Shamshi-Adad & the Old Assyrian Empire (2000-1750 BC) // Ancient History Documentary

in the twilight years of 3rd millennium BC after a long drawn-out conflict fought by one generation after another for 200 years of war Elamites invaders from the south eastern fringe of mesopotamia came sweeping in to the already weakened lands of the neo Sumerian Empire one by one the formerly unified cities for the southern Mesopotamian Plains broke away from OB sins rule he being the unfortunate latest dynasty to hold sway over the crumbling Empire finally by around 2000 BC the Elamites succeeded breaking down the walls of the once mighty city of Earth the very symbol of Sumerian identity and promptly extinguished the ruling family of the city [Music] in the aftermath of the fall of earth the very last and arguably the greatest Sumerian kingdom of the ancient world chaos reigned supreme once more in the land between the two rivers not only to the vengeful elements now hold sway over much of Mesopotamia formerly held by the Sumerians for time immemorial with ruthless amirite warlords from beyond the pale came flooding in to stake their own claims and the increasingly sought-after fertile lands of the city builders eventually after the ashes finally cleared the dust from the war began to settle a number of successor states began to arise some of them survivors from the Empire others ruled over the warlike Outsiders such as the amorite and the duty ins were seized the opportunity of the war to flood in from the mountains and deserts on the fringes of society to claim a small chunk of the already ancient land for themselves most notable of these statelets and survivors was the influential city of ash Nona a Sumerian and clave situated far to the north of the traditional heartlands in the south Asha known as Sumerian governess had survived the worst of the invasions due to their sheer geographical isolation from the heartlands of the Elamites beyond the Zagros Mountains in modern-day Iran however much the rulers of eshnunna may have mourned over the loss of their southern older brother the fall of earth also presented the opportunity for them to declare their own independence as a hereditary monarchy though it soon became clear that they would now have to contend with the other increasingly powerful kingdoms of the north alone [Music] another state to arise from the ashes of the Elamites occupation was larser like eshnunna it was already an ancient city inhabited for a thousand years or more though unlike Sumerian eshnunna larser had been claimed by a clan of amirite warlords fierce pastoralists attracted to the sedentary lands of the city builders by the ever-present a law of wealth and power in time they adopted many of the customs of the city builders including the Sumerian gods but nonetheless they retained the ruthless militancy honed by their forefathers out in the arid wastes to the southwest in the far north along the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in modern-day northern Iraq still more amirite warlords gradually moved into the area claiming more and more cities for their own and in time founding their own walled fortresses and Citadel's each as independent minded and fierce as the last the most important of the states to survive the collapse of the Empire was s in there like ash Nona a native Sumerian governor by the name of HB error that survived the fall of earth and proceeded to unify the surrounding cities one by one under his control finally after a ten-year struggle HB era succeeded in recapturing earth from the Elamites and drove them back across the ancient border to their homelands past the Zagros Mountains though he died soon afterwards HB era left his four state coalition of Aysen nipple Arak and earth to his son Shu ill issue for the next 50 years Aysen fought out a long and devastating war against the amorite rulers of lhasa both fielding armies despite their best efforts neither being fully able to subjugate the other in the north meanwhile cities that had been under the rule of one Empire after another the hundreds of years first under the Acadians and then the Neo Sumerians seized the inherent strife engulfing the formerly all-powerful South to go their own way some under the control of regional governors turned Kings others like Larsa under the control of amirite warlords turned sedentary monarchs one of these powers the city of ashore situated on the northern portion of the Tigris River and originally in a Western Semitic settlement it had been added to the Akkadian Empire by the great King Sargon in around 2300 BC and later the neo Sumerian Empire under Shulgin more than two centuries later by the beginning of the second millennium BC asure had rebuilt its walls a sure sign of its newfound independence and it began trading extensively with the Western Semites living along the Mediterranean coast as the years went by traders from a Shah even began building their own trading centers in eastern Asia Minor in order to build bridges and lucrative trade deals with the horrea and Hattie and inhabitants there these new links with the West were a sure sign of events to come in a precursor to the next millennium and more at least in part a sure who's changing its orientation away from the south to the west of ashore along the Euphrates River another new power was arising there the city of Mari had also been extending its commercial tendrils over the years to the neighboring cities particularly like ashore to the Mediterranean coastline and Mari grew ever richer as a result [Music] between these two increasingly powerful and wealthy cities however out in the plains between the two rivers lay a shifting patchwork of amirite