Babylon: The City at the Center of the World - The Concise History of Babylonia (2000-539 BC)

in the year 1894 BC a relatively unknown Amorite Chieftain named sumu abim established a small Kingdom along what was then the Eastern banks of the Euphrates River there was nothing really special about this area other than that it possessed some decent farmland and a small City that in the local Acadian language was called Babalu which one translation reads as Gateway of the Gods [Music] scholars believe that the original name may have been babur or babir which simply means pale white or bright in the old Sumerian language most of us today know the city by the name Babylon Babylon had once been a regional administrative Center during the Reigns of the great Kings of the neo-sumerian Empire who ruled from the city of UR towards the end of the third millennium BC Scholars today referred to this group of Kings as the third dynasty of UR since there are only two other known dynasties from war that preceded it these Kings of which there were five ruled over a relatively enlightened Society where the Arts and literature were promoted in the old Sumerian language laws were enacted by the rulers for the benefit of most of the population and international trade flourished as far as India and Egypt foreign a network of territories and tributaries that extended from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea all the way to Central Iran at its height the neo-sumerian empire was the most powerful and wealthiest State ever to have existed in early antiquity by the time that sumu ABBA and his followers settled into their new home along the Euphrates River the neo-sumerian Empire had been long gone in its place was a patchwork of petty States whose rulers may have called themselves Kings but who in reality were little more than Warlords who raided each other's territories for silver slaves and women sumuabum though seems to have wanted more a legacy over time and with the improvements and Investments made by himself and his early successors Babylon would grow into a sizable city known for its fine colorful textiles however in the centuries that followed the city would become the focal point of the land that would eventually bear its name Babylonia this is the story of a great civilization that revolved around the city and its Patron deity Marduk it's a story of progress destruction Glory great Kings and their Noble and often nefarious Deeds and of course of the people who lived in this marvelous land a place that has captured the imagination of mankind from ancient times until the modern day it's the story of Babylon the city once at the center of the world for just over a century the kings of the third dynasty of War who presided over a super state that Scholars today call the neo-sumerian Empire had ushered in an era of prosperity and cultural achievement that the already ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia up until then had never experienced they had brought the Sumerian language back to the Forefront of daily life after nearly 150 years of Acadian dominated rule many of the Great buildings of the city of War were renovated and expanded such as the ziggurat dedicated to the city's Patron deity the moon god Nana which towered above the desert and as far as we know was probably the greatest religious structure of its day but like with the Acadian Empire a few centuries before it the neo-sumerian Empire of the third dynasty of war was not destined to last there were likely several causes for its collapse but one of the main reasons that Scholars cite for the demise of the neo-sumerian state had to do with the Eastward expansion of Nomads called amorites into Southern and Central Mesopotamia their arrival along with bad harvests famine in certain areas and weak leadership overall were all factors that led to the fall of the empire of UR one instance of just how dire the situation had become during the final Decades of the neo-sumerian state can be demonstrated in letters between its last king EB sin and one of his commanders ishpi era AB sin had ordered ishpiara to buy a large quantity of grain from the cities of issin and kazalu and bring it to the capital city of UR however ishpi era responds that he's unable to carry out the king's orders because amorites have been ravaging the country and blocked all of the roads to ur one of his letters to the king reads say to IBI sin my Lord this is what ishpiara your servant says you ordered me to travel to issin and kazalu to purchase grain with grain reaching the exchange rate of one shekel of silver poor Gore twenty talents of silver have been invested for the purchase of grain I heard news that the Hostile amorites have entered inside your territories I entered with 72 000 Gore of grain the entire amount of grain inside is seen because of the amorites I am unable to hand over the screen for threshing they are stronger than me while I am condemned to sitting around not only were bands of amorites blocking the roads and making travel between cities dangerous but many of them also seem to have been preparing to attack nippor and be seen while this may or may not have been true ishpiera took advantage of the situation around these two cities to further his own political ambitions in another letter he informs the king that due to the Amorite threat he should formally be made the new NC or governor of both cities in reality it be sin lacked The Authority in that region to deny ishviera's request and so he agreed to make ishpiara a regional governor with jurisdiction over nippor and disin time though was running out and the situation outside City walls was growing more precarious by the day to help speed up the delivery of the grain he'd be sin ordered ishpiera to team up with the other Governors and commanders of the nearby cities that were still loyal to him and to buy the grain at Double the price if necessary in this ishpiara was successful and the grain ultimately reached the city of UR though for the time being the food situation had been resolved ibisin's Reliance on ishpiera and other commanders must have shown them just how weak the king and his government really were and so in 2017 BC ishpira took matters into his own hands and officially proclaimed himself to be the new king of the scene the city that he had once pledged to protect for ibe sin one of ishpi era's first acts as the new king of his scene was to send Messengers to the governors of neighboring cities demanding that they submit to him one such messenger was sent to puzur the governor of kazalu we don't have the letter from ishpiara to puzur numushta but we have a letter from puzur no mushta to IBI sin telling him of ishpieras treasonous Acts part of which reads to IBI sin my liege the says governor of kazalu your servant the envoy of ishpie era came to me and presented his case as follows ishpiera has sent me to you with this message my master enlil has promised to make me Shepherd of this land I have sworn by the name of my personal God Dagan that I shall conquer kazalu since enlil has promised me the cities of the land I shall build shrines to all the gods in his scene I will celebrate their regular festivals I shall set up my own statues my own emblems my own priestesses and as for you the one in whom you put your trust it be sin I shall remove from this land he seems wall I shall rebuild and name it ideal pashunu it was just as he said it seems while he rebuilt and named it ideal pashunu he captured nippur appointed his own guard and captured dugani the chief Temple administrator of nepur his ally zimum took the ruler of suburb prisoner and plundered hamazi nor ahum governor of ashnuna Shu enlil governor of Kish and puzzur tutu governor of vorsipa were returned to their original posts the land trembles like a reed fence from his clamor ishpi era goes everywhere at the head of his troops clamor has become loud and now he has cast his eyes in my direction I have no Ally no one who could compete with him although he has not yet been able to defeat me when he finally moves against me I will have to flee my liege must know about this it's doubtful that ibby sin dispatched any troops to support puzurmushta of kazalu though we know that he did send letters to him berating ishpiera calling his former Commander one who is not of Sumerian seed and making a prediction that the elamites would eventually attack his scene and capture ishpiera part of this letter may have been true as ishpiera was originally from the city of Mari it may have been a vacation ancestry the second part was also partially true the elamites would capture a king but it would not be the new king of a scene as the neo-sumerian Empire lost control of its vast array of territories new political actors arose one of these was the elamide king and warlord kindatu kendatu's father ibarat had been chosen by shulgi the second and greatest King of the third dynasty of War to oversee as his vassal most of ilam from the city of anchan however soon after shulgi died the states grip on its most far-flung provinces began to wane and after many years in the service of the neo-sumerian Kings ibarat declared his independence from Ur and took the city of Susa by the time that kindatu had ascended the elamite throne after his predecessor's death the neo-sumerian state was on life support seizing the moment in 2004 BC kendatu marched on Ur with a great Army and sacked the city taking both EB sin and the statue of ur's Patron deity Nana with him these actions officially brought about the end of the third dynasty of War and the neo-sumerian empire the fall of oar was a watershed moment in the history of ancient Mesopotamia most notably because it ushered in the gradual decline of the Sumerian language this though didn't mean that it completely disappeared but without widespread State sponsorship its use in daily life dramatically decreased Acadian still remained the native and preferred language of most people though with the influx of amorites and other pastoral groups settling in and around the urban centers of Mesopotamia new Regional dialects emerged the new society that was developing was essentially a combination of the older Sumerian Acadian culture with a bit of flavor from the more recent Amorite hurion and casite peoples who were slowly making their Mark in Southern and Central Mesopotamia we call this new society that began to emerge around 1900 BC Babylonian and the land that it came to dominate Babylonia both named after the city of Babylon which in time would become the cultural and religious Center of this civilization and for many the world foreign there was some uniformity politically the land of Babylonia was extremely fractured alliances between competing strongmen shifted constantly and cities often changed hands several times within the span of a generation most of the new leaders and Warlords who arose out of the ashes of the neo-sumerian empire were of Amorite and Acadian lineage during these chaotic times two kingdoms eventually Rose to prominence one of these was centered around the city of Eastin while the other the city of Larsa despite forming new independent dynasties most of the rulers of these and other small kingdoms tried to claim some sort of dissent or legitimacy from the preceding third dynasty of War these new Kings even the Amorite ones saw themselves and Their Kingdoms as a continuation of the political administrative and cultural heritage of the third dynasty of War for example in the case of ishpiera and his successors in his scene Sumerian remained the language of all Royal edicts inscriptions literature and even hymns the latter which had been clearly plagiarized from Kings such as shulgi the fifth King of the dynasty of issin lipit Ishtar even compiled his law code in Sumerian though they may have fashioned themselves as being heirs to the Sumerian Kings of old the rulers of the iseem dynasty all had Acadian Throne names just eight years after the capture of the City by kendatu ishpiera Liberated Ur from its elamite occupiers and by the end of his Reign probably also controlled the cities of Uruk Larsa and eredu in the South along with marad borsipa kazalu and possibly as far as ashnuna in the North such conquests though were short-lived Amorite Chieftains were also gaining ground in southern Mesopotamia and by the reign of edin Dagan the dynasty of essin's Third King clashes with them were becoming much more frequent at one point he lost control of the cities of nippur and Uruk but he quickly got them back after launching a counter-offensive however during the reign of enlil bani from 1860 to 1837 BC nippor was lost for good to the new Amorite Kings of Larsa like you seen Larsa Was A Very Old City established perhaps in the fourth or fifth millennium BC by the year 1940 BC Larsa was ruled by an Amorite warlord named sabaya who claimed the title of rabian amurim meaning chief of the amorites his successor was a certain gungunnam who ruled between 1932 to 1916 BC and captured the city of UR during the seventh year of his reign from that point onward The Fortunes of Larsa would rise at the expense of his scene but Larsa was just one city between the years 1900 to 1800 BC the cities of Kish Uruk and sipar had become independent kingdoms with their own Amorite rulers in 1894 BC in Amari Chieftain named sumulabum established a petty Kingdom of his own along one of the Eastern banks of the Euphrates river with the small city of Babylon as its capital just a few kilometers to the east was Kish one of the oldest and most respected cities in the history of ancient Mesopotamia to the south of both was borsipa the city of the god Naboo there's no known text explaining just how sumuabum acquired Babylon but the most likely scenario is that he took over the city in much the same manner as other Amorite Chieftains had in places such as Larsa Uruk and Ur by force it's doubtful though that a small City such as Babylon would have put up much resistance all that we know is that it was here that sumuabham founded his kingdom and started a new line of Kings which we conveniently call the first dynasty of Babylon the documents we have dating to sumu album's Reign state that he spent a great deal of effort in building up babylon's fortifications this was important because like other Amorite rulers sumu album was constantly involved in turf wars with his neighbors but he also used diplomacy and marriage alliances whenever possible and soon he and his successors were able to expand their territory and build small fortresses around Babylon there were also matters of trade and disputes with neighboring kingdoms that had to be resolved in one letter to his subordinates the Dynasty's fourth King Apple sin complained that foreign training Caravans were acting as spies and needed to be reprimanded thus says Apple sin your lord is this good in your eyes this way of acting that Caravans are regularly arriving here and that they continuously get informers without receiving a fee and that you are not objecting to this around the same time that Babylon was building itself up the kingdom of Larsa to the southeast had expanded to become the most powerful state in Mesopotamia and due to their control of the lucrative trade from the Gulf and ilam also the wealthiest in 1822 BC a king named Rim sin came to power and began a major campaign to expand larsa's borders even further especially towards the North and the West by 1810 BC he had his sights on Uruk which at the time was ruled by an Amorite King named Anam knowing that he couldn't repel an attack from Larsa alone he wrote a letter to babylon's fifth King sin mubalit asking him for support the two were distantly related because one of the daughters of babylon's second king sumula El had married one of anam's unnamed ancestors who was the king of Uruk in one of his letters to sin mubalat Anum reminds the Babylonian King that Uruk and Babylon are one house and can speak openly sin Mubarak eventually did join anumab Uruk and damiki lusu the king of issin against Rim sin of Larsa the details of the battle are unknown but it's very clear that Rim sin was the victor in one of his annals he refers to his 14th year on the throne as the year the armies of Uruk is seen Babylon sutium rapicum and the king of Uruk were smitten with weapons Uric was completely absorbed into the kingdom of Larsa while issin though it survived lost a significant amount of territory there are no records indicating that sin mubarid suffered any significant losses but as being part of the losing Coalition against Larsa he knew that Rim sin would eventually come for Babylon thus he spent the next 10 to 15 years building fortresses along his Border in preparation for a future attack in 1801 BC the expected attack came and though there are no specifics sin mubala's scribes record the final result as a Babylonian victory over Larsa after that we don't hear of a direct confrontation between the two for a while but in 1793 BC Grim sin conclusively defeated damic ilushu