all have come
in. The 15th day. 53
* * *
78–123. For the largely obscure reasons behind the fact that a high official of the tem-
ple of Nabû at Kalhu, such as Nabû-šumu-iddina/Nadinu (on whom, see PNA 2/II
885–86), had come to be in charge of conspicuous contingents of horses, see Cole and
Machinist, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Priests, xvii–xviii.
52. Note the quaint mistake in the scribe’s final count of heads; see further, Fales,
“Nineveh Horse Lists,” 19.
53. Cole and Machinist, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Priests, 90.
Foreigners and “Special” Inner Communities 65
and 36 maids of theirs. Grand total, of the father of the Crown Prince:
in all, 140 (women). 54
This section of the text, marked off by a horizontal ruling, seems to list the
women constituting Esarhaddon’s harem in one of his palaces, presumably
the one in Nineveh, with no details beyond the place of origin of the sub-
jects. As may be seen, these women were drawn from all over—from Egypt
to Anatolia, from Babylonia to the Mediterranean—and thus the explicit
differentiation of their origins in the text may pertain to the ostentation
of a “collector.” 55 More specifically, considering these women implicitly
as concubines (sekretu), their origins may be matched against the infor-
mation given in the ARI concerning Esarhaddon’s removal to Assyria of
entire harems, relevant to Gambulu and Egypt; 56 this may account at least
for the “Kushite” women listed, and possibly the “Aramean” ones as well.
In a further section of the text, however, another inventory of women
from almost all the same places is provided, with the specification that
these were musicians:
8 female chief musicians; 3 Aramean women; 11 Hittite women; 13
Tyrian women; 13 female Corybantes (?); 4 women from Sah[. . .]; 9
Kassite women: in all, 61 female musicians. 57
Now, it may be asked whether in this case the ethnicities of these women
could have had anything to do with the instruments they played or even
with the particular music they performed. To be sure, all the ethnic des-
ignations of these musicians match those of the sekretus described above.
However, the fact that already a century earlier the Nimrud Wine Lists
show the distinctive presence of “Hittite” and “Arpadite” female musi-
cians, as well as of “Kassite,” “Hittite,” and “Assyrian” male musicians
within the Assyrian palace 58 might justify this hypothesis—although the
degree to which a series of different musical traditions either enjoyed par-
allel development in the court environment or were supposed to somehow
merge escapes us.
We now move our gaze to the lands falling within the political frontiers
of the Assyrian empire, fluctuating as such frontiers were over time. Here,
it may be noticed that a number of (a) urban/ provincial areas and (b)
particular territorial units within “inner” Assyria were often singled out
by means of the nisbe (though others, more abundant in number, were
not); and that (c) Babylonian place names also were marked as such. In my
opinion, all these cases may be unified as designations of settled commu-
nities enjoying special cultural and/or political status—whether owing to
tradition or to particularities of these communities’ positions at the time
of their textual attestation.
* * *
As for case (a), the following Assyrian cities were either endowed with
a nisbe or, alternatively, their inhabitants were marked out by the indica-
tion DUMU/mār URU.GN “son/citizen of the city GN”: Arbaʾil, Ar-
rapha, Arzuhina, Assur (or its equivalent Libbāli), Halahhu, Harran,
Kalhu, Kannuʾ, Kalzu(/Kilizu), Kurbaʾil, Isana, Lahiru, Naṣibina, Ninua,
Raṣappa, Til-Barsip. Thus it is reasonable to believe that in this respect the
nisbe was used to denote native birth and/or specific types of birthright or
residence rights as part of the local community.
Some of these cities obviously enjoyed a certain degree of institutional
prestige in the NA period, not only as successive seats of royalty itself
(Assur–Kalhu–Nineveh) but also as seats of temples of particular rele-
vance within Assyrian religiosity (Arbaʾil [Ištar/Mullissu], Assur/Libbāli
58. J. V. Kinnier Wilson, The Nimrud Wine Lists: A Study of Men and Administra-
tion at the Assyrian Capital in the Eighth Century b.c. (CTN 1; London: British School
of Archaeology in Iraq, 1972) pl. 15 40ff.; pl. 28 7ff., pl. 30 27ff.; F. M. Fales, “A
Fresh Look at the Nimrud Wine Lists,” in Drinking in Ancient Societies (ed. L. Milano;
Padua: S.A.R.G.O.N., 1994) 371–80.