chieftains for the most part these warlords seem to have fought amongst themselves for territory but every once in a while a strong leader would arise amongst the tribes to unite them under one banner who threatened to conquer for city dwellers in the south sometime around 1930 BC the balance of power finally shifted dramatically away from the Neo Sumerian successor state of Aysen and towards amirite held bilasa the latest king there at the 5th of the dynasty Gong Conan had marched his armies deep into Elamites territory as a show of power before briefly occupying the most holy of cities Nepal and even finally conquering earth thus destroying the legitimacy of the SN dynasty for good quite remarkably Gungan am a proud descendant of amirite conquerors then began portraying himself as a restorer of the old sumerian ways in reality Sumerian culture seems to have mostly already died out by this point the other cities such as Arak one by one having already been replaced by ambitious amirite newcomers some of them no doubt having previously fought in the armies of the various city-states over the coming years this was a strategy that would later be adopted by generation after generation of kings in the decades that followed a sin and Larsa continued to wage a costly and lengthy series of wars over control of Nepal the religious and spiritual heart of the Sumerian world seeing it change hands at least eight times during the largely fruitless fighting in the north meanwhile Mari and Asha remained in a state of quasi Cold War both attempting to become the foremost commercial power in the region at the behest of the other they each had armies and strong walls though by and large they preferred to keep their enmity to a strictly commercial level lest they succumb to the multitude of other potential enemies around them on their southern flank one such new power this one actually founded by Amma writes rather than being a pre-existing city conquered by them had begun to develop its name was Babylon and eventually it would have a greater part to play than arguably any other city of the ancient world echoing through the ages as so many of its contemporaries remain lost and forgotten whilst the formerly all-powerful cities of the south still found themselves locked into a near perpetual conflict the kings of eshnunna seized the opportunity to leave their own cities unguarded and headed north along the Tigris to launch a surprise attack on the wealthy city of Ashur no sooner had Ashe nuna succeeded in taking the city and overthrowing its amirite King did a newcomer arrived outside the gates at the head of a well-drilled army his name was sham Xie dad and he was one of the amorite warlords of the plains a ruthless warrior prince probably hailing from nearby eckel Atem sham Shia dad seems to have spent much of his life up until this point serving as a sword for hire in the Army's other amirite Kings and attempting to seize power for himself in any way that he could by around 1800 BC however sham she added had succeeded in unifying a number of tribes around him and in the coming weeks they made light work of the army for Machinima already overexposed as it was in hostile territory not only did sham Xie dad then seize the city of a shot for himself but in the years that followed he went much further establishing it and the surrounding cities as military powerhouses before embarking on an epic series of campaigns that saw his rule expand over the entirety of northern Mesopotamia establishing a northern powerhouse of an empire for the very first time in history though in truth sham she added states didn't survive for long after his death like so many other short-lived kingdoms and empires that would follow down over the long millennia burning brightly and going out just as magnificently he certainly succeeded in setting a precedent power of shifting to the north the old world was dead and a new one would arise from the ashes in the centuries and millennia that followed shamshir dad's death the strong northern power base and unity that he forged in northern Mesopotamia through his own sheer force of well survived operating out of a firm heartland in the immediate vicinity of Asher these desperate peoples of northern Mesopotamia would increasingly coalesce until a brand new identity was forged one that in time would set the world ablaze we know them today as the Assyrians in the years and centuries after his death sham Shia dad's legacy only grew and grew eventually seeing him regarded as the founding father of the Assyrians a kingdom that would eventually rise again in the northern Mesopotamian plain to become one of the most feared and devastating of all the empires of the ancient world [Music] like so many all-powerful rulers of the ancient world very little is known of shamshir dad's early life before his rise to power a legacy that he left during his lifetime was so great however much like the earlier ruler Sargon of Akkad that a whole host of legends and tales later arose in the long generations after his death out of these sagas and stories a number of key locations emerge all of them amirite city-states of the plains according to one tradition sham Shia dad was the son of Allah Cobb kibou the first known king of eckle Atem a city located just to the north of Asher that was established by a Marines unlike ashore itself Ola Tom's conflict with Mari was undeniably hot a situation that both Shamsi a dad and the king of mari luckily Tom had inherited from their fathers upon ascending to the throne in around 1810 BC sham she added attempted to extend his rule into the valley along the Kabul River but was defeated by a kid Lim the king of Maori after a further series of