an NXT scene into his growing Kingdom all but cementing his control over what had once been ancient Sumer with the gulf to the southeast ilam directly east and sparsely populated desert to the west and south the only way for Larsa to expand was north towards Babylonian territory Larsa was in sin mubaritz's only concern north of Babylon was a relatively new Empire that Scholars call the kingdom of upper Mesopotamia ruled by a man named shamshiadad to the Northeast was the kingdom of ishna both of these kingdoms posed existential threats to Babylon one advantage that sin mubalat had was that shamshi adad and the kings of vishnuna hated each other so much that they'd never ever unite against him foreign River Valley ishna's territory rapidly expanded during the Reigns of two of its more ambitious Kings a peak adad II and naram sin not to be confused with Sargon the Great's grandson of the same name one of the small states that naram sin had annexed was the kingdom of echolatum whose King was shamshi adad son of illa kabukabu at the time shamshiadad was no match for ashnuna and so he sought Refuge with sin mubalit in Babylon after naram sin's death perhaps around 1812 or 1811 BC shamshi adad left Babylon with a group of his most trusted followers and took back akalatum becoming King of the city once again throughout the entire ordeal shamshi adad learned a valuable lesson conquer or be conquered just three years after taking back echolatum in 1808 BC shamshiadad captured the nearby city of Asher the center of Assyrian life and religion he then headed west to Annex the stupendously wealthy city of Mari the center of yet another kingdom with an Amorite ruling house the year 1792 BC is significant for a couple of reasons it's the year when shamshi Haddad conquered the kingdom of Mari and also When sin mubala's son and successor Hammurabi became the sixth King of Babylon the first five years of Hammurabi's Reign were rather uneventful from the various archives that have been uncovered it seems that much of his time was spent on financial matters renovating temples and fixing canals in 1787 BC he launched perhaps his first military campaign against Rim sin of Larsa and surprisingly took the cities of issin and Uruk in the process the Babylonians though weren't able to hold on to them and within a few years Rim sin had taken back both cities along with another the Border Town of malgium in the summer of 1775 BC jamshidad died and his Empire collapsed shortly afterward most of the kingdoms that he and his sons had conquered declared their independence including Mari it's new king zimmri Lim who claimed to be a prince of the dynasty that ruled Mari before shamshiadad's Conquest regained the throne with the backing of yarim lim the powerful Amorite ruler of yamhad a kingdom to the west of Mari shortly after his father had been assassinated zimmri Lim sought refuge in yamhag's capital of Aleppo and eventually married a daughter of yorim lim named shibtu upon shamshia dad's death yarimlim sent zimrilim back to Mari within Army to oust shamshiadad's son yasma Adu who was there serving as his father's Viceroy shamshi adad's other son Ishmael Dagan oversaw the western parts of his father's Kingdom from echolatum but eventually he was ousted by ashnuna's King ibal PL and like his father had done a few decades before he fled and sought refuge in Babylon with shamshi adad and his sons no longer in the picture Hammurabi had two new potential threats on his Northern borders Mari and ishna of the two Mari would make for a stronger Ally because of zimmri Lim's links with yarim Lim of yamhad a letter from one of zimmri Lim's officials itur astu informs him as to just how powerful yarim Lim was no king is really powerful on his own 10 to 15 Kings follow Hammurabi the man of Babylon Rim sin the man of Larsa ibal Piel the man of ishna and a mut PL the man of katna however 20 Kings follow yarimlim the man of yamhad in 1772 BC ibalpl marched West from ashnuna and took the city of rapicum which had up until then been a Babylonian possession his control of the city also threatened to cut off Babylon from Mari which was important because zimri Lim controlled access to most of the major trade routes to the West almost immediately Hammurabi sent men to fight alongside zimmri Lim against their new common enemy the brief war that followed with ashnuna ultimately ended up being a stalemate though ibal Piel did gain some territory at mari's expense and the Babylonians were able to take back rapicum only after this was peace with ashnuna reached however a greater Regional war was just on the horizon a may have been eager for peace with Babylon and Mari because he had a bigger fish on his tail ilam specifically the most powerful man in ilam the sukalma whose seat was in the ancient city of anshan different the peoples of Mesopotamia had a love-hate relationship with the land of ilam and its inhabitants though they often had armed conflicts with elamites the two were also trading partners the cities of Sumer and akkad were poor in raw materials while ilam was rich in natural resources especially medals and minerals the elamites also controlled many of the valuable trade routes that connected Mesopotamia to the many peoples who lived far to the east in 1767 BC the sukalma wrote to zimri Lim and requested that both he and Hammurabi help him in his fight against ibalpliel and ishna azibal PL was seen as the greater threat for both of them the two kings agreed and sent troops to fight alongside the sokalma the alliance proved fruitful in ishna fell the following year in the aftermath of the war Hammurabi occupied the cities of manchism and Ubi this enraged the sukalma who had claimed manchism for himself and ordered Hammurabi to evacuate it immediately which the Babylonian King refused to do the sukama then took manchism by force showing that he was serious and not just making idle threats it now became clear to Hammurabi that the sukalma was not content with Justice Nuna but that he wished to expand his influence much further into Mesopotamia if the sukalma could take mankisam then he could also March his troops to Babylon and so Hammurabi did what many at the time would have thought to have been unthinkable he reached out to his longtime rival Rim sin of Larsa and asked for help Rim sin gave him no answer as for the elamites they continued onward across northern Mesopotamia capturing and looting all of the cities and towns along their way thank you zimmri Lim also contacted yarim Lim of yamhad for aid but here too there was no answer because yarim Lim had already died by the time his letter arrived the sakalama managed to take the city of UPI from Hammurabi and then sent a message to all of the remaining Kings of northern Mesopotamia that he was going to March South with an army of 40 000 men and take the city of Babylon the message was clear if they didn't fall in line then he would come for their cities as well it's here that the sokolma's ambition coupled with his arrogance seems to have contributed to his downfall though the rulers of the smaller kingdoms as well as the regional Warlords were often hostile towards each other they were much more suspicious of the sukama and his intentions for the rest of Mesopotamia after all the sukama and the elamites were foreigners and could not be trusted to do anything else but exploit their lands as that often been the case several times in the past and so many of them assembled a broad coalition to check the sokolma's advance further into the land of the two rivers zimmri Lim also sent more troops to support Hammurabi which put further pressure on the sukalma's forces realizing that he had overextended his forces and that the tide had clearly turned against him the sukalma and his army were forced to retreat back home through the territory of ishna but not before looting every town on their way to ilam and so ended the latest elamite incursion into Mesopotamia it would not be the last the defeat of ilam and Hammurabi's role in it must have inflated his ego though Hammurabi wouldn't have been able to have defeated the sukama and his men without zimmri Lim's help he nevertheless took all of the credit for their expulsion from Mesopotamia and claimed in an inscription that he had secured the foundations of Sumer and akkad during the war with Elam larsar's ruler Rim sin had remained on the sidelines despite Hammurabi's call for Aid there were likely several reasons for this most of them being quite practical as far as we know Rim sin had no quarrel with the sukalma of Elam and many scholars believe that he may have even had elamite ancestry Larsa also had a long porous border with ilam where Rim sin to have joined Hammurabi then Larsa would have been extremely vulnerable to an elamite attack from the East probably most troubling to rim sin was Hammurabi's seemingly unbridled ambition Rim sin who by then was an old man with a great deal of political wisdom knew that Hammurabi was much more ambitious than his predecessors and after ending his quarrel with ilam there was a good chance that he would become more aggressive towards Larsa after all the two kingdoms had a tumultuous history and were almost never on good terms it was hard for Rim sin to trust someone like Hammurabi let alone enter an alliance with him a war to the North in ishna with the sokalama may have suited his interests just fine because it would keep Hammurabi occupied for the time being and take his sights away from Larsa as it turned out though Rim sin had been wrong Hammurabi and his Coalition had defeated the sukama as well as taken over much of the land once belonging to ashnuna making him in effect much stronger than before Hammurabi's Victory also turned him into a sort of Savior of all of Mesopotamia for it was he who led the fight against the sukalma and his foreign elamite army at least that's what his propagandists conveyed to the population accusing Rim sin of not only rejecting his alliance against the sukalma but also of possibly collaborating with the elamites and violating Babylonian territory Hammurabi launched an invasion of Larsa there aren't many details about the campaign but things seem to have been moving in Hammurabi's Direction when he laid Siege to the city of mushkan shapir this city was reportedly being defended by rimson's brother and thousands of troops we eventually surrendered to Hammurabi on the promise that he would treat the population with Mercy soon after his victory other cities also surrendered to Hammurabi and the Babylonian Army reinforcements also came from Hammurabi's allies such as zimri Lim sin sent Messengers to Kings as far away as katna in the Levant asking them to Aid him in his struggle against Babylon but to no avail finally one day in 1763 BC the 31st year of Hammurabi's Reign a Babylonian Army entered Larsa after a long Siege during which the city ran out of food Babylonian texts tell us what happened next Hammurabi king of Babylon mustered his troops and marched on rim sin he conquered Ur Larsa took away their possessions to Babylon and brought Rim sin there in a neck stock [Music] the next year 1762 BC Hammurabi captured and annexed what remained of ishna into his growing Empire during that campaign Hammurabi requested zimmri Lim to send troops from Mari to augment his own forces but the latter ignored him his reasoning seems obvious Hammurabi and Babylon were growing just too powerful and zimmri Lim rightly feared that after ashnuna Hammurabi would come for Mari zimri Lim's refusal to answer his call incense tamarabi who saw such lack of action as a betrayal but zimmri Lim was also a king and not a servant of Hammurabi and he must have been tired of constantly having to do Babylon spitting like some common vassal his fears of the Babylonians coming for Mari were Justified after all for in the year 1762 BC Hammurabi sent an army to take Mari it's not known if zimri Lim was even there it's possible that he may have been out campaigning with one of his allies in the West what is known from Babylonian sources is that Hammurabi's men entered Mari took anything of value that they could find tore down mari's protective walls and then set the city on fire one Babylonian text from the time States rather poetically what Hammurabi did when he took Mari and the towns in that area he destroyed the walls and changed the landscape into Hills and ruins with more money and Men Hammurabi's final years were spent annexing other territories into his growing Empire especially in northern Mesopotamia while to some it may seem that Hammurabi was always at War military campaigns were not his only focus documents from various parts of Babylonia indicate that much of Hammurabi's time was devoted to running Affairs of State Building temples constructing forts maintaining canals and working out trade agreements with neighboring kingdoms the information that Scholars have obtained from accounting texts and letters to his subordinates show that Hammurabi was obsessed with even the Minor Details of governing it's during his final years that Hammurabi Consolidated what would become his famous code of laws with nearly 300 different laws covering everything from theft murder Financial transactions money laundering marriage personal injuries debt workers wages farming Land Management inheritance and everything in between Hammurabi's law code is the longest and best organized legal collection that we know of from ancient Mesopotamia though in widespread use for centuries after his death it was also heavily influenced by older legal Traditions both written and oral many of the punishments in Hammurabi's Code were quite harsh not just by our standards today but also when compared to earlier Sumerian law codes where the punishment could often be mitigated or even annulled with a simple fine examples from Hammurabi's Code include the following if a woman in keeper should refuse to accept grain for the price of beer but accepts only silver measured by the large weight thereby reducing the value of beer in relation to the value of grain they shall charge and convict that woman in keeper and they shall cast her into the water if a man should blind the eye of another man they shall blind his eye however such laws did not apply equally to all members of society punishments varied according to one's social class for example in the law just mentioned regarding blinding the term for a man or person is awilu meaning one from the elite or upper class if the same offense was committed against a commoner or a slave then the sentence was often much more lenient in the next two laws the person committing the crime is one from the Elite awilu Class if he should blind the eye of a commoner or break the bone of a commoner he shall weigh and deliver 60 shekels of silver if he should blind the eye of in a Willow's slave or break the bone of an awulu's slave he shall weigh and deliver one half of his value in silver not all laws carried such heavy punishments in fact there were many Provisions within the code to help out those who may have been suffering from circumstances beyond their control like the following law demonstrates if a man has a debt lodged against him and the storm God adad devastates his field or a flood sweeps away the crops or there is no grain grown in the field due to insufficient water in that year he will not repay grain to his creditor he shall suspend performance of his contract and he will not give interest payments for a year in the end Hammurabi transformed Babylon from a relatively mid-sized Kingdom into an Empire that at its height covered pretty much all of Iraq and much of Eastern Syria however it wouldn't last as his successors seem to have had neither his Charisma nor perhaps more importantly the capability to govern and hold together such a vast domain [Music] Hammurabi's first-born son and designated successor was samsui Luna archives reveal that he spent considerable time in Mari during the reign of zimri lim but what exactly he was doing there isn't known during the final years of Hammurabi's Reign the great Babylonian King became ill and samsui Luna became his co-ruler when Hammurabi died in 1750 BC after 42 years on the throne samsui Luna officially became the first dynasty of babylon's seventh King according to records the first seven or eight years of samsuiluna's Reign were focused on economic matters and Temple Construction however in 1742 BC he faced the first real challenge to his rule in the form of a massive Rebellion that not only started in the city of Larsa but also just happened to have been led by a man named Rim sin while a few have speculated that this was the same Rim sin who had been defeated by his father in 1763 BC the overwhelming majority of scholars believe that it was an entirely different person when the original Rim sin lost his throne to Hammurabi he was already an old man in his late 60s or early 70s and most likely wouldn't have still been alive let alone able to organize and execute a full-scale rebellion against Babylon