Foreigners and “Special” Inner Communities 67
59. In general, on Assyrian temples, see B. Menzel, Assyrische Tempel (2 vols.; Stu-
dia Pohl, series maior 10; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1981). More recently, for the
temples of Kalhu, see J. E. Reade, “The Ziggurrat and Temples of Nimrud,” Iraq 64
(2002) 135–216; for Ištar of Nineveh, J. E. Reade, “The Ishtar Temple at Nineveh,”
Iraq 67 (2005) 347–90; for the cults of Kannuʾ, see R. Zadok, “Kannuʾ,” in Leggo!
Studies . . . Fales, 853–69. For Assur and Harran as cities with important temples sub-
jected to tax exemption (with others?) by Sargon at the beginning of his reign, see
G. W. V. Chamaza, “Sargon II’s Ascent to the Throne: The Political Situation,” SAAB
6 (1992) 21–33.
60. For Arbailāya, see PNA 1/I 124–26; Ḫarrānāya/Aramaic ḥrny, PNA 2/I
461–62; Kalḥāya, PNA 2/I 599; Libbālāya, PNA 2/II 660; Ninuāya, PNA 2/III
963–65.
61. For example, the PN Arbailāya has the vast number of 35 different prosopo-
graphical entries; Ḫarrānāya has 14; Ninuāya has 22; etc.
62. For example, Arbail/Libbāli/Ninua–hammat, Arbail/Libbāli–šarrat.
63. For example, Mannu-ki–Arbail/Ḫarrān/Libbāli/Ninua, etc.
64. Thus, for example, S. Parpola (“Cuneiform Texts from Ziyaret Tepe [Tušhan]
2002–2003,” SAAB 16 [2007] 79) pointed out the fact that “the name Mannu-kī–
Libbāli is best attested in texts from Assur and Nineveh, where Mullissu was wor-
shipped as Ištar of Nineveh or under the name Lady/Queen of Nineveh,” with only
one out of fourteen attestations not connected to either of these two sites.
65. See J. N. Postgate, “Kilizu,” RlA 5:591–93. Renewed excavation of this city,
to be identified with Qaṣr Šemamok in present-day Iraqi Kurdistan, has been ongoing
since the spring of 2011. It is led by a French archaeological team (O. Rouault and
M. G. Masetti-Rouault) and has already provided written evidence of MA and NA date
(public oral communication, July 2011).
66. Dalley and Postgate, Tablets from Fort Shalmaneser, 36–37.
68 Frederick Mario Fales
at the Assur temple, as well as vast quantities of sheep and oxen to be sac-
rificed on behalf of the king or to be offered in holocaust to the heavenly
gods; each of these areas had its allotted days for delivery within the cultic
calendar. 67
What could have been the reason for the use of the nisbe to single out
these cities over others? 68 A comprehensive answer to this question does
not seem possible at present, since it is very likely that the special status of
these sites was determined by a variety of factors, some of which certainly
escape us. In general, however, a quick look at the map and at a chrono-
logical chart shows that all of these toponyms may be placed within either
the “extended heartland” of Assyria or the area of the “home provinces,”
such as was established during the reign of Shalmaneser III, but with some
further extensions under Shalmaneser himself and his successors Šamši-
Adad IV and Adad-nirari III. 69 In addition, a number of these sites were
already important provincial cities during the thirteenth and twelfth cen-
turies, under Tukulti-Ninurta I and Tiglath-pileser I. 70
In sum, these cities, or most of them, constituted the “old cities” of
Assyria, marking the original expansion of the “Land of Assur” in the MA
period or its reconquista under the tenth–ninth century NA kings. In this
light, the reference to their inhabitants through the nisbe may reflect a
hint at a traditional status of esteem they enjoyed, as that of veritable “pil-
lars” of the inner core of the empire—although specific measures of eco-
nomic favor concerning them should not be ruled out either. 71 Certainly,
whether in relation to their famed temples or not, a number of these cities
67. See Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, 96 for a list of these
provinces; see also Cole and Machinist, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Priests,
xvi–xvii.
