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Kassites

Kassites

The Kassites were a Near Eastern mountain tribe of obscure origins, who spoke a non-Indo-European, non-Semitic language. They conquered Mesopotamia, bringing the Old Babylonian era to an end and for the first time welding together the network of independent, feuding city-states into a territory that can be called 'Babylonia.' According to the conventionally used Middle Chronology, Kassite hegemony in Babylon, Nippur and other centers lasted from about 1595 to 1155 BC.

History

The original homeland of the Kassites is obscure, but appears to have been located in the Zagros Mountains. Their first historical appearance occurred in the 18th century BC when they attacked Babylonia in the 9th year of the reign of Samsu-Iluna (reigned 1749 BC - 1712 BC), the son of Hammurabi. Samsu-Iluna repelled them, but they subsequently gained control of northern Babylonia sometime after the fall of Babylon to the Hittites in 1595 BC, and conquered the southern part of the kingdom by about 1475 BC. The Hittites had carried off the idol of Marduk, but the Kassite rulers regained possession, returned Marduk to Babylon, and made him the equal of the Kassite Shuqamuna. The circumstances of their rise to power are unknown, due to a lack of documentation from this so-called "Dark Age" period of widespread dislocation. No inscription or document in the Kassite language has been preserved, an absence that cannot be purely accidental, suggesting a severe retraction of literacy in official circles. Babylon under Kassite rulers, who renamed the city Karanduniash, re-emerged as a political and military power in the Ancient Near East. A newly built capital city Dur-Kurigalzu was named to honour Kurigalzu I (ca. 1400 — ca. 1375). His successors Kadashman-Enlil I (c. 1375-c. 1360) and Burnaburiash II (c. 1360-c. 1333) were in correspondence with the Egyptian rulers Amenhotep III and Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) (see Amarna letters). Their success was built upon the relative political stability that the Kassite monarchs achieved. They ruled Babylonia practically without interruption for over four hundred years— the longest rule by any dynasty in Babylonian history. Even after a minor revolt in 1333 BC and a seven-year Assyrian hiatus in the 13th century BC, the ruling Kassite family managed to regain the throne. The transformation of southern Mesopotamia into a territorial state, rather than a network of allied or combatative temple-cities, made Babylonia an international power. Kassite kings established trade and diplomacy with Assyria, Egypt, Elam, and the Hittites, and the Kassite royal house intermarried with their royal families. There were foreign merchants in Babylon and other cities, and Babylonian merchants were active from Egypt (a major source of Nubian gold) to Assyria and Anatolia. Kassite weights and seals, the packet-identifying and measuring tools of commerce, have been found in Thebes in Greece, in southern Armenia, and even in a shipwreck off the southern coast of Turkey. The Kassite kings maintained control of their realm through a network of provinces administered by governors. Almost equal with the royal cities of Babylon and Dur-Kurigalzu, the revived city of Nippur was the most important provincial center. Nippur, the formerly great city, which had been virtually abandoned about 1730 BC, was rebuilt in the Kassite period, with temples meticulously re-sited on their old foundations. Other important centers during the Kassite period were Larsa, Sippar and Susa. Even after the Kassite dynasty was overthrown in 1155 BC, the system of provincial administration continued and the country remained united under the succeeding rule, the Second Dynasty of Isin. Comparisons of Kassite Babylonia with feudalism are now considered more misleading than useful, but the prestige of Nippur was enough for a series of 13th century Kassite kings to reassume the title 'governor of Nippur' for themselves. Documentation of the Kassite period depends heavily on the scattered and disarticulated tablets from Nippur, where thousands of tablets and fragments have been excavated. They include administrative and legal texts, letters, seal inscriptions, kudurrus (comparable to land grants and administrative prerogatives), private votive inscriptions, and even a literary text (usually identified as a fragment of a historical epic). Kassite rulers in Babylon were also scrupulous to follow existing forms of expression, and the public and private patterns of behavior "and even went beyond that — as zealous neophytes do, or outsiders, who take up a superior civilization — by favoring an extremely conservative attitude, at least in palace circle." (Oppenheim 1964, p. 62). In the course of centuries, however, the Kassites were absorbed into the Babylonian population. Eight among the last kings of the Kassite dynasty have Akkadian names, and Kassite princesses married into the royal family of Assyria. Under the Assyrian king, Ashur-Dan, the last Kassite king was driven from Babylonia in the twelfth century BC, and the "interregnum" in Mesopotamia came to a close.

Kassite survivals

The contributions that Kassites brought to native Babylonian culture are still being debated, partly through identifying the few hundred later Akkadian words of Kassite origin, about ten percent of them names of gods. The Kassite tribe of Khabira seems to have settled in the Babylonian plain. Remnants of Kassite tribes were living in the mountains northwest of Elam, immediately south of Holwan, when Sennacherib attacked them in 702 BC. They are doubtless the "Kossaeans" of Ptolemy, who divides Susiana between them and the Elymaeans. Alexander the great battled Kossaeans in the winter of 323 on his way from Ecbatana to Babylon; according to Strabo (xi. 13,3,6) the Kossaeans were the neighbours of the Medes. Th. Nöldeke (Gott. G. G., 1874, pp. 173 seq.) has shown that they are the Kissians of the older Greek authors who are identified with the Susians by Aeschylus (Choephorae 424, Persians 17, 120) and by Herodotus (v. 49, 52).

Language

Like the other languages of the non-Semitic tribes of Elam, that of the Kassites was agglutinative; a fragment of Kassite vocabulary has survived in a single Cuneiform tablet. There is also a list of Kassite names with their Semitic equivalents, and a few technical terms. Some of the Kassite deities were introduced into the Babylonian pantheon. Nothing else remains. Apparently, Kassite has no connection with Indo-European, as had once erroneously been supposed. The study of Kassite is hindered by the fact that the Kassite bureaucracy conducted business in Akkadian. Consequently, lists of Kassite names have assumed a prominent importance.

References


- Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911.
- A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: portrait of a dead civilization, 1964.

External links


- [http://home.uchicago.edu/~nev2/prospectus.html Daniel A. Nevez, 'Provincial administration at Kassite Nippur'] abstract of a dissertation gives details of Kassite Nippur and Babylonia.
- [http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Kassites.html Christopher Edens, "Structure, Power and Legitimation in Kassite Babylonia"]
- [http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/KASSITES.HTM Richard Hooker, "The Kassites: 1530-1170 The Kassite Interregnum"]
- [http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/MiddleEast/Kassites.html David W. Koeller, "Kassite rule in Mesopotamia"] Category:Ancient peoples Category:Middle East Category:Eurasian nomads

Indo-European language

The Indo-European languages include some 443 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects, including most of the major language families of Europe, as well as many languages of Southwest and South Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. Contemporary languages in this superfamily include Bengali, English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish (each with more than 100 million native speakers), as well as numerous smaller national or minority languages. The Indo-European is the largest widely accepted family of languages in the world today, spoken by approximately 3 billion native speakers. (The second most common family of tongues being Sino-Tibetan)

Classification

The various subgroups of the Indo-European family include (in historical order of their first attestation):
- Anatolian languages — earliest attested branch, from the 18th century BC; extinct, most notable was the language of the Hittites.
- Indo-Iranian languages, descending from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Iranian
  - Indo-Aryan, including Sanskrit, attested from the 2nd millennium BC
  - Iranian languages, attested from roughly 1000 BC, including Avestan and Persian.
- Greek language — fragmentary records in Mycenaean from the 14th century BC; Homer dates to the 8th century BC. See History of the Greek language.
- Italic languages — including Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages, attested from the 1st millennium BC.
- Celtic languages — Gaulish inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Old Irish texts from the 6th century AD.
- Germanic languages (including English) — earliest testimonies in runic inscriptions from around the 2nd century, earliest coherent texts in Gothic, 4th century.
- Armenian language — attested from the 5th century.
- Tocharian languages — extinct tongues of the Tocharians, extant in two dialects, attested from roughly the 6th century.
- Balto-Slavic languages, believed by many Indo-Europeanists to derive from a common proto-language later than Proto-Indo-European, while others are skeptical and think that Baltic and Slavic are no more closely related than any other two branches of Indo-European.
  - Slavic languages — attested from the 9th century, earliest texts in Old Church Slavonic.
  - Baltic languages — attested from the 14th century, and, for languages attested that late, they retain unusually many archaic features attributed to Proto-Indo-European.
- Albanian language — attested from the 15th century (1462); relations with Illyrian, Dacian, or Thracian proposed. In addition to the classical ten branches listed above, there are several extinct languages, about which very little is known:
- Illyrian languages — possibly related to Messapian or Venetic; relation to Albanian also proposed.
- Venetic language — close to Italic.
- Liburnian language — apparently grouped with Venetic.
- Messapian language — not conclusively deciphered.
- Phrygian language — language of ancient Phrygia, possibly close to Greek, Thracian, or Armenian.
- Paionian language — extinct language once spoken north of Macedon.
- Thracian language — possibly close to Dacian.
- Dacian language — possibly close to Thracian and Albanian.
- Ancient Macedonian language — probably related to Greek, others propose relation to Ilyrian, Thracian or Phrygian.
- Ligurian language — possibly not Indo-European; possibly close to or part of Celtic There were no doubt other Indo-European languages which are now lost without a trace. The fragmentary Raetian language cannot be classified with any certainty. Further subfamilies have been suggested, among them Italo-Celtic and Graeco-Aryan. Neither of these is widely accepted. Indo-Hittite refers to the hypothesis that there is a significant separation between Anatolian and all the remaining groups.