for this reason Scholars call him Rim sin II records from the 1740s BC indicate that conditions in Larsa were awful with inflation spiraling out of control and famine crippling the City and surrounding Countryside the same conditions were also present in Uruk as well and following the example of Rim sin II a certain Rim Anum declared his City's Independence and crowned himself as its new king other self-appointed kings also took the Thrones of the scene kazalu and ishna while several other cities including lagash Ur and the holy city of nipur staged massive revolts of Their Own first rimanum and Remsen II worked together against their common enemy samsui Luna however later on rimanum turned against rimsen II and Allied himself with samsui Luna who may have made him an offer of clemency if he abandoned the rebellion and rim sin whatever the real reason for their breakup was rimson II and his Coalition dispatched a force to subdue rimanum and Uruk but it was defeated at least according to a statement issued by rumanum it read the year in which king Rim Anum inflicted a defeat on the troops of the land of Larsa the armies of ishna issin and kazalu altogether having presented themselves at Uruk for war since time immemorial Uruk had never experienced such a dust storm raised by a foreign army but after the dust storm settled he slaughtered all of them and by his power ejected them all from the Homeland while rimanum may have claimed Victory it was really some sui Luna who benefited as many of his Rebel adversaries had now been defeated or severely weakened which made it much easier for the Babylonian King to forcibly take Their Kingdoms back into his Empire while the details of what happened next aren't known we do know from Temple documents that barely two years after the rebellions had started samsui Luna was back in control of Larsa and by 1737 BC also Uruk issin nippor ishna and nearly all of the other cities that had rebelled against him Remsen II had been killed and rimanum disappeared from the scene in all samsui Luna claims to have defeated or killed at least 26 Kings and rebel leaders as one inscription attributed to him reads the year was not half over that he samsui Luna killed Rim sin the agitator of a mutbal who had been elevated to the kingship of Larsa and in the land of Kish he heaped up a burial mound over him he killed 26 rebellious Kings his foes he annihilated all of them he captured eluni King Of ishnuna Who had been disobedient to him he carried him off in neck stocks and destroyed his life he caused the land of Sumer and akkad to live in agreement he caused the four quarters to dwell under his command statements such as this though can be a bit misleading when it comes to the reach of samsui Luna's power for by the early 1720s BC it's clear that the Babylonian Empire created by Hammurabi was already in Decline documents from nipur issin and other cities in what had once been the Sumerian Deep South indicate that they no longer recognized the king in Babylon as their Overlord and were now under the influence of a new power referenced in texts as the dynasty of the Sealand little today is known about this so-called Dynasty but it seems that its Kings presided over the marshlands of southern Mesopotamia after 38 years on the throne samsui Luna passed away in 1712 BC he was succeeded by his son ABI ashua the first of the last four Kings of babylon's founding Dynasty unlike with the Reigns of Hammurabi and samsui Luna there is relatively little documentation dating to the collective 116 years that these kings sat on the throne the few texts that have been uncovered mention only six military campaigns which is odd in the history of ancient Mesopotamia while it's tempting to think that this means there was peace and Tranquility throughout the land the likely scenario is that the last Babylonian Kings either avoided armed conflicts because they lacked the men and resources to win them or they may have simply been on the losing side of most of them and thus didn't record or state their losses in their inscriptions and public statements since doing so would have shown them as being weak and incompetent the few conflicts that were recorded mentioned one with casites near the city of Kish as well as an incident involving an army from ilam there was also a war with ishnuna around 1696 BC in which ABI Yeshua claimed Victory as one of his rare inscriptions States by the perfect power of the god Marduk defeated in a powerful battle the army of the land of ashnuna on the way from tashil and took prisoner ahushina the king of ishna the last military encounter on record was between king amiditana of Babylon and tamik ilushu of the silin Dynasty in which the Babylonians claim victory by destroying an enemy Fortress around 1632 BC during the reign of Ami saduka there are letters from the King to one of his Governors regarding raids around sipar by armed groups of marauders in one of the letters the king suggests that his Governors take the appropriate precautions to fortify their cities and towns as well as have Farmers move their animals to safer places in the mountains and for the townspeople to stay within the city's protective walls until the danger has passed the last king of the first dynasty of Babylon samsuditana reigned for 31 years like his three predecessors there are a few documents and inscriptions from his time on the throne but those that are available show that many groups on the Kingdom's periphery including casites elamites horians and people from around ashnuna were constantly harassing babylon's borders while a great nuisance all of these groups were known entities and could eventually be dealt with through force or by simply bribing them to do babylon's bidding around 1630 BC a hittite king named hatuchili had acquired a large Kingdom of his own in central Anatolia wanting to expand into the more fertile and prosperous lands of the Levant and Mesopotamia he launched several campaigns of Conquest to acquire the wealth that most believe existed in the great kingdoms to his Southeast hattushili mercilessly attacked the once powerful Kingdom of yamhad But ultimately failed to take its capital city of Aleppo this though was finally achieved in 1595 BC by his grandson and successor murshilly the first with the Newfound wealth and plunder obtained from yamad's coffers where shilly then LED his hittite army on a 2000 kilometer March along the Euphrates Into the Heart of Babylonia sacking many of the cities along the way until he finally arrived at the gates of Babylon there are few details written down about his campaign the Babylonian Chronicle known as Chronicle 40 simply tells us during the time of samsuditana the Hittites marched on akkad a more detailed account is given in the hittite document known as the proclamation of telepino it records the following about the reign of murshilly and then he marched to Aleppo and he destroyed Aleppo and brought captives and possessions of Aleppo to hatusa then however he marched to Babylon and he destroyed Babylon and he defeated the hurian troops and he brought captives and possessions of Babylon to hatusa the Hittites plundered the city and its temples including the main one dedicated to the city's Patron God Marduk where they stole the sacred image or statue of the deity however muschili didn't stay long nor did he leave a Garrison of troops anywhere in Babylonia for it appears that his time away from the hittite Heartland had caused a great deal of political trouble for him at home shortly after returning to the hittite capital of hatusha he was assassinated as for samsuditana we never hear about him nor anyone from his dynasty ever again contemporary inscriptions texts or any other form of Records documenting what happened next have not been uncovered but later writings allude to there being political chaos throughout Babylonia one Babylonian text written over 500 years after the fall of Babylon to the Hittites makes a casual reference to the time period which it describes in the following way when the fighting of the amorites the Insurrection of the hanians and the army of the casides upset the boundaries of Sumer and akkad during the reign of samsuditana and the ground plans could not be recognized and the borders were not designed of these and other groups that were present throughout ancient Mesopotamia in the 16th century BC it was a casite family or tribe that eventually garnered the most power in Babylonia as well as control of the city of Babylon itself they would go on to rule most of the land for over 400 years and become the longest ruling Dynasty in the history of ancient Mesopotamia because of their language and ethnic identity Scholars simply called this ruling house the Kasai dynasty of Babylon the word casite comes from kashu which is the term that Acadian speakers used to identify them the cassites though called themselves galzu the casites first appear in a text attributed to Hammurabi's son and successor samsui Luna dated to approximately 1742 BC the king dimensions a military encounter where he destroyed the foundations of the Kasai troops at kikala from then onward casites also appear in other texts as skilled Horsemen and charioteers who serve the king as mercenaries or made up the personal guard of powerful officials such as governors other documents listing people with distinctly casite names indicate that they were also hired as seasonal laborers the cassites whose Homeland was somewhere in the Zagros Mountains had a language of their own but it's not very well understood by modern Scholars our knowledge of it comes primarily from the few Acadian Casa dictionaries that have been found which outline some basic vocabulary mostly dealing with horses and the names of a few cassai deities linguists have also identified several casite loan words that filtered into the Babylonian dialect of Acadian but again most of these deal with horses or related subjects such as Chariot writing this comes as no surprise because the casites were widely known as skilled Horsemen during the late Bronze Age exactly when and how the Kasai Dynasty first Consolidated its rule over Babylonia is hotly debated by Scholars some believe that they may have been favored by the Hittites who were also skilled Horsemen and Chariot Riders they've also argued that the casites may have spoken in Indo-European language similar to that of the Hittites and due to this they became natural allies these though are just theories and there's little if any evidence to support them the earliest known casite ruler was a man named gandash who we only know about through his name appearing on two King lists and a short inscription where he addresses himself as King of the four quarters king of Sumer and akkad king of Babylon his successor was agum the first who in one of the kingless is referred to as both agum the Great and the son of gandash little is known about these two rulers beyond their names including when they supposedly reigned as kings and how much territory they actually controlled for all practical purposes they may have been little more than powerful tribal leaders who were given the title of King by their descendants the next cassette rulers were castieliesh the first abir ratash kashyash II and urzi gurumash which are all distinctly casite names like their predecessors we only know about them from a few King lists and their mention in a few texts or building inscriptions however a lot more historical evidence has been uncovered with regard to the next kaside king agum II also known as agum kakrime who likely lived around 1570 BC according to one of his inscriptions it was he who retrieved the statue of Marduk that the Hittites had stolen during merciles conquest of Babylon how he did this isn't mentioned but the purpose of the inscription is clear since Marduk returned to Babylon during the reign of agum II then agum must have been the God's chosen ruler and thus the legitimate King of Babylon in their efforts to become the Undisputed rulers over all of Babylonia the kaside Kings launched campaigns against the so-called Sealand Dynasty to the South to increase their legitimacy in the eyes of the people they first took the holy city of nippur and by 1475 BC had annexed all of southern Mesopotamia down to the marshlands surrounding the Gulf the text known as Babylonian Chronicle 40 tells us the fate of the silent Dynasty and its last king IL King of the Sealand fled to Elam later ulam uriash brother of kashilish III the casite mustered his army conquered the sea land and governed the country and so after nearly 300 years Babylonia was united into a single Kingdom once again which the casites and later others would call karduniash along with political reunification came economic renewal trade between the city of Babylon and the gulf broaden desperately needed raw materials including copper and Stone from as far away as present-day Oman with these new resources and wealth Kings such as Kara indash were able to restore important temples such as the one dedicated to the goddess inanna in the city of Uruk two of the more important casade kings were named korigalsu which means Shepherd of the casites the first corigal Zoo ruled sometime during the 1390s BC while the reign of the second one was between 1332-1308 BC both were great Builders but the first one is credited with the establishment of a new Royal residence called dur kurigalsu meaning Fort kurigal Zoo located about 100 kilometers north of Babylon dur kurigalsu contained Royal palaces administrative buildings several temples in at least one large ziggurat most religious sites in the city were dedicated to the God and Lil who around this time became the patron deity of the casite Royal Family thus it's no surprise that the city of nepor home of the icor the Great temple of enlil was also an important site of pilgrimage for the kaside Kings to the north of Babylonia was the rapidly expanding Kingdom of Assyria once consisting of just the small Shrine town of Asher the Assyrians had expanded their influence due to their commercial Endeavors throughout Northern Mesopotamia and Southeastern Anatolia but in the 15th century BC Assyria was a vassal of the powerful Korean Kingdom of the mitani the Assyrian Kings often revolted against their mittani overlords they were generally unsuccessful and on one occasion the mittani king xiaoshtatar sacked the city of Asher and looted its Holy Temple taking as his prize a door made of silver and gold despite this the Assyrians kept revolting and by around 1350 BC the Assyrian King asheruvalid the first decisively defeated the mitani King shutarna III in battle this not only ended mitani control over most of northern Mesopotamia but was perhaps also the crucial event that allowed Assyria to become a major regional power for the most part the kaside kings of cardunia had good relations with their mitani counterparts the latter who seemed to have had little interest in expanding further into southern Mesopotamia however the emergence of a newly independent and militaristic Assyria on babylonia's Northern border was cause for concern especially when Spies of the casade king Bruno bourriage II reported that ashraubalit was corresponding with the pharaoh of Egypt enraged he wrote The Following in a letter to the Egyptian king the Assyrians are my subjects and it was not I who sent them to you why have they taken it upon themselves to come to your country if you love me let them conduct no business there but send them back to me empty-handed the Assyrians of course were not subjects of Babylon but in independent Kingdom that was rapidly expanding in all directions there's no doubt that Bruno Mars saw a rising Assyria as his greatest threat but other than writing letters of Complaint to his Regional counterparts there's little he could have done was more occupied with military matters to the west and didn't want to open up another front with Babylonia and so to keep the peace and increase cooperation between the two kingdoms ashraubalit married his daughter mobile to bernaburyash II the two newlyweds eventually had a son named Kara hardash who in 1333 BC became the new king of Babylon however after less than a year on the throne Cara hardash was reportedly killed by his own troops in a rebellion after which the soldiers picked a new king named nazibugash Asher ubalid was infuriated at the murder of his grandson and marched down to Babylon to intervene in a Syrian document known as the synchronistic history which most Scholars have deemed to be fairly accurate describes what happened next in the time of Usher ubalit king of Assyria Kasai troops rebelled against Kara hardash king of cardunia son of shirua the daughter of Asher ubalid and killed him they appointed Nazi bugash a casite son of nobody as king over them ashirubalid marched to cardunia to avenge Kara hardash his grandson he killed the Nazi bugash the king of cardunia appointed korigalzu the younger son of bornaburiash as king and put him on the throne of his father the