68. That is, other than possible whimsical habits of individual scribes, which should
by no means be ruled out in any case.
69. See J. N. Postgate, “Assyria: The Home Provinces,” in Neo-Assyrian Geography,
4 (chart of the provincial governors who became limmu s) and 13–17 (maps of the
provinces of the Assyrian state in various phases).
70. As may be made out from the MA offering lists that show the kingdom, then
encompassing roughly the entire area from the Euphrates (down to the confluence
with the Habur) to the two Zabs. See J. N. Postgate, review of Kh. Nashef, Die Orts-
und Gewässernamen der mittelbabylonischen und mittelassyrischen Zeit, AfO 32 (1987)
95–101 (= J. N. Postgate, The Land of Assur & the Yoke of Assur: Studies on Assyria
1971–2005 [Oxford: Oxbow, 2007] 123–30).
71. For example, Esarhaddon (E. Leichty, The Royal Inscriptions of Esarhaddon,
King of Assyria [680–669 bc] [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011] 84 no. 33 rev.
iii ll. 21′–22′) states that he apportioned the captives from Šubria all over the land,
mentioning specifically the inhabitants of four of these cities: “I distributed the re[st of
them] like sheep and goats among my palaces, my nobles, the entourage of my palace,
Foreigners and “Special” Inner Communities 69
were known as places of specific scribal learning. Thus, for instance, a letter
to Esarhaddon concerning the preparation for the vast ceremony of the
adê (“treaty/loyalty oath”), which was to sanction fealty to Crown Prince
Assurbanipal in 672, mentions some of these scribal groups by origin:
The scribes of the cities of Nineveh (DUMU.MEŠ URU.NINA.KI),
Kilizi (URU.Kàl-zi-a-a), and Arbaʾil (URU.Arba-ìl-a-a) may enter the
treaty; they have (already) arrived. Those of Assur (URU.ŠÀ.URU-a-a
[= Libbālāya]) have not (yet) arrived. The king, my lord, knows that
they are (also) clergymen.
If it pleases the king, my lord, let the ones who have arrived earliest enter
the treaty; the Ninevites (DUMU.MEŠ URU.NINA.KI) and the people
of Kalhu (URU.Kal-ha-a-a) could be free soon, and could enter the
treaty under (the statues of) Bel and Nabû (already) on the 8th day. 72
* * *
and [the citizens of Ninev]eh, Kalhu, Kalzu, (and) Arbaʾil” (ù [DUMU.MEŠ NINA].
KI URU.Kal-ḫa URU.Kàl-zu URU.4-ìl GIM ṣe-e-ni ú-za-ʾi-iz).
72. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, 6 obv. 6–edge 23. “To
enter the treaty” (ana/ina libbi adê erābu) was the first of two juridical procedures to
be observed upon the occasion of an adê, and it presumably consisted in listening to
the reading out of the text of the treaty itself. The procedure must have required some
hours, in view of the fact that Esarhaddon’s treaty to which reference is made here, con-
sisted of 670 lines (text publication: S. Parpola and K. Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties
and Loyalty Oaths [SAA 2; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1988] 6). For other
attestations of scholars (ummānu) from Assur (Libbālāya), Nineveh, Arbaʾil (both with
DUMU+GN), Kalhu (Kalḫāya), and Harran (Ḫarrānāya) described as “in the service
of the king,” see, for example, the royal banquet lists in Fales and Postgate, Imperial
Administrative Records, Part I, 150; Parpola and Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and
Loyalty Oaths, 11′–13′; 151 rev. i 11′–16′; 153 rev. ii′ 2–6.
73. H. Kühne, “The Assyrians on the Middle Euphrates and the Ḫābūr,” in Neo-
Assyrian Geography, 76.