Satem and Centum languages

Indo-Hittite/Srubna cultures).]] The Indo-European sub-branches are often classified in a Satem and a Centum group. This is based on the varying treatments of the three original velar rows. Satem languages lost the distinction between labiovelar and pure velar sounds, and at the same time assibilated the palatal velars. The centum languages, on the other hand, lost the distinction between palatal velars and pure velars. Thus, geographically, the "eastern" languages are Satem (Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, but not including Tocharian and Anatolian), and the "western" languages are Centum (Germanic, Italic, Celtic). The Satem-Centum isogloss runs right between the Greek (Centum) and Armenian (Satem) languages (thought to be related by a number of scholars), with Greek exhibiting some marginal Satem features. Some scholars think that there may be some languages that classify neither as Satem nor as Centum (Anatolian, Tocharian, and possibly Albanian). It should be noted that the grouping does not imply a claim of monophyly: there never was a "proto-Centum" or a "proto-Satem", but the sound changes spread by areal contact among already distinct post-PIE languages (say, during the 3rd millennium BC).

Suggested superfamilies

Some linguists propose that Indo-European languages are part of a hypothetical Nostratic language superfamily, and attempt to relate Indo-European to other language families, such as South Caucasian languages, Altaic languages, Uralic languages, Dravidian languages, Afro-Asiatic languages. This theory is controversial, as is the similar Eurasiatic theory of Joseph Greenberg, and the Proto-Pontic of John Colarusso.

History

See also: Proto-Indo-European, Historical linguistics, Glottochronology. The possibility of common origin for some of these languages was first proposed by Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn in 1647, proposing their derivation from "Scythian". However, the suggestions of van Boxhorn did not become widely known and were not pursued. The hypothesis was again proposed by Sir William Jones, who noticed similarities between four of the oldest languages known in his time, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian. Systematic comparison of these and other old languages conducted by Franz Bopp supported this theory, and Bopp's Comparative Grammar, appearing between 1833 and 1852 is considered the starting point of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline. The common ancestral (reconstructed) language is called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). There is disagreement as to the original geographic location (the so-called "Urheimat" or "original homeland") from where it originated. There are two main candidates today: # the steppes north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea (see Kurgan) # Anatolia (see Colin Renfrew). Proponents of the Kurgan hypothesis tend to date the proto-language to ca. 4000 BC, while proponents of Anatolian origin usually date it several millennia earlier, associating the spread of Indo-European languages with the Neolithic spread of farming (see Indo-Hittite).

Kurgan hypothesis

The Kurgan hypothesis was originally suggested by Marija Gimbutas in the 1950s. According to the Kurgan hypothesis, early PIE was spoken in the chalcolithic steppe cultures of the 5th millennium BC between the Black Sea and the Volga. Timeline
- 4500–4000: Early PIE. Sredny Stog, Dnieper-Donets and Sarama cultures, domestication of the horse.
- 4000–3500: The Yamna culture, the prototypical kurgan builders, emerges in the steppe, and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. Indo-Hittite models postulate the separation of Proto-Anatolian before this time.
- 3500–3000: Middle PIE. The Yamna culture is at its peak, representing the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society, with stone idols, early two-wheeled proto-chariots, predominantly practicing animal husbandry, but also with permanent settlements and hillforts, subsisting on agriculture and fishing, along rivers. Contact of the Yamna culture with late Neolithic Europe cultures results in the "kurganized" Globular Amphora and Baden cultures. The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the beginning Bronze Age, and bronze weapons and artefacts are introduced to Yamna territory. Probable early Satemization.
- 3000–2500: Late PIE. The Yamna culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe. The Corded Ware culture extends from the Rhine to the Volga, corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast "kurganized" area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, still in loose contact enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups, except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, which are already isolated from these processes. The Centum-Satem break is probably complete, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active.
- 2500–2000: The breakup into the proto-languages of the attested dialects is complete. Proto-Greek is spoken in the Balkans, Proto-Indo-Iranian north of the Caspian in the Sintashta-Petrovka culture. The Bronze Age reaches Central Europe with the Beaker culture, likely composed of various Centum dialects. Proto-Balto-Slavic (or alternatively, Proto-Slavic and Proto-Baltic communities in close contact) develops in north-eastern Europe. The Tarim mummies possibly correspond to proto-Tocharians.
- 2000–1500: The chariot is invented, leading to the split and rapid spread of Iranian and Indo-Aryan from the Andronovo culture and the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex over much of Central Asia, Northern India, Iran and Eastern Anatolia. Proto-Anatolian is split into Hittite and Luwian. The pre-Proto-Celtic Unetice culture has an active metal industry (Nebra skydisk).
- 1500–1000: The Nordic Bronze Age develops (pre-)Proto-Germanic, and the (pre-)Proto-Celtic Urnfield and Hallstatt cultures emerge in Central Europe, introducing the Iron Age. Proto-Italic migration into the Italian peninsula. Redaction of the Rigveda and rise of the Vedic civilization in the Punjab. Flourishing and decline of the Hittite Empire. The Mycenaean civilization gives way to the Greek Dark Ages.
- 1000 BC–500 BC: The Celtic languages spread over Central and Western Europe. Northern Europe enters the Pre-Roman Iron Age, the formative phase of Proto Germanic. Homer initiates Greek literature and early Classical Antiquity. The Vedic Civilization gives way to the Mahajanapadas. Zoroaster composes the Gathas, rise of the Achaemenid Empire, replacing the Elamites and Babylonia. The Cimmerians (Srubna culture) are replaced by Scythians in the Pontic steppe. Armenians succeed the Urartu culture. Separation of Proto-Italic into Osco-Umbrian and Latin-Faliscan, and foundation of Rome. Genesis of the Greek and Old Italic alphabets. A variety of Paleo-Balkan languages are spoken in Southern Europe. The Anatolian languages are extinct.

Competing hypotheses

Colin Renfrew in 1987 suggested that the spread of Indo-European was associated with the Neolithic revolution, spreading peacefully into Europe from Asia Minor from around 7000 BC with the advance of farming (wave of advance). Accordingly, all of Neolithic Europe would have been Indo-European speaking, and the Kurgan migrations would at best have replaced Indo-European dialects with other Indo-European dialects. Thomas Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov in 1984 placed the Indo-European homeland on Lake Urmia. They suggested that Armenian was the language which stayed in the Indo-European cradle while other Indo-European languages left the homeland. They are also the originators of the Glottalic theory. Some people have pointed to the Black Sea deluge theory, dating the genesis of the Sea of Azov to ca. 5600 BC, as a direct cause of the Indo-European expansion. This event occurred in still clearly Neolithic times and is rather too early to fit with Kurgan archaeology. It may still be imagined as an event in the remote past of the Sredny Stog culture, and the people living on the land now beneath the Sea of Azov as possible pre-Proto-Indo-Europeans. Other theories exist, often with a nationalistic flavour, sometimes bordering on national mysticism, typically positing the development in situ of the proponents' respective homes. One prominent example of such are the Indian theories that derive Vedic Sanskrit from the Indus valley civilization, postulating that Vedic Sanskrit is essentially identical to Proto-Indo-European, and that all other dialects must ultimately trace back to the early Indus valley civilization of ca. 3000 BC. This theory is not widely accepted by scholars. See Indo-Aryan migration for a discussion. Another example may be the Paleolithic Continuity Theory proposed by Italian theorists that derives Indo-European from the European Paleolithic cultures.