younger mentioned in this text is actually kurigalzu II not to be confused with the earlier King kurigalsu the first being chosen by Asher ubalid though didn't necessarily endear Assyria to kurigalzu II and during his 24-year Reign between 1332 to 1308 BC border clashes between the two kingdoms were common the ultimate results though were mixed the Assyrians would often capture a fortress only to have the Babylonians take it back and vice versa often Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles don't even agree on the outcomes of what scholars believe were the same battles or series of events in the end these brief skirmishes effectively did nothing to change the balance of power between the two kingdoms by the 13th century BC Assyria was clearly the more powerful of the two especially after its annexation of what had formerly been mitani territories it was during this time that one of assyria's most powerful and controversial Kings tukultina nurta the first turned his gaze South towards Babylonia ruling between the years 1243 to 1207 BC to cultina nerta First concluded a peace treaty with the hittite King tutalia IV in order to shore up his Western borders and then moved South to attack the armies of the casite king kashyash IV the reasons for his hostility towards Babylonia are unknown but some historians think that kashta liash had previously taken advantage of takulti nanerta's earlier conflict with the Hittites to see some Assyrian territory along his northern border regardless of the reason tukultina nerta made his campaign against castrallyash a very personal one in a great work of Royal propaganda known as the Epic of tukulti nanerta we're told that the conflict started due to kashtag Breaking an oath to the sun god shamash what exactly this oath was isn't stated only that was an evil man for breaking it it may have been some sort of treaty the details of which haven't been uncovered just yet but for this great offense the Epic tells us that the gods became furious with kashyash and ordered to kulti nanerta to bring him to Justice the good oath keeping a Syrian King had no choice but to go to battle with kashtaliyash who upon seeing the mighty takulti nanerta was flushed with fear as the Epic tells us to culti nanerta having relied on keeping the oath planned for battle while kashtalesh's Spirits fell because he transgressed the instruction of the Gods he was afraid because of the Cry of Complaint to shamash and the appeal to the Gods he was frightened and concerned the command of the great king paralyzed his body like an evil spirit thought I did not listen to the Assyrian I disregarded the messenger I did not appease him earlier I failed to see his good plan my sins are numerous before shamash my guilt is great the Assyrian is constantly attentive to all the gods epics generally use very dramatic and Flowery language the cultina nertas being no exception the Assyrian King's own Royal inscriptions though are much more concise in those his conquest of Babylon and Babylonia is described as follows at that time I approached kashtaliyash king of karduniash to do battle I brought about the defeat of his army in the midst of that battle I captured kashtiliash King of the casides and I brought him bound as captive into the presence of the god Asher my Lord thus I became the Lord of Sumer and akkad in its entirety and stood over its inhabitants with joy and excellence the Babylonian version of the same events is not as rosy in Babylonian Chronicle 45 which focuses on the Reigns of several casade Kings we're told that tukulti nanerta destroyed babylon's walls slaughtered many of its inhabitants and not only plundered the isagila which was the Great temple of the city's Patron deity Marduk but also carried off the holy statue of the god to Assyria the words of the Babylonian Chronicle State the following to culti nanerta returned to Babylon he battered down babylon's wall crushed the Babylonians he carried away the riches of the isagila and Babylon he took the great Lord Marduk out of his dwelling place and made him set out for Assyria he installed his own governors in karduniash for seven years takulti nanerta dominated cardunia no matter how tukultina nerta spun it his desecration of the city of Babylon was an affront that even many Assyrians believed went too far though the Assyrians considered themselves a separate people from the Babylonians most of them respected and acknowledged that the city of Babylon itself was very special if not sacred in the words of the greatest seriologist hwf sags Babylonia was not a land of Barbarians that could be invaded at will like the regions Beyond assyria's Northern borders it was the source and center of civilization and its capital Babylon was a religious Shrine of the highest sanctity to sack Babylon in the ancient world was like sacking the Vatican or Jerusalem or Mecca in our own time despite sending a Garrison of Assyrian troops and appointing his own Governors to manage the city as well as the surrounding Countryside Babylon and Babylonia were vulnerable the cultina nerta seemed to Simply want to conquer Babylonia but not actually govern it the later Babylonian King list state that there were three casade kings who ruled during the Assyrian occupation they were probably just figureheads and puppet rulers of the Assyrians none of them had long Reigns the first two of the three and Lil Nadine shumi and kadashman Harve II each ruled for barely a year while the third adad Shuma Edina ruled for five short rains were generally a sign of political instability with the Assyrian troops and governors focused on maintaining order in the capital other parts of Babylonia were now susceptible to foreign attacks Babylonian Chronicle 45 records two elamide incursions the first one taking place during the short reign of enlil Nadeem shumi at the time of King and Lil Nadeem shumi kitten hutron the king of ilam attacked he went into action against nipore and Scattered its people he destroyed dare and he dimgal Kalama carried off its people drove them away and eliminated the rule of King enlil Nadeem shumi the second dealer might attack also carried out by kitten hutran was during the reign of adad Shuma Edina and though the text is badly damaged some details can be gleaned from it namely attacks against the cities of essene and Murad in the time of adaj Shuma Edina for the second time kitten hutron took the offensive against akkad he destroyed the scene crossed the Tigris Murad inflicted a formidable defeat on a very great people though these and other parts of Babylonia were now technically Assyrian possessions the culti nanerta did nothing to stop such attacks instead he built a new Royal residence just outside of Usher that he called car to culti nanerta while to culti nanerta claimed to have deposed castellish IV he apparently hadn't captured or killed all of the members of the cassite Royal Family according to Chronicles and other texts one cassite Prince was still residing outside of Babylon in the southern provinces where the presence of Assyrian troops was at a minimum this was a dad Shuma usar who apparently had enough local support that around 1217 BC he was able to kick out the Assyrians from Babylon and become the city's King he would go on to Reign for 30 years the longest of any casite ruler as for takulti nanerta he was assassinated in 1208 BC in a conspiracy that involved his sons Babylonian Chronicle 45 records the following after the rebellion of the officials of akkad and karduniash and the installation of a Dodge on the throne of his father a Syrian officials revolted against tukulti nanerta deposed him from his throne locked him in a room in car to culti nanerta and put him to death after this there was relative peace in Babylonia in fact the Assyrian State went into decline in large part because it was closer to the events of the late Bronze Age collapse which occurred roughly between 1200 to 1175 BC adad Shuma users long and stabled Reign ended in 1187 BC and he was succeeded by his son milishipak who himself had a peaceful reign of 14 years even relations with ilam at this time were good and cordial enough that melishipak married his eldest daughter to the elamite king shoot Rock nahunteer while this would complicate things in the future for the time being it helped to ensure peace between the two countries his son and successor barduk appliedina the first also seems to have had few problems with ruling the kingdom but there's often Calm before a major storm and in this case the fierce winds that would tear through Babylonia would blow from two directions one of these came from the north according to the Assyrian synchronistic history the Assyrian King usherdan the first invaded Babylonia and defeated the kaside king Sababa Shuma Edina in 1158 BC this greatly weakened the kaside kingdom of cardunia but didn't kill it the second and most fatal wind would come from the East after the defeat of zababa Shuma Edina there may have been a brief dispute as to who was the rightful heir to the throne the one who ended up succeeding him was enlil Nadine Ahi but his lineage was questionable and he may not have even been related to the Royal Family this though was enough for sutruk nahuntaya vilam to claim the Babylonian Throne as his own with his justification being that it was his right due to his marriage to merely sheepox eldest daughter his claim would have seemed ludicrous to people at the time and it was likely just an excuse to raid what must have been a politically and militarily weak Babylon launched a full-scale invasion of Northern Babylonia and plundered durkorigazu agade sipar and other cities some of the most famous objects that he took back with him to Susa and that were dug up almost 3000 Years Later by French archaeologists are the now famous Stila of the Code of Hammurabi and the Victory Stila of naram sin both of which are today in the Louvre but in 1155 BC should Rook nahunte's son kutur nohunte captured him and took him to ilam along with the isagila's Statue of Marduk that same year sutruk nahunte died and Couture nohunte became the new king of Elam and Babylon effectively ending the Kasai Dynasty that had ruled over much of Babylonia for nearly four centuries along with a general peace and stability throughout the realm the era of casite rule was a great time culturally for Babylonia for its during this period that some of the most significant works of Acadian literature were composed one of these is the standard Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh that we're all familiar with today another is ludlil Bell nameki meaning let me praise the Lord of wisdom who in this case is the god Marduk sometimes called the Babylonian Book of Job ludlil Bell nemeki is a story that explores the sufferings of the righteous and the seemingly Whimsical nature of divine Justice after the fall of the Kasai Dynasty the elamites are known to have occupied large parts of Babylonia for several decades but when exactly their troops left and a native Babylonian Dynasty took over can't be determined with a high degree of certainty the new Babylonian Dynasty that did arise is called by Scholars the second dynasty of vaccine this name though is deceptive because the kings of this line never claimed to have been from a scene the name was given because the governor of the scene often appears in legal documents and from many of The kuduru Monuments that are attributed to this dynasty we call it the second dynasty of his scene to differentiate it from the first dynasty of a scene that was founded by ishpiera nearly a millennium earlier very little is known about the kings of the second dynasty of Yasin with the exception of their names which are all Acadian Scholars have had to put together a working Narrative of this dynasty based on scattered inscriptions a few monuments land grants mentions in Babylonian Chronicles and texts from Assyrian archives of all of its rulers the fourth one Nebuchadnezzar the first is the best known and is today considered to have been one of the greatest Babylonian Kings in history most Scholars today believe that 1121 BC was likely Nebuchadnezzar's first year as king his father ninerta Nadine shumi had gone to war with Assyria and the young Nebuchadnezzar seems to have continued this family Legacy when he became king the Assyrian Chronicle known as the synchronistic history tells us the following about him Nebuchadnezzar took his Siege engines and went to conquer Zankou a fortress in Assyria Asha reshaishi king of Assyria mustered his chariots to go against him to prevent The Siege engines being taken from him Nebuchadnezzar burnt them he turned and went home this same Nebuchadnezzar with chariots and infantry went to conquer edu a fortress of Assyria Asha reshaishi sent chariots and infantry to help the Fortress he fought with Nebuchadnezzar brought about his total defeat slaughtered his troops and carried off his camp being in a Syrian document the extent of Nebuchadnezzar's defeat may have been exaggerated but the end result was that the two sides made peace and eventually perhaps some years later Nebuchadnezzar visited the Assyrian capital of ashur on a state visit which is somewhat confirmed by an administrative document that outlines deliveries made on the day when Nebuchadnezzar King of cardunia arrived Nebuchadnezzar is best known for his military campaign against ilam and for recovering the statue of Marduk that had been stolen from Babylon by kutur nahunte a few decades prior the importance of recovering the statue cannot be overstated in the mind of the average Babylonian of the 12th century BC the absence of Marduk from his terrestrial home the isagila meant that either the God was being held captive or perhaps deliberately had chosen to stay in a foreign land away from Babylon both scenarios were Grim for Babylon could never again be great without the return of its Patron deity or so it was believed there's a copy of a Babylonian literary document that was discovered in the library of usherbanipal that colorfully describes Nebuchadnezzar's restlessness and sadness at the loss of mardok in Babylon dwells Nebuchadnezzar the king he rages like a lion and Thunders like the god a god like a lion he frightens his distinguished Nobles his supplications go to the god Marduk Lord of Babylon have pity on me one who is dejected and prostrate have pity on my land which weeps and Mourns have pity on my people who wail and weep O Lord of Babylon how long will you dwell in the land of the enemy May beautiful Babylon be remembered by you turn your face back to isagil which you love determined to recover the statue of Marduk Nebuchadnezzar gathered an army and departed for ilam information regarding this campaign comes from a few sources the most detailed being the inscription on a kaduru belonging to a kaside tribal leader named shitty Marduk who fought alongside Nebuchadnezzar the inscription on the koduru poetically describes how Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Army reached the river ulai where they met the forces of the elamide king hutulutish in shushinak in excerpt from the text reads when Nebuchadnezzar the Reverend Prince the finest The Offspring of Babylon the preeminent of Kings when Marduk King of the Gods ordered him to avenge akkad he raised his weapons from there the sanctuary of an he launched an attack 30 leagues deep the radiant heat burned like fire and it was as if the roads were blazing like flames there was no water in the watering pastures and the watering places were cut off the very finest of the horses Stood Still while the legs of the heroic Soldier buckled shitty Marduk lord of the House of Pitt karzyabku whose Chariot was on the right flank of the king his Lord did not delay and he kept control of his chariot the potent King sped and he reached the bank of the ulai river the Kings met and they both waged War fire ignited between them the Sun's face was obscured by their dust by the command of the Goddess Ishtar and the god adad the Lords of combat he routed hutulutish the king of Elam so the King Nebuchadnezzar stood triumphantly he seized ilam and looted its property though not specifically mentioned here another document more or less gives the same concise description of the event with one added detail the Lord belmarduk returned to his home in Babylon this is a reference to Nebuchadnezzar bringing the statue of Marduk back from ilam and returning it to the isagila an act that's acknowledged in later Babylonian literature and one which cemented his status as a national hero for all posterity though important Nebuchadnezzar's defeat of ilam in battle did little to change the state of Babylon and the surrounding territories which had been in steady decline since the final Decades of the previous casite administration while Acadian Kings may have been at the top casides still held most of the important positions within the second dynasty of essenes new government the country was in Decline economically with the exception