70 Frederick Mario Fales
The phase in which Šadikanni and other small enclaves, either lying like-
wise on the Lower Habur (like Qatnu, present-day Tell Fadġami) or in
the hills north of the Habur (like Izalla), 75 began to be integrated into the
administrative structure of the greatly expanding kingdom as acquiescent
tributary states, was in the late tenth century, and especially under Assur-
nasirpal II (884–858 b.c.). 76 In a (partially fragmentary) royal decree of
this age for the appointment of the high official Nergal-āpil-kūmûʾa as city
overseer over Kalhu, the populations of these three polities connected to
the Habur—as well as those of other areas—are explicitly named with their
nisbe s as falling under the appointee’s jurisdiction in the new capital city:
. . . be it a Hamudean, or a Sirganean, or a Yalunean, 77 or a Harṭunean,
or a Bit-[. . .]ean, or an Azallean (KUR.A-za-la-a-a), or a Qatnean
(KUR.Qat-na-a-a), or a (Ša)dikannean (KUR.Di-kan-na-a-a), or a
Kassi[te, or a . . .]ean, or from (any of) the far-off lands (? na-sik-ka-te)
of the Magnates, as many as are resident in Kalhu. 78
The entire inventory is thereupon summarized in the three categories of
“Assyrian craftsmen, ‘(palace-)enterers’, and performers of the ilku (a-lik
il-ki).” Now, by exclusion, it is reasonable to suppose that the people of
Šadikanni and of the other pro-Assyrian local communities belonged to
the latter category, that is, that they were present in Kalhu in order to per-
form corvée work (perhaps as masons for the buildings of the new capital).
And possibly a specific aptitude in carrying out such menial labor under
request had come to characterize the Šadikanneans from one century to
the next—making them well known in Sargon’s time for their capacity in
general work activities, and thus always on the move, from one labor con-
tract to another, “all over the king’s lands.”
In sum, the particular professional identity of the people of Šadikanni—
as noted in the documents of the Assyrian administration—would seem to
fall somewhat in between a low-level workforce and a group of occasional
(or seasonal) migrants within the imperial territory. And their long-lived
political attachment to Assyria could have been of some aid in offsetting
the risk of their being confused superficially with runaways from the ranks
of the glebae adscripti or other types of lawless subjects. Thus it was pre-
sumably not by chance that a specific “seating area” (mūšabu) to attend
official ceremonies had been reserved for the Šadikanneans in Nineveh
during Sennacherib’s reign. 79
* * *
79. Fales and Postgate, Imperial Administrative Records, Part I, 9 rev. i 24. For the
suggestion that mūšabu may have meant here “seat, seating area,” against the previous
interpretation as “residence” brought forth in Fales and Postgate, Imperial Adminis-
trative Records, Part I, xvii–xviii, see F. M. Fales, “Palatial Economy in Neo-Assyrian
Documentation—An Overview,” in Palatial Economy in the Ancient Near East and the
Aegean (eds. P. Carlier and F. Joannès; Paris, in print).
80. G. Barjamovic, “Civic Institutions and Self-Government in Southern Meso-
potamia in the Mid-First Millennium bc,” in Assyria and Beyond: Studies Presented to
Mogens Trolle Larsen (ed. J. G. Dercksen; PIHANS 100; Leiden: NINO, 2004) 48–53.
81. The expression comes from S. Richardson, “The World of Babylonian Country-
sides,” in The Babylonian World (ed. G. Leick; New York: Routledge, 2007) 27.
72 Frederick Mario Fales
Through the name of Assyria and with his help, the citizens of Borsippa
will be subdued, and he will keep the watch of the king my lord. 83
82. The plural of this feminine gentilic is given, for example, in another letter,
M. Luukko and G. Van Buylaere, The Political Correspondence of Esarhaddon (SAA
16; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2002) 153, addressed to Esarhaddon by “the
gentlewomen of Borsippa” (MÍ.a-me-la-te/[MÍ.bar-sí]p-a-a-te; obv. 2–3). Notice fur-
ther that the feminine PN Barsipitu is attested (PNA 1/II 273), as is also its masculine
counterpart Barsipāya (PNA 1/II 272).
83. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, 118 rev. 2–9.
84. See most recently F. M. Fales, “Arameans and Chaldeans: Environment and
Society,” in Babylonian World, 288–98.
85. For the continuing presence of a Nippurian astrological “school” in contact
with the Assyrian court, see Cole, Nippur in Late Assyrian Times, 43.
86. A. Fuchs and S. Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part III: Letters
from Babylonia and the Eastern Provinces (SAA 15; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press,
2001) 192 rev. 5′–8 ′.
Foreigners and “Special” Inner Communities 73