References


-
- August Schleicher, A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages (1861/62).
- Leszek Bednarczuk (red.), Języki indoeuropejskie. PWN. Warszawa. 1986 (in Polish).

See also


- Language family
- Indo-European studies
- Proto-Indo-European language
- List of Indo-European roots
- List of Indo-European languages
- List of languages

External links


- [http://www.HJHolm.de Slide-show of subgrouping roughly agreeing with the figures of the article.]
- [http://www.ship.edu/%7Ecgboeree/indoeuropean.html The Evolution of the Indo-European Languages, by Dr. C. George Boeree].
- [http://www.bartleby.com/61/IEroots.html Indo-European Roots, from the American Heritage Dictionary].
- [http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/lrc/iedocctr/ie.html Indo-European Documentation Center] at the University of Texas
- [http://www.grsampson.net/Q_PIE.html Say something in Proto-Indo-European] (by Geoffrey Sampson)
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90017 IE language family overview (SIL)]
- [http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/psych/research/Evolution/Gray&Atkinson2003.pdf Gray & Atkinson, article on PIE Phylogeny]
- [http://www.geocities.com/protoillyrian Indo-European Root/lemmas] (by Andi Zeneli)
- [http://www.indoeuropean.nl The Indo-European Database]
- [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/17084 Discussion on proto-Satem]
- [http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/6507/chronicle120.html The Early History of Indo-European Languages]
- ja:インド・ヨーロッパ語族 ko:인도유럽어족 th:ภาษากลุ่มอินโด-ยูโรเปียน

Mesopotamia

, ca. 24th century BC]] Mesopotamia (Greek: Μεσοποταμία, translated from Old Persian Miyanrudan "between rivers"; Aramaic name being Beth-Nahrain "House of Two Rivers") is a region of Southwest Asia. Strictly speaking, it is the alluvial plain lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, composing parts of Iraq, Turkey and Syria. More commonly, the term includes these river plains in totality as well as the surrounding lowland territories bounded by the Syrian Desert to the west, the Arabian Desert to the south, the Persian Gulf to the southeast, the Zagros Mountains to the east and the Caucasus mountains to the north. Mesopotamia is famous for the site of some of the oldest civilizations in the world. Writings from Mesopotamia (Uruk, modern Warka) are among the earliest known in the world, giving Mesopotamia a reputation of being the "Cradle of Civilization". The age of Sumerian writing is about on a par with Egyptian hieroglyphs, and some yet older inscriptions are known, probably ranking as proto-writing (Old European script, Naqada [http://www.touregypt.net/ebph5.htm].

City states and Imperial glory

Mesopotamia was settled, and conquered, by numerous ancient civilizations:
- Mesopotamia was home to some of the oldest major ancient civilizations, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians.
- In 5000 BC, the Sumerians arrived in Mesopotamia. The Semites arrived in 2900 BC and by 2000 BC they had mixed peacefully with the Sumerians and had assumed political dominance.
- The Mitanni were an eastern Indo-European people (belonging to the linguistic "satem" group) who settled in northern Mesopotamia circa 1600 BC South-East of Turkey and by circa 1450 BC established a medium-size empire east, north and west, and temporarily made tributary vassals out of kings in the west, even as far as Kafti (minoic Crete) and making them a major threat for the Pharaoh.
- By 1300 BC they had been reduced to their homeland and the status of vassal of the Hatti (the Hittites), a western Indo-European people (belonging to the linguistic "kentum" group) who dominated most of Asia Minor from their capital of Hattutshash (modern Turkey) and threatened Egypt even more.
- Meanwhile the Kassites established a strong realm, Sangar, in southern Mesopotamia, with Babel as its capital, not touched by Mitanni or Hittites. But the Elamites threatened or invaded them.
- Chaldaean New Babylonia circa 600 BC.

Later history

Elamites
- The region ceased to be a major power house since its inclusion in the Persian Empire of the Achaemenids, apparently as two satrapies, Babylonia in the south and Athura (from Assyria) in the north.
- After the conquest of all Persia by the Hellenizing Macedonian king Alexander the Great, the satrapies were part of the major diadochy, the Seleucid Empire, almost until its elimination by Greater Armenia in 83 BC.
- Most of Mesopotamia then became part of the Parthian Empire of the Arsakides. However part, in the northwest, became Roman. Under the Tetrarchy, this was divided into two provinces, called Osrhoene (around Edessa; roughly the modern-day border between Turkey and Syria) and Mesopotamia (a bit more northeast).
- During the time of the Persian Empire of Sassanids, their much larger share of Mesopotamia was called Dil-i Iranshahr meaning "Iran's Heart" and the metropol Ctesiphon (facing ancient Seleukia across the Tigris), the capital of Persia, was situated in Mesopotamia.
- Since the early caliphs annexed all Persia and advanced even further, Mesopotamia was reunited, but governed as two provinces: northern Mesopotamia (with Mosul) and southern Iraq (with Baghdad, the later caliphal capital). Add education

List of links

Baghdad These civilizations arose from earlier settlements and cultures which were among the first to make use of agriculture.
- Neolithic settlements e.g., Jarmo, Tell Abu Hureyra
- Hassuna period
- Halaf period (or Halafian)
- Samarra period (or Samarran), e.g., Choga Mami
- Ubaid period, e.g., Eridu
- Uruk period, named after the city Uruk.
- Sumerian Early Dynastic period Early cities in this region include:
- lower Mesopotamia / Sumer
  - Uruk
  - Isin
  - Lagash
- Akkad
  - Agade
  - Babylon
  - Kish
  - Nippur
- upper Mesopotamia / Assyria
  - Assur
  - Nineveh
  - Mari
  - Aleppo

Further reading


- [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/DS49x2xM465D/ A DWELLER IN MESOPOTAMIA], being the adventures of an official artist in the garden of Eden, by Donald Maxwell, 1921 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/DS49x2xM465D/1f/dweller_in_mesopotamia.pdf layered PDF] format)
- [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/DS69x5xH236M/ MESOPOTAMIAN ARCHAEOLOGY], by Percy S. P. Handcock, 1912 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/DS69x5xH236M/1f/mesopotamian_archaeology.pdf layered PDF] format) Category:History of Iraq Category:Mesopotamia Category:Ancient history Category:Near East ko:메소포타미아 ja:メソポタミア th:เมโสโปเตเมีย

Babylonia

Babylonia, named for the city of Babylon, was an ancient state in Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq), combining the territories of Sumer and Akkad. Its capital was Babylon. The earliest mention of Babylon can be found in a tablet of the reign of Sargon of Akkad, dating back to the 23rd century BC.

History

During the first centuries of the "Old Babylonian" period (that followed the Sumerian revival under Ur-III), kings and people in high position often had Amorite names, and supreme power rested at Isin. A constant intercourse was maintained between Babylonia and the West — with Babylonian officials and troops passing to Syria and Canaan, while "Amorite" colonists were established in Babylonia for the purposes of trade. One of these Amorites, Abi-ramu or Abram by name, is the father of a witness to a deed dated in the reign of Hammurabi's grandfather. The city of Babylon was given hegemony over Mesopotamia by their sixth ruler, Hammurabi (1780–1750 BC; dates highly uncertain). He was a very efficient ruler, giving the region stability after turbulent times, and transforming it into the central power of Mesopotamia. A great literary revival followed the recovery of Babylonian independence. One of the most important works of this "First Dynasty of Babylon", as it was called by the native historians, was the compilation of a code of laws. This was made by order of Hammurabi after the expulsion of the Elamites and the settlement of his kingdom. A copy of the Code of Hammurabi was found by J. de Morgan at Susa, where it had been taken as plunder, and is now in the Louvre. Ammiditana, the great-grandson of Hammurabi, still titled himself "king of the land of the Amorites", and his father and son bore the Canaanite names of Abieshuh and Ammisaduqa. The armies of Babylonia were well-disciplined, and they conquered the city-states of Isin, Elam, and Uruk, and the strong Kingdom of Mari. The rule of Babylon was even obeyed as far as the shores of the Mediterranean. But Mesopotamia had no clear boundaries, making it vulnerable to attack. Trade and culture thrived for 150 years, until the fall of Babylon in 1595 BC. The last king of the dynasty was Samsu-Ditana, son of Ammisaduqa. He was overthrown following the sack of Babylon in 1595 BC by the Hittite king Mursili I, and Babylonia was turned over to the Kassites (Kossaeans) from the mountains of Iran, with whom Samsu-Iluna had already come into conflict in his 6th year. The Kassite dynasty was founded by Kandis or Gandash of Mari. The Kassites renamed Babylon "Kar-Duniash", and their rule lasted for 576 years. With this foreign dominion — that offers a striking analogy to the contemporary rule of the Hyksos in Egypt — Babylonia lost its empire over western Asia. Syria and Canaan became independent, and the high-priests of Asshur made themselves kings of Assyria. Most divine attributes ascribed to the Semitic kings of Babylonia disappeared at this time; the title of "god" was never given to a Kassite sovereign. However, Babylon continued to be the capital of the kingdom and the 'holy' city of western Asia, where the priests were all-powerful, and the only place where the right to inheritance of the old Babylonian empire could be conferred.