of the city of issin archaeological surveys reveal that there was a great decrease in agricultural output due to fewer plots of land being cultivated which also eventually led to a staggering decline in the general population as of now archaeologists have also found little evidence of any Monumental building programs or even any substantial archives dating to the period implying that many of babylonia's institutions were weak or had perhaps broken down altogether despite the fact that Babylon had seen better days there were several cultural achievements that took place during this period one was the widespread adoption and canonization of the great literary work enuma Elish commonly referred to in English as the Babylonian epic of creation made up of over 1100 verses inuma Elish tells of how Marduk became the king of the Gods for his role in vanquishing chaos and bringing order to the universe though the general story and concepts of the Epic go back Millennia enuma Elish codified all of these into one great myth with Marduk and the City of Babylon at its Center up until then enlil had been the king of the Gods and his temple in nippor the holiest of all holy sites in Mesopotamia but with the widespread adoption of enuma Elish at least theologically the city of Babylon became the most important religious Center eventually overshadowing even nippor in the eyes of many Babylonians enuma Elish was so popular that a few centuries later the Assyrians basically copied it with the only major change in their version being that the god Usher instead of Marduk was the true king of the Gods another important text compiled around the same time is sakiku meaning all diseases it became one of the most important as well as popular medical texts from Babylonia many copies of it have been found all over Mesopotamia including in Assyrian archives one of its passages dealing with epilepsy explains the neurological disease in some detail and then goes into possible causes for seizures which are generally described to be the work of malevolent spirits for example one passage reads if the epilepsy demon falls upon him and on a given day he seven times pursues him he has been touched by the hand of The Departed Spirit of a murderer he will die tensions flared up between Babylonia and Assyria during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar's brother Marduk Nadine Ahi while the respective Babylonian Chronicles don't provide much information on the conflict the Assyrian synchronistic history tells us that it took place during the reign of tigloth palazer the first who is one of the most documented Assyrian Kings in history the text records the first part of the two-year conflict as follows concerning tiglath palazer the first king of Assyria and Marduk Nadine Ahi king of karduniash twice tigratpa laser Drew up a battle array of Chariots as many as there were by the lower Zab opposite ahizuhina and in the second year he defeated Marduk Nadine Ahi at gurmaritu which is Upstream from akkad Babylon and Opus the great Urban centers he captured together with their forts in one of his many personal inscriptions tiglatpe laser tells us how he defeated Marduk Nadine Ahi but also that the Babylonian King escaped I demolished the Palaces of the city of Babylon that belonged to Marduk Nadine Ahi king of cardunia and carried off a great deal of property from his palaces Marduk Nadine Ahi king of karduniash relied on the strength of his troops and his chariots and he marched after me he fought with me at the city of shitula which is Upstream from the city of agade on the Tigris River and I dispersed his numerous chariots I brought about the defeat of his Warriors and his fighters in that battle he retreated and went back to his land though he captured a lot of treasure from the cities that he plundered and no doubt did a lot of damage tigrat PE laser was never able to capture mardok Nadine Ahi nor was he able to consolidate his territorial gains due to other threats that Assyria faced in the West in fact Marduk Nadine ahi's downfall and death were ultimately not the result of the Assyrians but aramaians who had swarmed into both Babylonia and Assyria and at least according to various Chronicles caused Havoc wherever they went Babylonian Chronicle 15 records such a series of events the aramaian houses increased plundered conquered and took many fortified cities of Assyria people fled toward the mountains of habreuri to save their lives they took their gold their silver and their possessions the king of cardunia disappeared marduksha pixari acceded to his father's throne the threat of aramaians overrunning both Babylonia and Assyria may have been so great that it forced the two kingdoms to reconcile their differences and make peace Babylonian Chronicle 47 tells us how Marduk Nadine ahi's son maruka pixari finally concluded a treaty with Assyria marduksha pixari son of Marduk Nadine Ahi rebuilt the wall of Babylon during his Reign the people of the country enjoyed abundance and prosperity he concluded a mutual Accord and a peace with King Asher belkala of Assyria at that time the king went from Assyria to sipar and at least according to the Assyrian synchronistic history marduksha pixari's son and successor Adam married his daughter to the king of Assyria Asher belkala king of Assyria married the daughter of adad aplaidina king of karduniash and took her with the vast Dowry to Assyria the peoples of Assyria and cardunia were joined together but the end of hostilities between Babylon and Assyria didn't stem the tide of aramaian and other Invaders who according to Babylonian Chronicle 47 sowed even more Discord during adad abladina's reign according to the chronicle the aramaians and the usurper rebelled against and profaned the holy cities as many as there were in the country they destroyed agade dare Nipper sipar dur korigalzo the sutians took the offensive and carried the treasures of Sumer and akkad into their country towards the end of the dynasty raids by aramaians sutians and others into the Babylonian Heartland were a common occurrence unfortunately this wasn't the only security issue a Syrian texts tell us that ashra belkala who as we saw earlier was married to a Babylonian princess raided parts of Northern Babylonia and captured a kaside governor in the service of Adan appliedina which was a violation of the peace agreement signed between the two kingdoms barely a few decades before [Music] both Babylonian and Assyrian texts are silent with regard to what happened afterward with information about the Reigns of babylon's last three kings being little more than names on a list but the number of years that each King sat on the throne what transpired between the years 1021 to 730 BC is murky at best the most complete Babylonian King list divides the period up into four dynasties the first three which date from 10 21 to 975 BC are all extremely short implying that the period was not a politically stable one much of this may have been due to the influx of aramaians and Chaldeans into Babylonia many of whom gave up their nomadic ways to permanently settle in the region this no doubt would have fostered a great deal of competition for babylonia's already strained resources the fourth Dynasty which ruled between 974 to 732 BC is simply known as Dynasty e the first of these four dynasties is also the shortest its three kings ruled for a combined period of 20 years known by Scholars today as the second dynasty of the Sealand its first King Simba shipak was a casite at least from his name Simba shipak was able to repel the attacks of at least some aramaian and sutin Marauders which according to historical texts had been plundering several holy sites in Babylonia one of these texts tells us the following about attacks on nipur and sipar concerning the Throne of the god enlil in ikor which Nebuchadnezzar a previous King had made during the reign of Adam king of Babylon the aramaian and sutian foe the enemy of ikor and nippor the one who upset their rights in sipar the ancient city and Abode of the great judge of the Gods plundered the land of Sumer and akkad and overthrew all the temples Babylonian Chronicle 47 tells us that Simba shipak was at least able to restore the ecor in nipore Simba shipak descendant of iriba sin a soldier of the Sealand made the Throne of enlil in the ecor there are few mentions of Simba shipak in any other Texar inscriptions but a document known as the Babylonian Royal or dynastic Chronicle mentions that his successor iamukinzeri was a usurper who reigned for only three months a usurper a son of hashmar reigned three months he was buried in the Marshland a bit hashmar though iamukinzeri is an Acadian name hashmar and kaside means Falcon and so this particular King was also likely of kaside origin his short-lived successor was kashu Nadine Ahi whose name means the kaside god provides Brothers indicating that he also was a casite so though we identify it today as the second dynasty of the sealant it might as well be called the second kaside dynasty of Babylon in reality these so-called Kings may have been little more than tribal Chieftains or Warlords who claim the kingship of Babylon and at least according to two King lists were accepted as the city's legitimate rulers by Future Generations the next Dynasty according to Babylonian kingless is known as the Bazi Dynasty and like the second dynasty of the Sealand it had only three kings yulma Shakin shumi ninerta kuduri usar and shirukti shukamuna the name of the last king shirikti shukamuna means gift of the god shukamuna shukamuna was a kaside god the third dynasty of this era consisted of only one king Mar biti apla usar though he ruled for six years and had an Acadian name the Babylonian Royal Chronicle claims that he had elamite ancestry a distant descendant of ilam reigned six years he was buried in sargon's Palace one king the dynasty of ilam he reigned six years being of elamite ancestry has led some Scholars to believe that usar may have been a foreign conqueror but there's no evidence of this one should also remember that in Cosmopolitan Babylon along with the predominantly acadian-speaking population there were many who could claim elamite cassite caldean and aramaian ancestry as for the fourth of these dynasties known as Dynasty e at 242 years its Kings reigned much longer than the other three combined scholars believe that these Kings didn't all belong to the same family and it's possible that they were even from different tribes and of different ethnicities it's hard to determine just how far outside of the core cities of Babylon sibar and borsipa the writ of these rulers really went most of them were not very powerful and it seems that Assyrian incursions into Babylonia were quite frequent for example around 900 BC during the reign of Dynasty E's fourth ruler shamash mudamik the Assyrian King adad narari II claims in his annals to have essentially conquered Babylonia the text reads conqueror of the entire land of cardunia who brought about the defeat of shamash mudamik King of cardunia from Mount yalman to the dialla river the region from the city of lahiru to ugal Salu was added to the boundary of Assyria I conquered the entire land of the city of dare I brought back the cities of arapa and lubdu fortresses of cardunia into the boundaries of Assyria Conquering the entire land of cardunia may have been an exaggeration since there's no evidence of adad nirari or any other Assyrian King taking Babylon let alone getting that far south but the fact that he did seem to take the areas just mentioned without any counter-attacks from the other side is an indication of how weak militarily the Babylonians were one of the best known Kings of the time period was Nabu apla Edina who ruled between 888 to 855 BC while not the most powerful ruler he at least didn't lose any territory to Assyria his claim to fame today is for commissioning one of the most beautiful works of Babylonian art the so-called Sun tablet the object depicts Nabu ablay Edina being led into the presence of the god shamash in a style reminiscent of artwork from earlier periods of Babylonian history succeeded him in 855 BC unlike other kings of Dynasty e his name appears quite often in the archaeological record especially in the annals and inscriptions of the Assyrian King shalmanaser III we're told that Marduk Zakir shumi's brother Marduk balusate rose up in Rebellion against him in the Civil War that followed shalmanazar went to the aid of Marduk sakir shumi and eventually killed the would-bi usurper in an inscription shalominizer tells us in the eighth year of my reign Marduk bellusate the younger brother revolted against Marduk Zakir shumi king of cardunia and they divided the land in its entirety in the ninth year of my reign I marched against akkad a second time as for Marduk belluzate the terrifying Splendor of Usher and Marduk overcame him and he went up into the mountains to save his life I pursued him I cut down with the sword Marduk bellusate and the rebel army officers who were with him while on the surface it may seem that shalmanaser was just helping out a fellow King in reality his direct intervention in Babylonian Affairs further fragmented the country by dividing up any of its Elites into Pro and anti-assyrian factions which in the not too distant future would allow Assyria to dominate the country for over a century trouble occurred when charlemeniser III's successor shamshi adab V ascended the Assyrian throne in 823 BC while initially on good terms with his Southern neighbor in 814 BC he launched campaigns deep into Babylonia and captured Marduk Zakir shumi's son and successor Marduk balasu ikpi near the city of dare two years later shamshiadad captured his successor Baba aha Edina and had him deported to Assyria while shamshia died and the Assyrians didn't outright stay in the country their incursions into Babylonia had all but destroyed the power of the monarchy and the leaders of many different factions within Babylonian Society came to the Forefront of politics Babylonian Chronicle 47 states that there was no King in the country this though was only partly true they're supposedly were kings that the Assyrians somewhat recognized but most of them were caldean and not residing in the city of Babylon the fifth successor adad narari III claims that these men swore allegiance to him all the kings of caldea became my vassals and I imposed upon them in perpetuity tax and tribute at Babylon forsipa and kuta they brought to me the remnant offerings of the Gods Belle Naboo and nergal though the Babylonian monarchy was able to eventually get back up on its feet the kaldan and Assyrian presence in the country's politics had become a permanent one in 760 BC Nabu Shuma ishkun of the bit dakuru akaldean tribe was recognized as king of Babylon but he seems to have had little real Authority outside of the capital in fact there may have been an Undeclared civil war going on at the time as a document dated to the eighth year of his Reign and attributed to the governor of borsipa reports disorders disturbances revolt and turmoil occurred in borsipa the city of Truth and justice during the reign of King nabushuma ishkun descendant of dakuru the Babylonians the borsupians and the citizens of the town of duteti on the bank of the Euphrates all the caldeans the aramaians and the people of dilbot wedded their weapons against one another and slew one another during many days they also fought with the borsupians over their fields the situation had gotten so out of control that during the annual New Year's Festival where the statues of many City gods were brought to Babylon for celebrations the statue of Naboo could not leave borsipa to travel the short distance to the capital in order to take part in the festivities fared no better nor did his son their fate and the turmoil that followed is summed up in Babylonian Chronicles 16. the 14th year of his Reign nabo Nasser became ill and went to his Destiny in his Palace nabo NASA reigned 14 years over Babylon his son Nabu Nadine zeri ascended the Throne of Babylon the second year of his Reign Nabu Nadine zeri was killed during an insurrection reigned two years over Babylon a governor and leader of the Insurrection ascended the throne reigned one month and two days over Babylon mukinzari descendant of amukanu removed him and took the throne whose full name was nabumukinzeri was a kaldan but not one that the Assyrian King tiglat PE laser III particularly liked for expansionista Syria in unstable Babylonia was both a threat and an opportunity by then Assyria and its vast Empire was the sole superpower in the ancient near East which was primarily due to the reforms of tiglath palazer III he did away with the nepotism that had plagued the Assyrian Empire and replaced it with the meritocracy whereby anyone regardless of their national origin could Advance up the ranks thus even traditional enemies such as aramaians and elamites as long as they demonstrated their loyalty to the crown could rise relatively