skirmishes involving another assyrian ruler Narim sim the king devasher sham she added fled south along the river finding refuge at another of the rising powers founded by fellow amma rights the city of babylon after a number of years serving the amorite of Babylon as a mercenary commander potentially gaining vital military experience sham Xie dad moved back up the Tigris to reclaim eckel Atem an outpost that stood just north of asher and may have served as a sort of military outpost to the city he stayed there for three years either having seized the settlement or in service to the ruling dynasty of a Shah either under nerim sim or his successor upon the arrival of the armies of eshnunna however sham Shia dad bursts into history like a raging lion defeating the invaders and using the success to set himself up as the new king of the city almost immediately he began an ambitious plan expansion apparently wishing no less than to build an empire to rival that of the ever growing power of Larsa to the south now under the control of an amirite warlord named rin sin before setting out on his first set of conquests sham Shia dad put his son Ishmael a gang in charge of Eckel Atem then just as quickly as he had arrived he set out on the first of innumerable Assyrian military campaigns in history to begin with sham Shia dad seems to have set about seizing all of the northern lands between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers unifying the amorite tribes there and no doubt enlisting many of the previously hostile warlords into his armies next on the agenda and much to the horror of the sophisticated and relatively unwarlike dynasty that ruled there he marched on the other great power of northern Mesopotamia Mari executing its King the added limb and installing another of his own sons yozma a dad to rule over the city in his stead unwilling to leave any potential rivals to his power Shamshad adds purge of the elites in mari was swift and burnt all seeing nearly every relative of the udder and limb executors just one royal prince managed to escape the bloodbath having married a daughter of the king of neighboring Yamato based at the city of Aleppo his name was zimri Lim and eventually he would return to his native city though not until long after shamshir dad's death sham she added meanwhile now showing all of the future assyrian traits of modesty by calling himself master of the universe carried on his conquests seizing lands as far east of the Tigris as the Zagros Mountains territory still held by the rugged beauty and no mats on behalf of elamite overlords to their south according to inscriptions and cuneiform tablets excavated all over northern Mesopotamia sham Shia dad was a master of siege warfare possessing all of the latest military techniques of the age and a large elite army to enforce his will upon those unfortunate enough to come up against him to the north conquered the cities of Arbella and Nineveh establishing arguably for the first time a firm northern triangle between the upper Tigris and the lower zav rivers cornered by the three major cities of the Assyrian Kingdom assure Arbella and Nineveh unifying the area under a single dynasty dynasty known to us today as the old Assyrian and pine despite the fact that he like the other warlords now holding sway in old Samaria was in fact an amirite outsider the archaeological evidence of sham Shia dad's reign is staggering he built intricate temples all over his lands over a vast geographical distance according to his inscriptions rather than imposed taxes and tributary status to existing elites he installed his own governance and Garrison's everywhere he went diehard followers who were personally loyal to him the evidence suggests that aside from being a gifted military commander sham she added distinguished himself by being an exceptionally capable administrator and propagandist effectively portraying himself as an Assyrian even altering the Assyrian King list to legitimize himself he kept firm controls on all matters of state ranging from high policy down to the appointment of individual officials and the dispatching of provisions and supplies extraordinarily detailed records and dispatches have been excavated from his reign providing us with unparalleled glimpses into his personal dealings perhaps most notably he remained perpetually disappointed with the performance of one of his sons Ozma addit ruling on his behalf in the conquered city of Mauri one of the cuneiform letters in question reads are you a child not a man have you no beard on your chin and another in regards to yozma a dad's brother issued a gang ruling up in echo latin reads while here your brother is victorious down there you lie about among the women in addition to pure military might spies and propaganda were often used to win over rival cities though unlike the much later neo-assyrian empire sham she added did allow conquered territories to maintain some of their earlier practices usually the main changes to occur would be at the very top of the society in question though in some cases such as Qatar the local rulers of the city maintained Authority but became vassals when they were incorporated into his kingdom this was perhaps one of the main causes of his success and subsequent rapid downfall of the Empire after his own death [Music] Shamshad adds architectural achievements were impressive evident in ruins from the tigress to the Zagros mountainous in Nineveh he used stage resources to rebuild the Ishtar temple and in a Shaw he poured money into magnificent structures his crowning achievement however was his capital city rather than utilize one of the already existing settlements between the two rivers true to his