Neo-Babylonian Empire

Through the centuries of Assyrian domination, Babylonia enjoyed a prominent status, or revolting at the slightest indication that it did not. However, the Assyrians always managed to restore Babylonian loyalty, whether through granting of increased privileges, or militarily. That finally changed in 627 BC with the death of the last strong Assyrian ruler, Ashurbanipal, and Babylonia rebelled under Nabopolassar the Chaldean the following year. With help from the Medes, Niniveh was sacked in 612, and the seat of empire was again transferred to Babylonia. Nabopolassar was followed by his son Nebuchadnezzar II, whose reign of 43 years made Babylon once more the mistress of the civilized world. Only a small fragment of his annals has been discovered, relating to his invasion of Egypt in 567 BC, and referring to "Phut of the Ionians". Of the reign of the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus (Nabu-na'id), and the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus, there is a fair amount of information available. This is chiefly derived from a chronological tablet containing the annals of Nabonidus, supplemented by another inscription of Nabonidus where he recounts his restoration of the temple of the Moon-god at Harran; as well as by a proclamation of Cyrus issued shortly after his formal recognition as king of Babylonia. It was in the sixth year of Nabonidus (549 BC) that Cyrus, the Achaemenid Persian "king of Anshan" in Elam, revolted against his suzerain Astyages, "king of the Manda" or Medes, at Ecbatana. Astyages' army betrayed him to his enemy, and Cyrus established himself at Ecbatana, thus putting an end to the empire of the Medes. Three years later Cyrus had become king of all Persia, and was engaged in a campaign in the north of Mesopotamia. Meanwhile, Nabonidus had established a camp in the desert, near the southern frontier of his kingdom, leaving his son Belshazzar (Belsharutsur) in command of the army. In 538 BC Cyrus invaded Babylonia. A battle was fought at Opis in the month of June, where the Babylonians were defeated; and immediately afterwards Sippara surrendered to the invader. Nabonidus fled to Babylon, where he was pursued by Gobryas, the governor of Kurdistan, and on the 16th of Tammuz, two days after the capture of Sippara, "the soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting." Nabonidus was dragged from his hiding-place, and Kurdish guards were placed at the gates of the great temple of Bel, where the services continued without interruption. Cyrus did not arrive until the 3rd of Marchesvan (October), Gobryas having acted for him in his absence. Gobryas was now made governor of the province of Babylon, and a few days afterwards the son of Nabonidus died. A public mourning followed, lasting six days, and Cambyses accompanied the corpse to the tomb. Cyrus now claimed to be the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and the avenger of Bel-Marduk, who was assumed to be wrathful at the impiety of Nabonidus in removing the images of the local gods from their ancestral shrines, to his capital Babylon. Nabonidus, in fact, had excited a strong feeling against himself by attempting to centralize the religion of Babylonia in the temple of Merodach (Marduk) at Babylon, and while he had thus alienated the local priesthoods, the military party despised him on account of his antiquarian tastes. He seems to have left the defence of his kingdom to others, occupying himself with the more congenial work of excavating the foundation records of the temples and determining the dates of their builders. The invasion of Babylonia by Cyrus was doubtless facilitated by the existence of a disaffected party in the state, as well as by the presence of foreign exiles like the Jews, who had been planted in the midst of the country. One of the first acts of Cyrus accordingly was to allow these exiles to return to their own homes, carrying with them the images of their gods and their sacred vessels. The permission to do so was embodied in a proclamation, whereby the conqueror endeavoured to justify his claim to the Babylonian throne. The feeling was still strong that none had a right to rule over western Asia until he had been consecrated to the office by Bel and his priests; and accordingly, Cyrus henceforth assumed the imperial title of "king of Babylon." A year before Cyrus' death, in 529 BC, he elevated his son Cambyses II in the government, making him king of Babylon, while he reserved for himself the fuller title of "king of the (other) provinces" of the empire. It was only when Darius Hystaspis ("the Magian") acquired the Persian throne and ruled it as a representative of the Zoroastrian religion, that the old tradition was broken and the claim of Babylon to confer legitimacy on the rulers of western Asia ceased to be acknowledged. Darius, in fact, entered Babylon as a conqueror. After the murder of Darius, it briefly recovered its independence under Nidinta-Bel, who took the name of Nebuchadnezzar III, and reigned from October 521 BC to August 520 BC, when the Persians took it by storm. A few years later, probably 514 BC, Babylon again revolted under Arakha; on this occasion, after its capture by the Persians, the walls were partly destroyed. E-Saggila, the great temple of Bel, however, still continued to be kept in repair and to be a center of Babylonian patriotism, until at last the foundation of Seleucia diverted the population to the new capital of Babylonia and the ruins of the old city became a quarry for the builders of the new seat of government.

Science and mathematics

Among the sciences, astronomy and astrology occupied a conspicuous place in Babylonian society. Astronomy was of old standing in Babylonia, and the standard work on the subject, written from an astrological point of view, later translated into Greek by Berossus, was believed to date from the age of Sargon of Akkad. The zodiac was a Babylonian invention of great antiquity; and eclipses of the sun and moon could be foretold. Observatories were attached to the temples, and reports were regularly sent by astronomers to the king. The stars had been numbered and named at an early date, and we possess tables of lunar longitudes and observations of the phases of Venus. Great attention was naturally paid to the calendar, and we find a week of seven days and another of five days in use. In Seleucid and Parthian times, the astronomical reports were of a thoroughly scientific character; how much earlier their advanced knowledge and methods were developed is uncertain. The development of astronomy implies considerable progress in mathematics; it is not surprising that the Babylonians should have invented an extremely simple method of ciphering, or have discovered the convenience of the duodecimal system. The ner of 600 and the sar of 3600 were formed from the unit of 60, corresponding with a degree of the equator. Tablets of squares and cubes, calculated from 1 to 60, have been found at Senkera, and a people acquainted with the sun-dial, the clepsydra, the lever and the pulley, must have had no mean knowledge of mechanics. A crystal lens, turned on the lathe, was discovered by Austen Henry Layard at Nimrud along with glass vases bearing the name of Sargon; this could explain the excessive minuteness of some of the writing on the Assyrian tablets, and a lens may also have been used in the observation of the heavens. The Babylonian system of mathematics was sexagesimal, or a base 60 numeral system (see: Babylonian numerals). From this we derive the modern day usage of 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 360 (60 x 6) degrees in a circle. The Babylonians were able to make great advances in mathematics for two reasons. First, the number 60 has many divisors (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30), making calculations easier. Additionally, unlike the Egyptians and Romans, the Babylonians had a true place-value system, where digits written in the left column represented larger values (much as in our base ten system: 734 = 7×100 + 3×10 + 4×1). Among the Babylonians mathematical accomplishments were the determination of the square root of two correctly to seven places ([http://it.stlawu.edu/%7Edmelvill/mesomath/tablets/YBC7289.html YBC 7289 clay tablet]). They also demonstrated knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem well before Pythagoras, as evidenced by [http://www.tmeg.com/bab_mat/bab_mat.htm this tablet] translated by Dennis Ramsey and dating to c. 1900 BC: 4 is the length and 5 is the diagonal. What is the breadth? Its size is not known. 4 times 4 is 16. 5 times 5 is 25. You take 16 from 25 and there remains 9. What times what shall I take in order to get 9? 3 times 3 is 9. 3 is the breadth.

Literature

:Main article: Babylonian literature

Location

The city of Babylon, the main city of Babylonia, was found on the Euphrates River, about 110 kilometres south of modern Baghdad, just north of what is now the Iraqi town of al-Hillah.