quickly through the ranks of the Assyrian Armed Forces with seemingly unlimited resources and Manpower at his disposal in 729 BC tiglat Blazer III launched a full-scale invasion of Babylonia Assyrian forces eventually surrounded mukinzeri at a place called shapiya mukinzeri's death which probably occurred in 728 BC is mentioned in a letter to tigalatha laser by one of his subordinates to the king my lord your servant Asher shalimani good health to the king my Lord we got together stood in the presence of the commander-in-chief and gave orders to one another we arrived within the city gate and inflicted a defeat has been killed and shumu uken his son had also been killed the city is conquered the king my Lord can be glad with the death of mukinzeri tiglath Palazzo III declared himself king of Babylon this kicked off a century of direct Assyrian rule in Babylonia that would change the relationship between the two countries and their peoples forever III's conquest of Babylonia was different than those of the Assyrian Kings before him past rulers had sought to punish and plunder Babylon while also seeking to influence Regional politics but tiglat PE laser was different instead of a conqueror he presented himself as a liberator who had come to restore order and prevent the Chaldean and aramaian tribes from tearing the country apart Babylonia was different than assyria's other conquered territories despite often butting heads with the Syria politically Babylon and many sites in Babylonia were places of deep cultural and religious significance for even the most patriotic Assyrians takealots per laser couldn't simply just reduce it to another Imperial possession instead he gave it the status of a separate Kingdom within the Empire with tiglat PE laser and not in a Syrian Governor at its head as the new king of Babylon tigdatpilesar participated in the annual Babylonian New Year or akitu Festival where he took the hand of the Statue of Marduk and paraded through the streets of the capital all with the blessings of babylon's priests when tiglet laser III died in 727 BC his son ululeiu who took the throne name chalminiser V became king of both Assyria and Babylon he though was more fixated on campaigns in the Levant and didn't spend much time in Babylon during his absence anti-assyrian Chaldeans regrouped and launched new attacks against the Assyrian crown the most successful at this was Marduk Apple Idina II he actually was already a known figure to the Assyrians under tiglath Palazzo III who called him King of the Sealand mardukeplay Edina had taken advantage of shalman azer's absence to Crown himself king of Babylon Babylonian chronicles 16 tells us the fifth year of the reign of shalimanezer in the month of tibetu shalmanazar went to his destiny reigned five years over akkad and Assyria in the month of tibetu the 12th day Sargon ascended the Throne of Assyria in the month of nisanu Marduk apla Edina ascended the Throne of Babylon and so around 721 BC Sargon II chalmenezer V's brother or perhaps half-brother became king of Assyria while Mardo capoeidina II took the throne of Babylon at the time Assyria was clearly at its height and despite some internal troubles within the Assyrian royal family had more than enough resources to overrun any rebellions in Babylonia Dina II was not alone the kings of ilam also feared assyria's reach into their own territories in finding common cause with Mardo kapila Edina they allied with him Babylonian Chronicle 16 tells us the second year of the reign of mardokabla Edina King humba nikash avilam joined battle with King Sargon of Assyria in the district of dare he brought about a serious withdrawal and inflicted a crushing defeat on it Mardo Capital Edina who had gone with his army to Aid the king of ilam did not join the battle in time and withdrew after his defeat Sargon withdrew from Babylonia and focused his efforts on subduing other regions most notably parts of the Levant into Syria's great rival to the north the kingdom of uratu which by 714 BC he had more or less subdued the absence of Assyrian troops in Babylonia allowed Mardo Kapla Edina II to govern rather effectively and documents indicate that there was a general increase in economic activity throughout the region during his years on the throne temples were restored debts canceled and major tax exemptions were granted to the cities of Babylon and borsepa the Babylonian propaganda of the time extolled mardukaplay edina's many virtues and claimed that he had been personally chosen by Marduk to lead the people an example of one such text reads as follows [Music] at that time the great Lord the god Marduk had become angry with the land of akkad and the evil enemy the Assyrians exercise dominion over akad the time had arrived and the great God Marduk made peace with the land of akkad with which he had gotten angry he looked favorably upon mardok apleadina king of Babylon a prince who venerates him to whom he extended his hand the true Heir eldest son of eriba Marduk king of Babylon the one who made firm the foundation of the land duly raised him up to the shepherdship of the land of Sumer and dakad and said from his own mouth this is indeed the shepherd the one who will gather the scattered people however in the eyes of Sargon II of Assyria mardukaplay Edina was not a king but a usurper after his levantine and uratrian campaigns had ceased he turned his gaze back to Babylon to take out Mardo Kapla Edina once and for all like Marduk Apple Idina Sargon launched a propaganda campaign of his own he knew that many acadians speaking Babylonians were wary of Chaldeans the majority of whom they considered to have been descendants of Uninvited Invaders who had caused trouble in their historically sacred land a Syrian propaganda took advantage of such sentiments to discredit mardokabler Edina who himself was a Chaldean from the clan of bit yakin in one text Sargon calls him a descendant of yaquin a kaldan and the likeness of a demon in another Sargon renounced his caldean rival in the following way 12 years he mardukaplay Edina ruled and governed Babylon against the will of the Gods Marduk the great Lord saw the evil Deeds of the Chaldean whom he despised and the taking away of his Royal scepter and Throne was established on his lips he Marduk chose me Sargon the reverent king among all Kings and he justly appointed me he selected me in the land of Sumer and akkad in order to undermine the caldean the evil enemy he strengthened my weapons on the orders of Marduk my great Lord I prepared the Weaponry pitched my camp and ordered my soldiers to March against the evil Chaldean to survive the rat of Sargon II and the Assyrian military machine mardukaplay Edina knew that he needed more allies [Music] elamide King who themselves were threatened by an expansionist Assyria on their doorstep would always support him but they were not enough Edina sent emissaries to all of the kingdoms and disaffected vassal States who he thought could help him in his struggle against Sargon even the Hebrew Bible's book of Isaiah mentions that mardok apple aidina whose name appears as merodak baladin sent an emissary to King Hezekiah of Judah in 710 BC Sargon and his forces easily marched into Northern Babylonia and set up their base near the city of Kish which was just a short distance from Babylon itself whether it was an attempt to save the city from the impending Assyrian Onslaught or just out of plain fear Mardo Caple Edina fled the capital and shortly thereafter both Babylon and borsipa surrendered to Sargon the following year Sargon like his father tiglat PE laser III had done before him led the great statue of Marduk in the akidu festival's annual procession an act that officially made him king of Babylon [Music] the chase for marduka playdina was on eventually he was found hiding in his heavily fortified hometown of duryakin which Sargon held under siege for two years finally in 707 BC the Assyrians captured duryakin and put it to the torch they then rounded up over one hundred thousand Chaldeans and deported them to distant parts of the Assyrian Empire as for Mardo Caple Edina it's recorded that he fled to elong Babylon was now firmly back in the hands of Sargon II who took a liking to the city and spent most of his time there between the years 710 to 707 BC during that time he poured funds into building up the city and other areas of Babylonia worshiped Marduk and attended the akitu festival every year in 705 BC in what's today South Central Anatolia Sargon was killed in battle and his slain body was never recovered let alone given a proper burial with all of the necessary funeral rights this actually was quite serious because according to a Syrian belief it meant that he was cursed to wander the world as a Restless ghost that would never be at peace a fate considered to be worse than death it was an extremely bad Omen that many interpreted as a sign that the god Usher had been displeased with sargon's seemingly excessive Devotion to Marduk and Babylon Sargon II's son and successor sinakareb took this message to Heart when he ascended the throne in 704 BC he made sure to reassert the place of Usher as the greatest of Mesopotamias many gods around the same time challenges to a Syrian rule in Babylon were becoming more frequent in 703 BC a usurper who went by the name Marduk Zakir shumi II declared himself to be king of Babylon his time in office was short as kingless say that he ruled for only a month that same year Mardo Kapolei Edina II returned from ilam to once again claim the kingship of Babylon he just wouldn't go away nor give up wasted no time and marched with a great Army into Babylonia to deal with the man who had by now become a constant Menace in his Royal annals sinakareb tells us on my first campaign I brought about the defeat of Mardo capletina king of cardunia together with the troops of ilam his allies on the plane of Kish in the midst of that battle he abandoned his Camp fled alone and saved his life seized the Chariots horses wagons and mules that he had abandoned in the thick of battle I joyfully entered his Palace which is in Babylon then I opened his Treasury and brought out gold silver gold and silver utensils precious stones all kinds of possessions and property without number a substantial tribute together with his Palace women courtiers attendance male singers female singers all of the Craftsmen as many as there were and his Palace attendance and I counted them as booty defeated once again Marlo caploidina fled back to the Chaldean strongholds in the southern marshes to avoid capture sinakura ventured himself into Southern Babylonia and plundered many predominantly caldean towns in an effort to get them to turn them in but to no avail he then took the more drastic measure of purging great metropolises such as Uruk nippur Kish Kutta and sipar of most of their caldean and aramaian citizens which was a staggering number sennakarep claims that he deported at least 280 000 of these prisoners to other parts of Assyria along with countless animals he was taking no chances and was determined to succeed where his father had failed fighting continued with Mardo kapila Edina launching small raids with elamite support for a few more years until 700 BC when sanakarib smashed any remaining caldean towns and fortresses that offered the Chaldean King shelter though he was never caught Mardo Caple Idina is reported to have died a few years later most likely in Exile after stamping out all resistance for the time being sinakareb appointed a Babylonian and not in Assyrian to be his choice for the position of King of Babylon by his own account the man he put on the throne Bell ibni was in a Syrian puppet whom he described as someone who had grown up like a young puppy in my Palace however Bell ibni did come from a very established and influential Babylonian family and senakareb hoped that he would be acceptable to the Babylonians since he was one of their own and didn't have any loyalties to the Chaldeans or arameans Bel ibni apparently wasn't up to the task because as Chronicle 16 States senakareb replaced him after just three years the third year of the reign of Bel ibni sinakara went down into akkad and sacked a card he took Bel ibni and his Nobles into Exile in Assyria well ibni reigned three years over Babylon sinakara made his son Asher Nadine shumi Ascend the Throne of Babylon according to the Assyrian synchronistic history Bel ibni may have been removed due to a Revolt that had broken out in Babylon though we don't know if Bell ibni orchestrated the Rebellion or just failed to contain it regardless of belibne's involvement sinakareb's son Asher Nadine shumi would no doubt be loyal to Assyria for five years between 699 to 694 BC there seems to have been peace and stability within the walls of Babylon but outside the capital there was still unrest especially in the southern marshlands though Mardo capla Edina was gone many of his most fervent supporters had never completely abandoned their anti-assyrian activities they were still being supported by elements from within ilam and several of them had also sought Refuge there perhaps the solution to the problem was to cut off aid from ilam to the Chaldean and Babylonian Rebels opposing a Syrian rule this was extremely difficult to do because the border with ilam was long and porous especially in the South where the Assyrians were at their weakest and anything short of a small army could get through with a very little chance of being detected decided to change his strategy instead of constantly being on the defensive and fighting against elamite proxies in Babylonia he would take the war into ilam and so in 694 BC sinakareb assembled a great Invasion Fleet and sailed it along the gulf to the shores of Southern ilam where his troops unloaded and then gradually moved north towards Susa the seat of elam's King halushu in shushinak claims that his men ravaged parts of Southern ilam and plundered its cities and towns the attack proved to be a great strategic blunder actually more like catastrophic according to Babylonian Chronicle 16 King halushu in shushinak of ilam went to akkad at the end of the month of tashritu he entered sipar and massacred the inhabitants the god shamash did not leave the ibabar ashar Nadeem shumi was captured and deported to ilam reigned six years over Babylon the king of Elam made nergal ushizab Ascend the Throne of Babylon he brought about the retreat of Assyria though the chronicle says that sinakareb's son Asher Nadeem shumi had simply been captured a letter found in the Assyrian archives goes into more detail and states that he was actually handed over to the elamites by the Babylonians themselves what exactly happened to Asher Nadeem shumi isn't stated but it's likely that he was eventually executed if the Babylonians and their elamite allies thought that they taught sinaka rabba lesson they were gravely mistaken with the current elamite incursion into Babylonia and the alleged murder of his son senakareb vowed that he would show his enemies no mercy nirgolu shizab left Babylon with an elamite-backed army to face sanakireb in 693 BC but he was eventually defeated and captured by the Assyrian army in an inscription from the Assyrian capital of Nineveh sinakareb tells us what his sentence for treason was I captured the king of Babylon alive threw him in a neck stock and Fetters and brought him before me at the Citadel gate of Nineveh I bound him with a bear despite taking out nergalushizab sinakareb could not solidify his hold over the city of Babylon and soon new men claiming to be Kings rose up to oppose him including a kaldan who went by the name mushizib Marduk Chronicles texts and even sennakarab's own inscriptions state that he won a few battles against the Assyrians despite their successes in denying sanakareb total Victory the Babylonians knew that they couldn't hold off the Assyrians forever as too did the rulers and deletes of Islam who themselves were in constant power struggles with each other to help ensure that the elamites would still remain by their side the Babylonians sent all of the silver and gold from the treasury of the isagila that is the Great temple of Marduk to the elamite King as a sort of down payment for his support this shows that the Babylonians had become desperate the new elamide King humban namena III kept Faith with mushizib Marduk and mustered an army that consisted of people from all over Elam and other parts of Southwestern Iran including the kingdom of ilippi and parsuwash there were also aramaian and of course Chaldean tribes who joined his forces even one of the late Marduk abla edina's Sons joined the alliance as they all marched towards Babylon where they were to meet up with Mushi zib Marduk and his forces to take on sanakireb and Assyria it's here that we have differing accounts of what happened the Babylonians in their Chronicle claim that their side led by humban numina III met the Assyrians in battle at a place called hulule and forced them to withdraw M's account