ambitious and wide-reaching tendencies he opted to create his own fairly early in his reign sham she added took over a long abandoned town of schechner today known as tell Leila seeing the great potential in the rich agricultural production of the region renaming it Zubat Enlil meaning the residents of the god Enlil in the Akkadian language still spoken throughout his realm he decided to convert it into his personal residence and capital city perhaps viewing himself as the founder of a great Empire to rival his predecessor Sargon of Akkad utilizing the best craftsmen from all over his lands a royal palace was ordered to be built and a temple acropolis to which a straight paved road led from the city gate there was also a planned residential area and the entire city was enclosed by a cyclopean wall the size of the city was around 220 acres and at its peak it may have housed a population of around 20,000 people yet despite all of sham Shia dad's protests to the contrary there were still other major players to rival his power to the east over the Zagros Mountains the kings of Elam were always a threat and now increasingly sought to try their mettle against northern Mesopotamia as well as southern closer to home still the ever-present kings of fashion ona survivors from the Sumerian past also had to be dealt with usually through diplomatic means back in the south meanwhile rinse in of Larsa finally succeeded in conquering a sin those ending a war that had lasted for 200 years definitively establishing his city as not only the strongest power of the south but the successor to the cultural legacy of the Sumerian world though in reality he adjusts stamped out a last Sumerian state to really call itself that with any authenticity the old gods survived and the Sumerian language for a while mostly for religious ceremonies but by and large besides being an ideal to look back upon and aspire to the old days of Sumeria were in the past a new world had dawned and increasingly it would orient itself towards the north by around 1794 BC and a near unprecedented achievement just two men held nearly all of the Mesopotamian plane between them remson being master of the south and sham she added master of the north the only other independent state that survived between the two rivers by reason of its geography was Babylon that same amirite city where sham Shia dad had spent some of his youth the city was simply too far to the south to be seen as an issue for sham she added and too far to the north to be an issue for rim sind sham Shia dad may have even been a distant relative to the kings of Babylon the 12 Kings who live in tents sited on both the Babylonian king list and the Assyrian King list both bearing the same names whether this is true or not the two men certainly allied with each other with sham she added of course being acknowledged as the more important of the two and babylons young King tributary to him two years later however sham she a dad was dead and within just a handful of generations so was his empire that young king had learned a thing or two from his mentor and in time his power would grow to such an extent that he would eventually eclipsed the great Assyrian ruler himself his name was Hammurabi it didn't take long for shamshir dad's empire to unravel when news of his death reached the various cities and provinces in regards to his son Yasmin a dad it appears that his concerns proved all too real with Maori declaring its independence once more almost immediately issued a gown managed to keep hold of a Coolatta though he was unable to restore power to the city despite his many attempts and was himself now the repeated target of nearby powers in particular Zimri Lim the exiled and vengeful Prince of Maori who have returned from Yama to reclaim his birthright following shamshir dad's death it was the Elamites who finally conquered eka Latin in 1765 forcing a schmee Dagon to flee south to the court of his traditional Ally Hammurabi of Babylon Hammurabi in turn helped him to reclaim his throne but at a cost of course Akala Tom and Asher subsequently became vassals subservient to the kings of Babylon who over the coming decades came to control all of Mesopotamia unifying almost all of sham Shia dads and Rin sins kingdoms into a unified whole though of course as was the standard of the age the Empire lasted only a few decades after his death before collapsing once more into rival powers though the Assyrians would suffer setbacks over the years seeing their cities conquered time and time again by outsiders and themselves forced to pay tribute to more powerful neighbors more than one occasion for the most part their newfound sense of identity would survive down the generations with their culture more or less intact never forgetting the legacy of sham she added they bided their time waiting for their moment in the Sun again until finally come around 1000 BC they burst out onto the world scene like a deluge this time destroying all in their path in a brutal harvest of war and going on to form the largest empire that the world had ever known unlike previous empires the neo-assyrian x' utilizing perhaps the first professional standing army in history along with grotesquely violent methods of subjugation made no allowances for conquered populations the choice was simple submit or die [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: History Time

Views: 340,388

Keywords: iMovie, ancient history, history, assyrians, assur, ekallatum, eshnunna, babylon, hammurabi, rin sin, larsa, lagashur, lagash, ur, uruk, nippur, eridu, shamshi-adad, shamshiadad, assyria

Id: vpm-kzn01y4

Length: 32min 25sec (1945 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 09 2018