See also


- Ancient Orient
- Mesopotamia
- Assyriology
- Babylonia and Assyria
- Assyria and Babylonia contrasted
- History of Sumer
- Kings of Babylon
- Geography of Babylonia and Assyria
- Chaldean mythology
- Babylonian law
- Art and architecture of Babylonia and Assyria
- Social life in Babylonia and Assyria
- Proper names of Babylonia and Assyria
- Babylonian numerals Many of these articles were originally based on content from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. Update as needed.

Further reading


- Ancient Iraq Georges Roux
- Ancient Mesopotamia : Portrait of a Dead Civilization A. Leo Oppenheim
- Ancient Mesopotamia: The Sumerians, Babylonians, And Assyrians Virginia Schomp
- The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: From the Old Stone Age to the Persian Conquest Seton Lloyd
- Babylon Joan Oates
- Babylonian Religion and Mythology Leonard William King
- Babylonians HWF Saggs
- The Babylonians: An Introduction Gwendolyn Leick
- Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat
- King Hammurabi Of Babylon: A Biography Marc Van De Mieroop
- The Life and Times of Hammurabi Tamera Bryant
- Mesopotamia Gwendolyn Leick
- Myths and Legends of Babylonia and Assyria Lewis Spence

External links


- [http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Old_Kingdom_of_Babylonia.html The History of the Ancient Near East]
- [http://www.math.tamu.edu/~don.allen/history/babylon/babylon.html Babylonian Mathematics]
- [http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Babylonian_numerals.html Babylonian Numerals]
- [http://www.halloran.com/babylon1.htm Babylonian Astronomy/Astrology]
- [http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/babylon/babybibl.htm Bibliography of Babylonian Astronomy/Astrology]
- [http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/rbaa.htm The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria by Theophilus G. Pinches (Many deities' names are now read differently, but this detailed 1906 Work is a classic)]
- [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/BM530xK531l/ Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition], by Leonard W. King, 1918 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/BM530xK531l/1f/legends_of_babylon_and_egypt.pdf layered PDF] format)
- [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/BL1620xB7/ The Babylonian Legends of the Creation] and the Fight between Bel and the Dragon, as told by Assyrian Tablets from Nineveh, 1921 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/BL1620xB7/1f/babylonian_legends_of_creation.pdf layered PDF] format) Category:Former monarchies Category:Civilizations Category:Ancient Iranian provinces ja:バビロニア

Middle Chronology

The Chronology of the Ancient Near East deals with the notoriously difficult task of assigning dates to various events, rulers and dynasties of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. The chronology of this region is based on five sets of primary materials. They are, from the most recent to the earliest: # The Canon of Kings from Ptolemy. # An unbroken series of Neo-Assyrian king's names. # Babylonian King Lists A and B, the Synchronistic Chronicle, the Assyrian King List, and a number of shorter lists of year names. # The First Dynasty of Babylon, though ambiguities and disagreements have led to three different schemes for dates between the 10th and 21st centuries. The most common ("low chronology") sets the eighth year of Ammisaduqa at 1531 BC. # The Sumerian King List. Three different dating schemes for dates between the 10th and 21st centuries are in use in literature:
- The low or short chronology, most commonly used today, sets the eighth year of Ammisaduqa at the year 1531 BC as the end of the first dynasty (with a reign of king Hammurabi 1728 BC–1686 BC).
- The middle chronology, which was the most commonly used chronology until recently, is 64 years (one period between identical conjunctions of Venus, Sun and Moon) earlier than the short chronology (Hammurabi 1792 BC–1750 BC).
- The long chronology is 120 years earlier than the short chronology (Hammurabi 1848 BC–1806 BC).

Primary sources

The chronology of this region is based on five sets of primary materials. They are, from the most recent to the earliest: 1. The Canon of Ptolemy. This is a list of the kings of Babylon and the Persian Empire, from Nabonassar down to Alexander the Great, which Claudius Ptolemy added to one of his books because of the astronomical observations connected with this information. 2. An unbroken series of Neo-Assyrian king names ranging from Ashur-uballit II (died in 609) up to Adad-nirari II (ascended in 911). These years, all named for the official known as a limmu, and some bearing an important event for the previous year, are fixed with the precision of a year due to the mention of the solar eclipse of June 16, 763 BC. These two sets overlap for over a hundred years, and help to supplement each other. 3. For the centuries between the previous two groups and the ones following, we depend upon a group of interrelated, yet incomplete, documents: Babylonian King Lists A and B, the Synchronistic Chronicle, the Assyrian King List, and a number of shorter lists of year names recovered from Babylon and Assyria. 4. The First Dynasty of Babylon. Not only have all of the year names for Hammurabi and his descendants survived more or less intact, but a record of astronomical observations made during the eighth regnal year of Ammisaduqa, offer another opportunity to reliably fix these floating dates. Unfortunately, due to ambiguities in the text, as well as disagreements over the interpretation of these observations, there are three possibles dates for these observations, which have led to the three chronologies mentioned above. 5. The Sumerian King List. The beginning of the third dynasty of Ur (Ur-Nammu; 2047 BC short ch.) is the earliest date that may be directly calculated from dates of Assyrian or Babylonian sources. Preceding this date is the Gutian period, variously estimated to have lasted between 45 and 120 years. The preceding Akkadian period is again well-documented, leading to a year of ca. 2235 BC for the ascension of Sargon of Akkad. Yet earlier dates are subjected to increasing uncertainty.

Synchronisms between Assur and Babylon

The chronology of Babylon and Assur can be aligned by the list of wars and treaties between the two cities from the time of king Ashurbanipal. Hittite chronology is dependent on Assyria and Egypt. For times earlier than 1500 BC, various systems based on the Venus tablets of Ammisaduqa have been proposed. The death of Shamshi-Adad I of Assur in the 17th year of the reign of Hammurabi (1712 BC short ch.) is another synchronism which is helpful. The Palace at Acemhöyük burned to the ground, allowing for Dendochronological dating of the seal impression of Shamshi-Adad I found in the ruins. While the stratigraphy of the connection between the burnt beams and the seal impression is not 100% clear, it does support the short chronology. The entries of the Synchronistic Chronicle, mentioned above, record which Assyrian king was ruling during which Babylonian king's reign, and vice versa.

Synchronisms between Mesopotamia and Egypt

It is possible that mutual influences existed between the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia since very early times. Some authorities believed that Mesopotamian influence affected predynastic Upper Egypt (also known as the Mesopotamian Stimulation) between 34th–31st centuries BC. As of this date, the evidence is not conclusive. On the other hand Iron age Hama (Hamath) shows strong Egyptian influence. The Amarna letters provide the earliest known synchronisms between Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. They provide clear evidence that the New Kingdom kings Amenhotep III and Akhenaten were contemporaries of Kadashman-Enlil I and Burnaburiash II of Babylon, Ashur-uballit I of Assyria, and Suppiluliumas I of the Hittite empire. Other synchronisms between Mesopotamia and Egypt are indirect, depending on synchronisms between Egypt and the Hittite empire. For example, because Ramesses II signed a peace treaty with Hattusili III in Ramesses' 21st regnal year, and letters from Hattusili III to Kadashman-Turgu and Adad-nirari I of Assyria exist, one can argue that the reign of Ramesses overlapped the reigns of Kadashman-Turgu and Adad-nirari I. Direct synchronisms between Egypt and Assyria return in the Late Period of Egypt, when Assyrian armies attacked and conquered Egypt. See Egyptian chronology.

Synchronisms between Mesopotamia and the Hittite Empire

The sack of Babylon by the Hittite king Mursilis I, which ended the reign of Samsu-Ditana, provides an anchor for the earliest dates in Hittite history. The Battle of Nihriya links Tudhaliya IV and Adad-nirari I as contemporaries. The correspondence of the Hittite kings Hattusili III and Tudhaliya IV with the Assyrian chancellor Babu-ahu-iddina conclusively proves that they were the contemporaries of Adad-nirari I, Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I, not their later namesakes.

Babylon and Assyria

The Chaldean king Nabonidus (reigned from 556 BC), who was more of an antiquarian than a politician, and spent his time in excavating the older temples of his country and ascertaining the names of their builders, tells us that Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon of Akkad, lived 3200 years before himself, i.e. around 3750 BC. It is generally accepted by the archaeological consensus this date is much too early. As the reign of King Nabonidus ended by the accession of Cyrus in Babylonia around 539 or 538 BC, the "years" may have been given by actual modern half years. The Jewish chronology and the Old Testament has the same situation with the same dilemma. Their "years" may have been commenced both by the first day of Nisanu (Nisan) and that of Tashritu (Tishri) in their remote histories. Therefore, it is likely that the correct interval is not 3200 but 1600. It is probably a rounded figure. One must be careful with the several intervals between rulers and events cited by the above mentioned unearthed documents. We cannot prove that a totally reliable chronological list was available for all the scribes, and they may not have been versed historians. They may have been pressed to give a figure but not enough time for a thorough research. Many of the figures contradict to each other, etc.