is just the opposite and he rather poetically describes how he decisively defeated and mushizib Marduk the latter who fled to Babylon to hide behind the city's walls with regard to these two accounts of the battle and its result it would seem that sinakarebs is closer to the truth due to what we know happened next ever since he had become king of Assyria 14 years earlier controlling Babylonia had been a major challenge for sadakarab even when he had controlled the city of Babylon there were always Rebels such as Marduk apla Edina and the Chaldean tribes of the South who stymied his efforts to dominate the entire country while the elamites had played their part it was the Babylonians who ultimately allied with them against the Assyrians and it was also they who extradited his son Asher Nadeem shumi to Elam for what most believe was an automatic death sentence by now sinakareb hated Babylon and all who called themselves Babylonians with perhaps the same Army he commanded against his enemies at halulai sinakarib surrounded Babylon and waited for mashezu Marduk the elamite-backed king of Babylon to capitulate several months went by but the city did not surrender despite the fact that babylon's residents were rapidly running out of food a Babylonian document dated to the summer of 690 BC records just how desperate the situation had become in the reign of mushizib Marduk king of Babylon there was siege famine hunger starvation and hard times in the land everything had changed and become non-existent one shekel of silver was worth two liters of barley the city Gates were locked and there was no exit in all four directions the corpses of people filled the squares of Babylon because there was no one to bury them after a 15-month Siege in the fall of 689 BC the Assyrians broke through babylon's defenses and took the city what happened next according to sinakareb's own inscriptions was a vengeful Bloodbath [Music] I moved swiftly against Babylon whose destruction I strove for and like the onset of a storm I attacked like a Mist I enveloped it I filled the city with their Corpses [Music] king of Babylon together with his family I carried off alive to my country the property of that City silver gold precious stones Goods possessions I delivered into the hands of my people and they made it their own the gods that dwell inside the hands of my people acquired them and they broke them up and they took their goods and property the city and its houses from its foundations to its parapets I swept away I demolished I burned with fire the wall and the outer wall the temples and the gods the ziggurat of mudbrick and Earth as many as there were I tore down and deposited them into the aratu canal in the midst of that City I dug ditches and flooded its ground with water the form of its foundations I destroyed and I caused its Devastation to exceed that of any flood so that in later days the ground of that City its temples its Gods would be forgotten [Music] others had also conquered and sacked Babylon but none seemed to have deliberately caused as much damage and glowed about it as senakareb as for mushi zib marnuk and his family they were deported to Nineveh and though their exact fate is never mentioned one can safely assume that it wasn't good later generations of Babylonians would never forget sinakarib's cruelty and wanton destruction of their glorious city which for them was the center of the world unlike his three predecessors he never took the title king of Babylon nor did he make any plans to rebuild the city and the sacred isagila in fact he wanted its Prestige and influence to diminish one of the ways he did this was to take the Babylonian epic inuma Elish and make a new official version where the national Assyrian God ashur replaced Marduk during the last years of sanaka Reb's Reign the situation in the Assyrian Capital had become tense politically in 683 BC sinakareb's eldest son and successor Urdu mulisi was replaced as Crown Prince by one of his other Sons hisarhadan not surprisingly Udu mulisi and his supporters resented the decision and pressured sanakireb to reverse it when sanakireb didn't change the status of his successor Urdu mulisi staged a coup and assassinated his father in a temple in Nineveh a brief civil war broke out in which isar hadan ultimately was Victorious and two months later installed as the new king of Assyria had much to be grateful for but also much to think about his two predecessors had suffered violent deaths and he took them as warnings for himself his grandfather Sargon II had been to Pro Babylon and perhaps worshiped Marduk excessively while his father sonakareb did just the opposite by desecrating the city and its great Shrine to Marduk taking a more balanced approach hisarhadan ordered the rebuilding and resettlement of Babylon as well as the Reconstruction of the isagila while also making sure not to neglect or offend a Syria's Patron deity Usher one of the people that isar hadan recruited to help with the rebuilding of Babylon was its new governor ubaru in one of his letters to isar hadan ubaru Praises him for all that he's done for the city to the king my lord your servant ubaru the governor of Babylon May the gods Naboo and Marduk Bless The King now I pray every day to the god Marduk and the goddess zarpanitu for the life of the king my Lord I have entered Babylon the people of Babylon welcome me and they bless the king every day saying he is the one who returned babylon's captives and booty also the chiefs of caldea from sipar to the mouth of the sea bless the king saying he is the one who resettled Babylon all the lands are happy before the king my Lord by almost all accounts isarhadan had treated Babylon and its population well but in spite of this there were still pockets of resistance to Assyrian rule most notably in the caldean south already towards the beginning of his reign in 680 BC One of Marduk Apple Idina the second Sons named Zar kitilishir attacked the city of UR but failed to take it when the Assyrian army showed up he fled to Elam but in a most unusual turn of events instead of being granted Asylum there he was put to death the reason for this is unknown but elam's rulers may have been wary of keeping a wanted fugitive and had no interest in or perhaps couldn't risk another armed conflict with Assyria which at this time was the most powerful it had ever been after the murder of Zara Kitty lashir his brother naid Marduk fled from ilam and sought refuge in Assyria isar hadan not only pardoned him but also appointed him to the position of governor of the Sealand Province the very same area that his brother had attacked a year or two before handan was much more merciful than his father however another son of the legendary Mardo capla Edina II a certain Nabu ushalim attacked the silent province with help from ilam but the specifics of what happened afterward are lost according to Babylonian Chronicle 16 though in elamite Army led by King hamban haltish II invaded Babylonia in 675 BC and slaughtered many of the residents of the city of sipar even here is sarhadan's response was measured for soon after the attack humbon haltish died and his brother ortak took over and immediately sued for peace with Assyria as a gesture of Goodwill he's said to have given back a few of the Sacred images that had at some earlier time been looted from the old Acadian capital of agade the two kings later signed the peace treaty the details of which are recorded in a letter discovered in The Archives of Nineveh it states the following having listened to one another the king of Elam and the king of Assyria have made peace with one another at marduk's command and become treaty partners one of hisarhadan's final decisions as king would end up being very costly both for Assyria and Babylonia like his father sonakareb Hisar hadan broke with tradition and made one of his younger Sons Asher banipal Crown Prince and the future king of Assyria after his death while making the eldest son the future king of Babylon it was a most unusual decision as the position of king of Assyria generally went to the eldest son who was almost always the Crown Prince thought that it would avoid another civil war like the brief one that occurred after his father's death he may have also felt that usherbanipal's talents were better suited to be king of assyria's vast Empire will probably never really know just why isar hadan made such Arrangements but the decision ended up tearing Assyria and Babylonia apart after esar hadan's death in 669 BC zakutu the queen mother made shamauchin swear a formal oath of loyalty to his younger brother asherbanipal though he held the prestigious title of King of Babylon shimashumuukin became little more than a figurehead with barely any power to govern his own kingdom in many letters from The Archives of Nineveh officials from Babylonia bypassed shama shumuukin and wrote directly to Asher banipal with regard to both domestic and international affairs for example the governor of the city of UR who technically should have recognized the king of Babylon as his immediate Overlord instead wrote inscriptions that acknowledged usherbanipal but not shamashan when it came to the renovation of temples and religious buildings in borsipa sipar nippur Uruk and even the isagila in Babylon itself it was Asher banipal who was credited with their restoration and not shamashan while there are inscriptions attributed to shamauchin on a few buildings they pale in comparison to the number commissioned by Asher banipal who also had spies at the Babylonian Court to monitor his older brothers every move though there was tension between the two brothers Babylonia during the years 669 to 652 BC was overall relatively calm the exception being in 664 BC when the elamide king ortak broke the treaty he had signed with his sarhadan and invaded Babylonia his attack was eventually repelled by the Assyrian army something which ashravanipal made sure to take credit for it's not surprising then that shamashumuukin resented his brother and in 652 BC led a rebellion against asherbanipal which lasted for four years Babylonian Chronicle 20 tells us in the month of tibetu the 19th day Assyria and akkad went to war slipping away from the enemy the king returned to Babylon in the month of adaru the 27th day the army of Assyria and the army of akkad joined battle at hiritu the army of akkad stopped fighting and a crushing defeat was inflicted on it a state of war was prolonged there was a succession of battles that being said still had a lot of support from many factions who were discontent with the Syrian rule they all thought that an independent Babylon even within Assyrian as King was much better than one that was forever subservient to Assyria the elamites also joined shama shumuuken and supported him with supplies weapons and fighting men this anti-assyrian Coalition like many others before it in the end proved to be inadequate against asherbanipals a Syrian War Machine and by 648 BC his troops had surrounded the city of Babylon and soon after that sacked the city is believed to have died by being burned alive in his Palace the death of shama shumu uken did not bring about an end to the war asherbanipal's troops went on several other campaigns to punish anyone who had supported his brother's Rebellion by putting them to the sword while this included many groups of Chaldeans and aramaians the greatest Collective punishment was preserved for the elamites who had consistently supported anti-assyrian factions in Babylonia for nearly a century in several inscriptions found on the walls of his Palace at Nineveh asherbanipal bragged about how he looted the cities of ilam raised the great and ancient elamite city of Susa to the ground trampled on the bones of elam's dead Kings and sowed the land with salt so that nothing could grow there after that there were few Rebel leaders and pockets of resistance left in Babylonia of any real significance had essentially destroyed them all when usherbanipal died around the year 630 BC he left his young Heir Asher attil ilani in a Syrian Empire that was ostensibly at its height but Ashura till ilani was too young to rule on his own and so for a while the chief eunuch ruled as Regent Before usurping the Throne for himself around 626 or 625 BC he only lasted for a few months before being replaced by sin Shara ishkun another one of asherbanipal's sons big things were also happening in Babylon at around the same time in 627 BC a serious puppet king of Babylon kandulanu died leaving the Babylonian Throne unoccupied there was also a rising Babylonian leader named Nabu apla usar who was causing trouble for the Assyrians he's better known as nabo colasar Babylonian Chronicle 21 tells us that fighting broke out between the Assyrians and Babylonians and by the end of the year specifically on the 26th of the month of arasamnu which on the Gregorian calendar would be November 23rd 626 BC nabo palaster ascended the Throne of Babylon to become its new king this started the era that Scholars call the neo-babylonian period there's some debate about the details of nabo palasar's early life the dynasty that he founded is sometimes referred to as the Chaldean Dynasty but there's no proof that Nabu palasar himself was a Chaldean he may have been from Uruk because he sought Refuge there when the Assyrians were pursuing him in the south according to nabo palacer's own words he was of humble Origins and in one inscription calls himself the son of nobody part of the text of this inscription tells us the following when I was young although I was the son of nobody I constantly sought the sanctuaries of my lords the gods Naboo and Marduk my mind was preoccupied with the establishment of their prescriptions and the complete performance of their rituals my attention was directed at Justice and Equity the god Marduk the Lord who fathoms the hearts of the Gods of Heaven and the Netherworld who constantly observes the conducts of mankind perceived my inner thoughts and elevated me the servant who was Anonymous among the people to a high status in the country in which I was born he called me to the lordship over the country and the people he caused a benevolent protective Spirit to walk at my side he let me succeed in everything I undertook he caused the god nurgle the strongest among the gods to March at my side slew my foes felt my enemies the Assyrians who had ruled akkad because of divine anger and had with their heavy yoke oppressed the inhabitants of the country I the weak one the powerless one who constantly seeks the Lord of lords with the mighty strength of the Gods Naboo and Marduk my lords I removed them from akkad and caused the Babylonians to throw off their yoke by 620 BC nabo palasar was likely in control of most if not all of Babylonia still fighting between Babylon and Assyria raged on with most new clashes resulting in stalemates this in the long run was quite worrisome for nabo palasar as we've seen several times in the past the Assyrians had often been kicked out of Babylonia only to return again with the vengeance the reality was that Assyria would always remain an existential threat and though nabo palazzar also had the support of most of the caldean and aramaian tribes history had proved that such an alliance was still not enough to keep the Assyrians out the Assyrians often brutal style of rule had made them extremely unpopular with many peoples of the ancient near East and it just so happened that the king from one of these groups was also thinking along the same lines as nabo palasar this man was sayashari's King of the medes the medes were an ironic people whose land media was primarily in the Zagros Mountains and parts of the nearby Iranian Plateau to the east like the Babylonians They too had suffered much at the hands of various Assyrian Kings and wanted to see an end to Assyrian incursions into their Homeland around 616 BC nabo palazzar and sayasharis made a pact with the clear objective of eliminating a Syrian meddling an influence from their respective countries once and for all that same year nabo Palazzo and his men pushed further into Assyria than ever before and obtained an important Victory near the city of arapa before laying Siege to Asher the very heart and soul of Assyria the Assyrians counter-attacked and were able to push Nabu palazzar back but not without suffering heavy losses it was shortly after this that sayasharis and the medes entered the Assyrian Heartland from the east fighting their way to arapa and finally taking the city by 614 BC they had reached Asher this time though the city fell with the medes raising It To The Ground shortly after the destruction of Asher Nabu palazzar and the main Babylonian Army arrived at the once great cities burning ruins to meet sayasharis and their median allies face to face there the two kings made a formal alliance before heading their separate ways they met again in the summer of 612 BC when the two sides joined forces to take out the Assyrian capital of Nineveh at that time perhaps