rul music and pics: BATTLES OF NIPPUR AND IRRIDU

Saturday, March 17, 2018

BATTLES OF NIPPUR AND IRRIDU

Ashurbanipal (668-627 BCE, also known as Assurbanipal) was the last of the great kings of Assyria. His name means "the god Ashur is creator of an heir" and he was the son of King Esarhaddon of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In the Hebrew Tanakh (the Christian Old Testament) he is called As(e)nappar or Osnapper (Ezra 4:10), while the Greeks knew him as Sardanapolos and the Romans as Sardanapulus. He achieved the greatest territorial expansion of the Assyrian Empire which included Babylonia, Persia, Syria, and Egypt (although Egypt was lost as a result of a revolt under the reign of the Egyptian PharaohPsammetichus I). Ashurbanipal was a popular king who ruled his citizens fairly but was marked for his cruelty toward those whom he defeated (the best known example being a relief depicting the defeated king with a dog chain through his jaw, being forced to live in a kennel after capture). He is best known for his vast library atNineveh, which he himself considered his greatest achievement. Under Ashurbanipal’s reign, the country of Elam (which had long been an unconquerable enemy of Assyria) was destroyed andUrartu, another long-time adversary, was dominated. Toward the end of his reign, however, the empire had grown too large and too difficult to properly defend. The Assyrian Empire was already crumbling toward the end of his reign and, with his death, fell apart completely.

EARLY REIGN & EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGNS

Esarhaddon had conquered Egypt in 671 BCE but the Egyptians had revolted soon after and driven many of the Assyrian governors from their posts. In 669 BCE Esarhaddon mobilized his troops and marched back to put down the revolt but died before he reached the Egyptian border. Prior to leaving on campaign, however, he had fortunately decided to set his affairs in order. When his father,Sennacherib, had been assassinated, Esarhaddon had been forced to fight a six-week war with his brother’s factions to secure the crown. He did not want to see this same thing happen with his own heir.

Babyloniencounteragainst Mitanni in Nippur in the North, the the people were Aryo-Sumerians and Eridu in the South. The first had grown up around a sanctuary of the god En-lil, who held sway over the ghostly animistic spirits which at his bidding might pose as the friends or enemies of men. A more 'civilized' deity held sway at Eridu, which was the home of Ea, or Oannes, the god of light and wisdom, who exercised his knowledge of the healing art for the benefit of his votaries. From[Pg 15] the waters of the Persian Gulf,

TUSHRATTA, KING OF MITANNI,ALLIED
WITH pharaoh amenhotep of aEGYPTUS