Chronology and notes

We start our list of Babylonian kings with a significant ruler of Erech called Lugalzagesi, placing him from 2411 BC to 2376 BC. He was a contemporary of Urukagina king of Lagash (reigned 2407-2399 BC) and Sargon (2399-2343 BC) king of Akkad. After Sargon, the next king was Rimush(...). His contemporary in Ur was Ka-kug or Ka-ku (2376-2341 BC). The son and successor of Rimush was Manishtusu (2334-2329 BC), whose Assyrian viceroy was Abazu, son of Nuabu. In this period the rulers of Kish were Simudarra or Simudar (2399-2369), a contemporary of Sargon. After him Usi-watar (2369-2362), Eshtarmuti (2362-2351), Ishme-shamash (2351-2340), and Nannia (2340-2243) reigned in Kish. In Akkad, after Manishtusu, the following kings reigned: :2329-2282 Naram-sin :2282-2257 Shar-kali-sharri He was contemporary with the first Gutian king, Erridupizir, and he later defeated Sarlagab, another king of Gutium. :2257-???? Igigi, Nanum, and Imi, pretenders :????-2254 Elulu, a pretender, maybe King Elul(u)mesh of Gutium. :2254-2233 Dudu :2233-2218 Shu-durul Shu-durul was the last ruler. (Agade/Akkad was defeated by Erech. Then Erech dominated until 2194, then eight Median-Elamite usurper tyrants ruled for 224 years, according to Berossus, from 2194 to 1970 BC. Some of them are listed here.) Erech: :2219-2212 Ur-nigin(ak) :2212-2206 Ur-gigir(ak) :2206-2200 Kudda or Gudea :2200-2195 Puzur-ili :2195 (?) Lugal-melam (?) :2195-2189 Ur-utu(k) :2189-2179 Utu-khegal or Utu-khengal He was a contemporary of Tirigan, the last king of the Guti. During this period the Gutian or Guti kings flourished as follow: :2280-2277 Erridupizir, the first ruler. :2277-2274 Imta :2274-2268 Inkishush :2268-2265 Sarlagab :2265-2259 Shulme' :2259-2253 Elulmesh or Elulu-mesh :2253-2248 Inimabakesh :2248-2242 Igeshaush :2242-2227 Iarlangab or Iarlagab :2227-2224 Ibate :2224-2221 Iarlangab :2221-2220 Kurum :2220-2217 Habil-kin :2217-2215 La'erabum :2215-2213 Irarum :2213-2212 Ibranum :2212-2210 Hablum :2210-2203 Puzur-sin :2203-2196 Iarlaganda :2196-2189 Si'u or Si'um :2189-2189 Tirigan Tirigan reigned only for 40 days, according to Jacobsen. His chrononolgical table (1934: 208 ff.) has placed the accession of Ur-Nammu (Dynasty III of Ur) ten years after the end of Utu-khegal's reign. His fall may or may not have coincided with his lost battle against Erech. This famous battle took place on the day of an eclipse of the moon, on the 14th day of the month Duzu or Tammuz, from the first watch to the middle watch. See Carl Schoch (1927: B6-B8), and Thorkild Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List (Chicago, 1934: 203). This is the first eclipse record in the Near East that is identifiable with high probability. It took place on August 13, 2189 BC, with a magnitude of 120% which is remarkable. After the defeat of Gutium, the Third Dynasty of Ur was fourishing: :2179-2161 Ur-Nammu or Ur-Engur :2161-2113 Shulgi A double (solar and lunar) eclipse took place 23 years after Shulgi's accession to the throne. Prof. Jacob Klein of Bar-Ilan University in his book Three Sulgi hymns (1981: 59 and 81) tells that the first 23 years of his reign was peaceful, and that the sun was eclipsed on the horizon, just like the moon on the sky, during the first battles of Sulgi. (Most historians do not feel confident about their own astronomical profiency, therefore the extreme importance of this double eclipse record remained unnoticed. Another difficulty is that the reading has a questionmark.) Z.A. Simon adds that the lunar eclipse is mentioned first in the poem, because the worship of Sin (The moon) was predominant for them, and that the record is poetic, not that of an astronomer. This rare phaenomena occurred on May 9, 2138 BC (solar eclipse), with a magnitude of 34%. The lunar eclipse took place on May 24, 2138 BC. :2113-2104 Amar-Sin or Bur-Sin. His viceroy in Assyria was Zariqum. :2104-2095 Shu-Sin An eclipse of the moon observed in the month Simanu (Sivan) may be placed near the end of Shu-sin's reign, called patricide eclipse in the literature. The clipse "drew through" and "equalized" the first watch, meaning that has coincided with it, then touched the second watch. It took place on July 25, 2095 BC. Refer to Carl Schoch, Die Ur-Finsternis (Berlin, 1927: B6-B8). Professor Peter J. Huber, Astronomy and Ancient Chronology in the journal Accadica (Vol. 119-120) deals with this issue about the omen EAE 20-III. We have learned from him that it may have belonged to the death of Shulgi, or it may have been another king, for the name is not mentioned. (Therefore, it could have belonged to Shu-sin, we believe, also adding that the expression will wrong him does not necessarily mean murdering a king. We note here that the data evaluated by Huber (page 166) "rejects the middle chronologies on the 1% level... this is a strong argument against the correctness of the middle chronologies." (Editor's note: those are still in common use.) :2095-2070 Ibbi-Sin Ibbi-Sin's reign lasted for 24 or 26 years (S. Langdon and John K. Fotheringham, The Venus tablets of Ammisaduqa, 1928). An eclipse of the moon caused terror shortly before his fall, in the month Addaru or Adar. The real eclipse had a magnitude of 153%. (Schoch describes this eclipse as well, proposing a different candidate.) A few years before the fall of Ibbi-Sin, another city started to flourish: Isin. Its first ruler had emerged several years earlier. The kings of Isin are as follow: :2083-2050 Ishbi-erra :2050-2040 Shu-ilishu :2040-2019 Iddin-dagan :2019-2000 Ishme-dagan :2000-1989 Lipit-Ishtar :1989-1961 Un-ninurta :1961-1940 Bur-sin or Amar-sin :1940-1935 Lipit-enlil :1935-1927 Erra-imitti or Ura-imitti :1927-1927 Tabbaya :1927-1903 Enlil-bani :1903-1900 Zambiya :1900-1896 Iter-pisha :1896-1892 Ur-dulkugga :1892-1881 Sin-magir :1881-1858 Damiq-ilishu The First Dynasty of Babylon was almost contemporary with Isin. Their chronology is debated, because there is a King List A and a Babylonian King List B. Hereby we follow the regnal years of List A, because those are widely used, although we believe that the other list is better, at least for one or two reigns out of the first six. (The reigns in List B are longer, in general. Unfortunately, it is not available for the editor.) First Babylonian Dynasty: :1959-1945 Su-abu or Suum-abum :1945-1909 Sumula-ilum :1909-1895 Sabium or Sabum :1895-1877 Apil-Sin :1877-1857 Sin-muballit :1857-1814 Hammurabi His other name was Hammurapi-ilu, meaning Hammurapi the god or perhaps Hammurapi is god. :1814-1776 Samsu-Iluna :1776-1748 Abi-eshuh or Abieshu :1748-1711 Ammi-ditana :1711-1690 Ammi-zaduga or Ammisaduqa His Venus tablets of Ammisaduqa (i.e., several ancient versions on clay tablets) are famous, and several books had been published about them. Several dates have been offered but the old dates of many sourcebooks seens to be outdated and incorrect. There are further difficulties: the 21 years span of the detailed observations of the planet Venus may or may not coincide with the reign of this king, because his name is not mentioned, only the Year of the Golden Throne. A few sources, some printed almost a century ago, claim that the original text mentions an occultation of the Venus by the moon. It seems to me a misinterpretation because the original texts in the book of Erica Reiner and D. Pingree, The Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa there is no such sentence. :1690-1659 Samsu-Ditana A text about the fall of Babylon by the Hittites of Mursilis I at the end of Samsuditana's reign tells about a twin eclipse, which is crucial for a correct Babylonian chronology. (The reading of the word Babylon is uncertain but why should a Babylonian tablet refer to another city?). The pair of lunar and solar eclipses occurred in the month Shimanu (Sivan). Professor Peter J. Huber has computed several options that would satisfy the conditions of the detailed description. The lunar eclipse took place on February 9, 1659 BC. It started at 4:43 and ended at 6:47. The latter was invisible which satisfies the record which tells that the setting moon was still eclipsed. The solar eclipse occurred on February 23, 1659 BC. It started at 10:26, has its maximum at 11:45, and ended at 13:04. This indicates that the presently accepted Middle Chronology is too low from the astronomical point of view. See Peter Huber, "Astronomical dating of Babylon I and Ur III" in Monographic Journals of the Near East (1982: 41).