the largest wealthiest and most beautiful city in the world after a three-month Siege Nineveh fell and the Babylonians and medes wasted no time looting and tearing the city apart in the street battles that followed the Assyrian King sinshara ishkun was killed the war though was still not over despite losing the major centers of their Homeland remnants of the Assyrian Empire but on in the west and rallied around a new king ashru valid II the Assyrians continued to fight but eventually lost to the Babylonian median Coalition and with the fall of the last Assyrian stronghold of haran in 610 BC the Assyrian Empire formally came to an end for the next few years nabo polaser campaigned in the Levant around karkamish which the Egyptians had also sought to control after the fall of Assyria in 605 BC his son Crown Prince Nebuchadnezzar won a decisive battle against the Egyptians that allowed the Babylonians to essentially move forward and take nearly the entire Eastern Mediterranean Coast shortly after this nabo polaser died and his son was crowned as Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon nabo polaser was arguably one of the greatest Babylonian Kings of all time he was a warrior a just ruler and loved his country more than anything even at the height of his power he remained relatively humble for a ruler who had accomplished so much in perhaps what was one of his final inscriptions he gives his future successors some pretty solid advice any King at any time whether a son or a grandson who will succeed me and whose name Marduk will call to exert rulership of the country do not be concerned with Feats of Might and Power seek the sanctuaries of Naboo and Marduk and let them slay your enemies the Lord Marduk examines utterances and scrutinizes the Heart he who is loyal to Marduk his foundations will endure he who is loyal to the son of Marduk will last for eternity that successor was Nebuchadnezzar II who spent the next few years conquering areas of the older Syrian Empire in the Levant that refused to recognize him as their new Overlord most of the former Assyrian provinces that the Babylonians claimed in the west fell into line rather quickly as for them it was just a change in management at the top it was in the southern Levant that Nebuchadnezzar encountered the stiffest resistance Babylonian Chronicles from the year 604 BC report that Nebuchadnezzar marched against the city of ashkalon captured its king and then plundered the city before raising It To The Ground which archaeologists have more or less confirmed the most famous Kingdom to suffer Nebuchadnezzar's rap was the kingdom of Judah in 601 BC judah's King jehoiakim switched his Allegiance from Babylon to Egypt Nebuchadnezzar's response came a few years later in 598 or 597 BC with a full-fledged assault on the Judean capital of Jerusalem an event that's recorded not only in the Hebrew Bible but also in Babylonian Chronicle 24 the latter which reads the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar in the month of kislimu the king of akkad mustered his troops marched to the Levant and set up his quarters facing the city of Judah in the month of adaru the second day he took the city and captured the king he installed there a king of his choice he collected its massive tribute and went back to Babylon however a few years later that new king of Judah zedekiah refused to pay tribute to Nebuchadnezzar which forced the Babylonian King to venture back West yet again to punish him Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians who after looting it of all its Treasures raised the city and its Great temple to the ground most of the survivors were deported to Babylonia with such conquests came ample sums of Loot and treasure not to mention valuable resources such as Cedarwood and Rare Minerals these were used for Nebuchadnezzar's Monumental building programs that eventually transformed Babylon into once again the world's most beautiful city though there's little evidence of the famous Hanging Gardens which many believe may have actually been in Nineveh plenty of textual information has been found detailing all of the new and refurbished temples palaces public spaces Parks broad Avenues massive Gates towers and defensive walls that Nebuchadnezzar II commissioned and one of his seemingly countless inscriptions Nebuchadnezzar provides some details as to how active he was in his City's planning and renovation the street of Babylon having become increasingly lower I pulled down the gates and relayed their Foundations at the water table with asphalt and Bricks I had them remade of bricks with blue stone on which wonderful bulls and Dragons Were depicted I covered their roofs by laying Majestic Cedars lengthwise over them I fixed doors of cedar wood trimmed with bronze in all the gates I placed wild bulls and ferocious dragons in the gateways and thus adorned them with luxurious Splendor so that mankind might Gaze on them in wonder similar improvements were made in cities such as borsipa sipar and Uruk just to name a few it was a new golden age for Babylon and Babylonia perhaps only during the reign of Hammurabi nearly 1200 years prior had Babylon and the surrounding areas enjoyed so much prosperity but like with Hammurabi and the first dynasty Nebuchadnezzar's heirs were not as charismatic nor as capable as he was and shortly after the great King's death the decline of what would be babylonia's last native Dynasty began to gain momentum Nebuchadnezzar died in October of 562 BC and was succeeded by his son Amel Marduk who ruled for just two years there are a few texts from his Reign but later Kings in their inscriptions described him as being rather incompetent that though could just have been propaganda because he was killed by his brother-in-law Neri glisar who then seized the throne for himself and reigned for four years during that time Mary gleasar campaigned in southern Anatolia and also claimed to have crossed into the kingdom of Lydia he died shortly after his return to Babylon and was succeeded by his son labashi Marduk who only reigned for a few weeks before he himself was ousted and replaced by the man who would become babylon's last native King nabonitis though nabonitis may have manipulated his way into becoming the next ruler of Babylon once he became king he seems to have had little interest in actually doing the job instead of managing the neo-babylonian Empire he went on pilgrimages and spiritual Retreats for the sole purpose of worshiping the moon God sin in fact nabonitis was so focused on this that he appointed his son belshara usar better known as belshazzar to rula's Regent while he was away which according to Babylonian Chronicles and other documents was quite often in the spring of his third year as king or 553 BC nabonitis went on a campaign that took him into Northern Arabia where he ended up at the Oasis of tema using the town as a base nabonitis claims he spent 10 years there worshiping sin and living a rather monastic life for a king this though meant that he couldn't be in the capital to perform all of the religious duties that a king of Babylon was obliged to do the so-called nabonitis Chronicle mentions his absence from the akitu festival several years in a row the ninth year nabonitis the king stayed in Tama the prince the officers and the Army were in akan the month of Nisan the king did not go to Babylon Naboo did not go to Babylon Bell did not go out the New Year's Festival was not celebrated the 10th year the king stayed in tema the prince the officers and his army were in akkad in the month of Nisan the king did not go to Babylon Naboo did not go to Babylon Belle did not go out the New Year's Festival was not celebrated the 11th year the king stayed in tema the prince the officers and his army well by now you probably know the rest for the Babylonian priesthood nabunidis's Devotion to sin was clearly becoming a problem during nabonitis's years in Tama important events were occurring that would alter the trajectory of the region as we know it babylon's neighbor and Ally to the east the median Empire went through a regime change in nabunidis's sixth year when in 550 BC the relatively unknown Cyrus II king of anshan overthrew his Overlord the median King astiagis this made Cyrus the ruler of a new United Persian median Empire but he was the new kid on the Block and hadn't really been tested by the greater powers of Lydia Egypt and of course Babylon and so taking advantage of the situation crisis the wealthy king of Lydia invaded the former median territories in the west that now belong to Cyrus and the Persian Empire Cyrus though was undeterred and marched his troops into what's now Central Anatolia to meet crisis and the lydians in battle he eventually defeated them and chased them up to the gates of the lydian capital Sardis the Persians held the city under siege for about three weeks until its defensive walls were scaled after that the Persians captured Sardis and Lydia became part of the now expanding Persian Empire that was led by the man the world today knows as Cyrus the Great according to the Greek historian and traveler Herodotus the lydians and Babylonians had made an alliance against Cyrus is was counting on nabonitis where at least belshazzar descend a maid and reinforcements but Cyrus had arrived and taken the lydian capital of Sardis before that could happen in 543 BC nabonitis hastily returned to the capital and ordered that the statues of the gods and goddesses from other sanctuaries throughout the realm be brought to Babylon for safe keeping the reason for this was because he expected Cyrus to invade Babylonia [Music] after a battle near the city of Opus on the Tigris River where he encountered some resistance Cyrus made his way towards Babylon where a very unpopular nabonitis was bracing for a long Siege in an interesting turn of events the Babylonian governor of the province of gutium defected to the Persian side and marched with his men alongside Cyrus to Babylon according to the so-called nabunidis Chronicle the Persians had little trouble taking the city in the month tashritu on the 14th day sipar was captured without battle nabunidis fled on the 16th day kubaru governor of gutium and the army of Cyrus without a battle entered Babylon afterwards after nebonitis retreated he was captured in Babylon Interruption of the rights in isagila or the temples there was none and no date was missed on the third day of the month arasamnu Cyrus entered Babylon they filled the Haru vessels in his presence peace was imposed on the city the proclamation of Cyrus was read to all of Babylon according to the historian burrosis who wrote a history of Babylon in Greek Cyrus had nabonitis exiled to carmania today in the province of Kerman in Southeastern Iran another tradition maintains that he was appointed as an adviser to the new king the Babylonian Chronicles later Greek historians the books of the Hebrew Bible even Cyrus's own words from the now famous Cyrus cylinder state that the Persian king was well received by the local population and like many before him proudly held the title of King of Babylon despite this something was different as we've seen throughout this program there have been many kings of Babylon and Babylonia and not all of them were native to the region though the city existed as far back as the days of the Sumerians the First Independent historical dynasty of Babylon was founded by an Amorite Chieftain while babylonia's longest reigning royal house was of distinctly casite origin in the past there had also been those of hurion aramaian caldain and elamite origin who settled in the fabled lands of Sumer and akkad but often within a generation or two their descendants had given up their mother tongues for Acadian worshiped the local gods of the land as their own and essentially became Babylonian even the Assyrians recognized the culture and religious significance of the land and its principal cities despite the fact that several of their kings often caused Havoc there whether in good times or bad Babylon was at least metaphorically the city at the center of the Civilized world as Mesopotamia was becoming increasingly hellenized during the era of the Macedonian seleucid Dynasty birosis compiled a history of Babylon and Babylonia in Greek called babylonieka the original work is lost to us but excerpts and summaries of it have been preserved in the writings of others one of them being isibius of caesarea who gives us a synopsis of a tale about Nebuchadnezzar II from birosis's writings [Music] Nebuchadnezzar having mounted to the roof of his Palace was seized with a Divine afflatus and broke into speech as follows I Nebuchadnezzar or tell To You O Babylonians the Calamity which is about to fall upon you which Bell my forefather and queen beltis are alike unable to persuade the fates to avert a Persian mule will come assisted by your gods and will bring slavery upon you with his accomplice amid the pride of the Assyrians we don't know why barrosis included this likely apocryphal Tale in his history of Babylonia but he must have sensed that babylon's best days were behind it and that the city would never again reach the greatness and Glory of bygone years berosis was writing his history of Babylonia shortly after nearly two centuries of akaminid Persian rule in which far from being the center of the world Babylon was just one city among many within an Empire whose main seat of power was to the east in Iran its Kings did not speak Acadian nor did they eventually adopt babylon's Gods as their own and while they may have integrated many of the Artistic Styles and motifs found on the walls of the great palaces of Nebuchadnezzar into their own architectural wonders these two were also combined with elamite Egyptian Greek and other elements to create something new and distinctly Persian now a new tide had arrived in Babylonia and with it a Hellenic order that itself had its own language customs and art though these new conquerors mostly macedonians and Greeks were different than the Persians before them they too didn't adopt the culture and religion of the lands they had recently acquired but gradually supplanted them with their own many believe that language is necessary to preserve a culture for future Generations without it the old ways are unable to effectively be passed down to new generations by the time of the neo-babylonian Kings Aramaic had already become the most widely spoken language in the ancient near East a few centuries later when borosis was writing his history of Babylon most languages were rapidly being replaced with Greek and it must have been quite apparent to him that the Acadian language even for record-keeping would eventually cease to be used at all and when this happened it would be the death of the old Babylonian dialect culture and religion birosis ended up being right for the last known Acadian document in astronomical text dates to around 100 A.D after that use of the Acadian language basically disappeared and it would not be until about 1700 to 1800 years later that a seriologists and Scholars of ancient Linguistics would start to be able to decipher read and comprehend it again mention of the name Babylon still captures our imagination today and the legacy of the Babylonians is with us in the form of their contributions to literature mathematics astronomy art music early medicine concept of time philosophy and religion just to name a few so this is the history a concise history of the ancient city of Babylon and the land of Babylonia that revolved around it the history of ancient Babylonia and Mesopotamia is one of the most exciting periods in our shared past and I hope that this program has encouraged you to learn even more about this truly remarkable region and its people there will be a lot more on the history of the ancient world coming up so please stay tuned and if you haven't already subscribe thanks so much for watching I really appreciate it I'd also really like to thank grandkid 69 Yap de Graf pastafrola Michael Lewis Danielle Allen wenix TV Robert Morgan Frank Tim Lane Sebastian ortado Korea Michael trudell leader Titan Micah G John scarberry Andrew Bowmer Monty Grimes Franz Robbins Brendan Redmond Vari dunachanji Jimmy darawala and ahita debut kolistan debut sherkam Farhad Kama and all of the Channel's patrons on patreon for helping to support this and all future content check out the benefits to being a patreon member and if you'd like to join feel free to click the link in the video description you can also follow history with Psy on Instagram Facebook and Twitter as well as listen to special audio programs on the history with Psy podcast thanks again and stay safe

Channel: History with Cy

Views: 821,039

Keywords: Babylon, Hammurabi, ancient history, Babylonians, Sumerians, Law Code of Hammurabi, Assyria, Samsu-iluna, Nebuchadnezzar II, Nabonidus, Nabopolassar, Marduk, ancient cities

Id: O2hbP7PwuYU

Length: 188min 30sec (11310 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 24 2022