Divergent chronological views

The divergent chronologies of Babylonia and Assyria can cause confusion for readers with no specialist knowledge. In this section an attempt is made to indicate briefly the causes which have led to so great a diversity of opinion, and to describe in outline the principles underlying the chief schemes of chronology that have been suggested. A short account will then be given of the latest discoveries in this branch of research, and of the manner in which they affect the problems at issue. There is no disagreement over the dates of the Persian and later Babylonian and Assyrian kings. The Canon of Ptolemy lists the kings who ruled in Babylon with the number of years they reigned, from Nabonassar in 747 BC to the conquest of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. The Canon's accuracy is confirmed by the larger king lists, the principal Babylonian Chronicle and the Assyrian Eponym Lists (or limmu lists), by which Assyrian chronology is fixed from 911 BC to 666 BC. The solar eclipse of June 15 763 BC, which is recorded in the eponymy of Pur-Sagale or Bur-Sagale, fixes the dead reckoning for these later periods with certainty. For the years before these dates, historians put forward different chronologies, with the discrepancy between them growing further back in time. The various opinions stem from some of the available data being either ambiguous or conflicting. Since its publication in 1884 the Babylonian List of Kings has furnished the framework for every chronological system that has been proposed. In its original form this document gave a list, arranged in dynasties, of the Babylonian kings, from the First Dynasty of Babylon down to the Neo-Babylonian period. If the text were complete we should probably be in possession of the system of Babylonian chronology current in the NeoBabylonian period from which our principal classical authorities derived their information. The principal points of uncertainty, due to gaps in the text, concern the length of Dynasties IV and VIII; for the reading of the figure giving the length of the former is disputed, and the summary at the close of the latter omits to state its length. This omission is much to be regretted, since Nabonassar was the last king but two of this dynasty, and, had we known its duration, we could have combined the information on the earlier periods furnished by the Kings' List with the evidence of the Ptolemaic Canon. In addition to the Kings' List, other important chronological data consist of references in the classical authorities to the chronological system of Berossus; chronological references to earlier kings occurring in the later native inscriptions, such as Nabonidus's estimate of the period of Hammurabi; synchronisms, also furnished by the inscriptions, between kings of Babylon and of Assyria; and the early Babylonian date-lists. In view of the uncertainty regarding the length of Dynasties IV. and VIII. of the Kings' List, attempts have been made to ascertain the dates of the earlier dynasties by independent means. The majority of writers, after fixing the date at which Dynasty III closed by means of the synchronisms and certain of the later chronological references, have accepted the figures of the Kings' List for the earlier dynasties, ignoring their apparent inconsistencies with the system of Berossus and with the chronology of Nabonidus. Others have attempted to reconcile the conflicting data by emendations of the figures and other ingenious devices. This will explain the fact that while the difference between the earliest and latest dates suggested for the close of Dynasty III is only 144 years, the difference between the earliest and latest dates suggested for the beginning of Dynasty I is no less than 622 years. A comparison of the principal schemes of chronology that have been propounded may be made by means of the preceding table. The first column gives the names of the writers and the dates at which their schemes were published, while the remaining columns give the dates they have suggested for Dynasties I, II and III of the Kings' List (These three dynasties are usually known as the First Dynasty of Babylon, the Dynasty of Sisku or Uruku, and the Kassite Dynasty). The systems with the highest dates are placed first in the list; where a writer has produced more than one system, these are grouped together, the highest dates proposed by him determining his place in the series. Omitting that of Oppert, which to some extent stands in a category by itself, the systems fall into three groups. The first group, comprising the second to the sixth names, obtains its results by selecting the data on which it relies and ignoring others. The second group, comprising the next four names, attempts to reconcile the conflicting data by emending the figures. The third group, consisting of the last two names, is differentiated by its proposals with regard to Dynasty II. It will be noted that the first group has obtained higher dates than the second, and the second group higher dates on the whole than the third. Oppert's system represents the earliest dates that have been suggested. He accepted the figures of the Kings' List and claimed that he reconciled them with the figures of Berossus~ though he ignored the later chronological notices. But there is no evidence for his "cyclic date" of 2517 BC, on which his system depended, and there is little doubt that the beginning of the historical period of Berossus is to be set, not in 2506 B.c., but in 2232 B.C. The two systems of Sayce, that of Rogers, the three systems of Winckler, both those of Delitzsch, and that of Maspero, may be grouped together, for they are based on the same principle. Having first fixed the date of the close of Dynasty III, they employed the figures of the Kings', List unemended for defining the earlier periods, and did not attempt to reconcile their results with other conflicting data. The difference of eighteen years in Sayce's two dates for the rise of Dynasty was due to his employing in 1902 the figures assigned to the first seven kings of the dynasty upon the larger of the two contemporary date-lists, which had meanwhile been published, in place of those given by the List of Kings. It should be noted that Winckler (1905) and Delitzsch (1907) gives the dates only in round numbers. A second group of systems may be said to consist of those proposed by Lehmann-Haupt, Marquart, Peiser, and Rost, for these writers attempted to get over the discrepancies in the data by amending some of the figures furnished by the inscriptions. In 1891, with the object of getting the total duration of the dynasties to agree with the chronological system of Berossus and with the statement of Nabonidus concerning Khammurabi's date, Peiser proposed to emend the figure given by the Kings' List for the length of Dynasty III. The reading of "9 soss and 36 years," which gives the total 576 years, he suggested was a scribal error for "6 soss and 39 years"; he thus reduced the length of Dynasty III. by 177 years and effected a corresponding reduction in the dates assigned to Dynasties I and II. In 1897 Rost followed up Peiser's suggestion by reducing the figure still further, but he counteracted to some extent the effects of this additional reduction by emending Sennacherib's date for Mardukriadin-akhe's defeat of Tiglath-Pileser I as engraved on the rock at Bavian, holding that the figure 418, as engraved upon the rock, was a mistake for "478." Lehmann-Haupt's first system ~1898 resembled those of Oppert, Sayce, Rogers, Winckler, Delitzsch and Maspero in that he accepted the figures of the Kings' List, and did not attempt to amend them. But he obtained his low date for the close of Dynasty III by amending Sennacherib's figure in the Bavian inscription; this he reduced by a hundred years, instead of increasing it by sixty as Rost had suggested. Lehmann-Haupt's influence is visible in Marquart's system published in the following year; it may be noted that his slightly reduced figure for the beginning of Dynasty I. was arrived at by incorporating the new information supplied by the first date-list to be published. When revising his scheme of chronology in 1900, Rost abandoned his suggested emendation of Sennacherib's figure, but by decreasing his reduction of the length of Dynasty III, he only altered his date for the beginning of Dynasty I by one year. In his revised scheme of chronology, published in 1903, Lehmann-Haupt retained his emendation of Sennacherib's figure, and was in his turn influenced by Marquart's method of reconciling the dynasties of Berossus with the Kings' List. He continued to accept the figure of the Kings' List for Dynasty III, but he reduced the length of Dynasty II by fifty years, arguing that the figures assigned to some of the reigns were improbably high. His slight reduction in the length of Dynasty I was obtained from the recently published date-lists, though his proposed reduction of Ammizaduga's reign to ten years has since been disproved. A third group of systems comprises those proposed by Hommel and Niebuhr, for their reductions in the date assigned to Dynasty I. were effected chiefly by their treatment of Dynasty II. In his first system, published in 1886,i Hommel, mainly with the object of reducing Khammurabi's date, reversed the order of the first two dynasties of the Kings' List, placing Dynasty II before Dynasty I. In his second and third systems (1895 and 1898), and in his second alternative scheme of 1901 (see below), he abandoned this proposal and adopted a suggestion of Halévy that Dynasty III followed immediately after Dynasty I; Dynasty II, he suggested, had either synchronized with Dynasty I, or was mainly apocryphal (eine spdtere Geschichtskonstruction) Niebuhr's system was a modification of Hommel's second theory, for, instead of entirely ignoring Dynasty II, he reduced its independent existence to 143 years, making it overlap Dynasty I by 225 years. The extremely low dates proposed by Hommel in 1898 were due to his adoption of Peiser's emendation for the length of Dynasty III, in addition to his own elimination of Dynasty II. In 1901 Hommel abandoned Peiser's emendation and suggested two alternative schemes. According to one of these he attempted to reconcile Berossus with the Kings' List by assigning to Dynasty II an independent existence of some 171 years, while as a possible alternative he put forward what was practically his theory of 1895. Such are the principles underlying the various chronological schemes which had, until recently, been propounded. The balance of opinion was in favour of those of the first group of writers, who avoided emendations of the figures and were content to follow the Kings' List and to ignore its apparent discrepancies with other chronological data; but it is now admitted that the general principle underlying the third group of theories was actually nearer the truth. The publication of fresh chronological material in 1906 and 1907 placed a new complexion on the problems at issue, and enabled us to correct several preconceptions, and to reconcile or explain the apparently conflicting data. From a Babylonian chronicle in the British Museum we now know that Dynasty II. of the Kings' List never occupied the throne of Babylon, but ruled only in the extreme south of Babylonia on the shores of the Persian Gulf; that its kings were contemporaneous with the later kings of Dynasty I. and with the earlier kings of Dynasty III. of the Kings' List; that in the reign of Samsu-ditana, the last king of Dynasty I, Hittites from Cappadocia raided and captured Babylon, which in her weakened state soon fell a prey to the Kassites (Dynasty III); and that later on southern Babylonia, till then held by Dynasty II. of the Kings', List, was in its turn captured by the Kassites, who from that time onward occupied the whole of the Babylonian plain. The same chronicle informs us that Ilu-shuma, an early Assyrian patesi, was the contemporary of Su-abu, the founder of Dynasty I. of the Kings' List, thus enabling us to trace the history of Assyria back beyond the rise of Babylon. Without going into details, the more important results of this new information may be summarized: the elimination of Dynasty II. from the throne of Babylon points to a date not much 'earlier than 2000 or 2050 B.C. for the rise of Dynasty I., a date which harmonizes with the chronological notices of Shalmaneser I; Nabonidus's estimate of the period of Khammurabi, so far from being centuries too low, is now seen to have been exaggerated, as the context of the passage in his inscription suggests; and finally the beginning of the historical period of Berossus is not to be synchronized with Dynasty I of the Kings' List, but, assuming that his figures had an historical basis and that they have come down to us in their original form, with some earlier dynasty which may possibly have had its capital in one of the other great cities of Babylonia (such as the Dynasty of Isin). New data have also been discovered bearing upon the period before the rise of Babylon. A fragment of an early dynastic chronicle from Nippur gives a list of the kings of the dynasties of Ur and Isin. From this text we learn. that the Dynasty of Ur consisted of five kings and lasted for 117 years, and was succeeded by the Dynasty of Isin, which consisted of sixteen kings and lasted for 2251/2 years. Now the capture of the city of Isin. by Rim-Sin, which took place in the seventeenth year of Sin-muballit, the father of Khammurabi, formed an epoch for dating tablets in certain parts of Bahylonian and it is probable that we may identify the fall of the Dynasty of Isin with this capture of the city. In that case the later rulers of the Dynasty of Isin would have been contemporaneous with the earlier rulers of Dynasty I. of the Kings' List, and we obtain. for the rise of the Dynasty of Ur a date not much earlier than 2300 B.c.

Notes

See Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria/1911 for the partly obsolete article of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. This version of that article removes some of the conflicting numbers and includes much more absolute dates, based mainly on solar and lunar eclipse records.

See also


- Chronology
- Egyptian chronology
- Conventional Egyptian chronology
- Kings of Sumer
- Kings of Assyria
- Kings of Babylon
- Immanuel Velikovsky
- Canon of Ptolemy
- Venus tablets of Ammisaduqa
- Chronicle of Ashurbanipal
- Babylonia and Assyria
- Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria

External links


- [http://www.kingscalendar.com/bible_dates_research/Research_bible_dates_viewnews_id_132.html KingsCalendar - Study of the Chronological Narratives of Judah and Israel in the mid-Eighth Century BC]
- [http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/babylon/babybibl_chronology.htm Ancient Near Eastern Chronologies]
- [http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0311035 On the Astronomical Records and Babylonian Chronology] V. G. Gurzadyan
- [http://www.bga.nl/en/discussion/engbaboe.html An Assyrian chancellor's archive]
- http://www.crystalinks.com/sumeregypt.html
- http://www.bartleby.com/67/84.html Category:Chronology Category:Mesopotamia Category:Ancient history Category:Assyria Category:Babylonia

Hegemony

Hegemony is the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; more broadly, cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group. Hegemony controls the ways that ideas become "naturalized" in a process that informs notions of common sense. Throughout history, cultural and political power in any arena has rarely achieved a perfect balance, but hegemony results in the empowerment of certain cultural beliefs, values, and practices to the submersion and partial exclusion of others. Hegemony affects the perspective of mainstream history, as history is written by the victors for a sympathetic readership. The official history of Christianity, marginalizing its defined "heresies", provides a richly-exampled arena of cultural hegemony. Jás Elsner, in Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (1998), has written: :"Power is very rarely limited to the pure exercise of brute force.... The Roman state bolstered its authority and legitimacy with the trappings of ceremonial — cloaking the actualities of power beneath a display of wealth, the sanction of tradition, and the spectacle of insuperable resources.... Power is a far more complex and mysterious quality than any apparently simple manifestation of it would appear. It is as much a matter of impression, of theatre, of persuading those over whom authority is wielded to collude in their subjugation. Insofar as power is a matter of presentation, its cultural currency in antiquity (and still today) was the creation, manipulation, and display of images. In the propagation of the imperial office, at any rate, art was power." (quoted at [http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth212/late_antiquity_imp_image.html])

Theories of hegemony

Theories of hegemony attempt to explain how dominant groups or individuals (known as hegemons) can maintain their power -- the capacity of dominant classes to persuade subordinate ones to accept, adopt and internalize their values and norms. Antonio Gramsci devised one of the best-known accounts of hegemony. His theory defined the State by a mixture of coercion and hegemony, between which he drew distinctions; according to Gramsci, hegemony consists of political power that flows from intellectual and moral leadership, authority or consensus, as distinguished from mere armed force. Recently critical theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have re-defined the term "hegemony".

Hegemonies in history

The word "hegemon" originated in ancient Greece, and derives from the word hegeisthai (meaning "to lead"). An early example of hegemony during ancient Greek history occurred when Sparta became the hegemon of the Peloponnesian League in the 6th century BC. Later, in 337 BC, Philip II of Macedon became the personal Hegemon of the League of Corinth, a position he passed on to his son Alexander the Great. In ancient China during the Western Zhou dynasty the Zhou kings appointed hegemons (known as "Ba"). This was due to the increasing chaos that resulted from the weakening of Zhou authority. The hegemons - initially from the powerful state of Jin - were men with sufficient strength to impose Zhou rule. In return they got prestige and legitimacy they would not otherwise enjoy. The office of hegemon had vanished by the time the last Zhou king was deposed in 256 BCE. The term hegemon is also used to describe Japan's three unifiers in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu each had different titles (and held many different posts during their lifetimes), but each had in common that they exercised hegemony over all or much of Japan (and in Hideyoshi's case much of Korea at one point). For ease of reference they are collectively referred to as the three hegemons or the three unifiers. To the extent that hegemony appears as a cultural phenomenon, cultural institutions maintain it. The Medici maintained their hegemony in Tuscany through control of Florence's major guild, the Arte della Lana. Modern hegemonies also maintain themselves through cultural institutions, often with allegedly "voluntary" membership: the law abiding citizens or, arguably, the Teamsters in states without "right to work" laws — one might adduce countless modern associations. In more recent times, analysts have used the term hegemony in a more abstract sense to describe the "proletarian dictatorships" of the 20th century, resulting in regional domination by local powers, or domination of the world by a global power. China's position of dominance in East Asia for most of its history offers an example of the regional hegemony. The Cold War (1945 - 1990), with its main avenues of coercion — the Warsaw Pact led by the USSR and NATO led by the United States — often appears as a battle for hegemony. The details of the parties' respective ideologies have no relevance to whether they are hegemons: both sides featured