The Neo-Elamite Period - Elam vs. Assyria (1100 - 550 BC) | Supplemental Podcast #6

hey everyone welcome to this podcast edition of history with psy where today we'll be continuing our study of the elamites in this program we'll be focusing on the neo-elamite period which is basically where we left off i guess in september of 2019 so without further ado let's begin before we get into the neo elamite period let's do a brief synopsis of what we covered in past episodes the history of elam extends at least as far back as the third millennium bc elam though is the sumerian name for the country acadian speakers of babylonia called it elamtu while its own inhabitants called it haltamti its two most important political cultural and economic centers were the cities of anshan and susa in fact most major elamite kings took the title king of anshan and susa from the mid 3rd millennium to about 650 bc ilam was a major regional power with extensive diplomatic commercial and military interests in its core areas of southwestern and south central iran mesopotamia and at times even parts of what is today syria it reached the peak of its power during what we call the shimashiki and sukhama periods or roughly between 2100 to 1500 bc after this elam went through a slow but steady decline though it was still powerful enough to influence the politics and economics of mesopotamia and beyond the time period between the fall of the powerful middle elamite shut rookie dynasty around 1100 bc to the rise of the accommodate persian empire around 550 bc is known as the neo-elamite period similar to the early and middle elamite periods the land of ilam during this time also roughly encompassed the modern iranian provinces of kuzistan and fars though susa still thrived as one of the great near eastern metropolises for reasons unknown anshan had greatly diminished in both size and influence unfortunately little is known about how or why this actually happened as the site of anshan known as talimalyan has not been thoroughly excavated the neo-elamite period is arguably one of the most complex of all eras of elamite history this is generally due to the sources or rather lack of sources that are available there are very few elamite sources outside of a few fragments of inscriptions uncovered in and around susa or etched into nearby cliffs and in all honesty they don't really tell us much for example collectively they mentioned the names of only 12 kings during a span of approximately 550 years so the reconstruction of local dynasties from these is nearly impossible the vast majority of our knowledge comes from babylonian and assyrian texts and inscriptions and these as you've probably already guessed can be quite biased most of them are excerpts from chronicles seals and a few economic and religious texts they also mostly deal with political history and so it's really difficult to know what life for the common man or woman in elam was like at the time in a previous episode entitled nebuchadnezzar and the triumph of babylon over ilam we learned that the last middle elamite king on record who telutu in shushinak was defeated by the babylonian king nebuchadnezzar the first at a battle near the ulai river for the next three centuries after this historical information on elam is almost non-existent what we do have are some elamite texts from the site of ancient they make reference to two babylonian kings one of these mar biti apla usar is said to have had elamite ancestry this has actually also been confirmed in a babylonian chronicle which reads mar biti apla usar a distant descendant of ilam reigned six years he was buried in sargon's palace one king the dynasty of elam he reigned six years the second babylonian king who appears in elamite tex is marduk balasu ikbi to which in 814 bc a garrison of elamite troops was sent to support his rule other references to ilam come from assyrian sources in one of them king shamshiyadaad v after the battle of dur papsukal reports that the people of areas in and around dare parsumash and bitbunnaki fled and sought shelter in ilam a few decades later there's mention of an elamite ambassador at the court of the assyrian capital of kalhu as well as reference to wine rations for elamite employees there's also a few texts describing assyrians manufacturing a certain elamite bow and equipping their archers with it as interesting as these fragments are they don't really give us a clear picture of what was going on in ilam at the time besides inscriptions archaeological surveys have yielded a few interesting findings at least with regard to the population while the populace of susa seems to have remained relatively stable that of onshone over time greatly decreased in fact archaeologists believe that it may have shrunk from a city of thirty to forty thousand around fifteen hundred bc to just four to eight 000 a few centuries later making it more like a large town than an actual city after the year 743 bc we start to get more information on elam and some of its kings this is partly because they began to take a more active role in the politics of ancient mesopotamia basically the elamites were terrified at the rapid expansion of the neo-assyrian empire and so elamite king's almost universally adopted a policy of allying with their age-old enemy of babylon to thwart assyrian expansion both in southern mesopotamia as well as into their own territory according to a babylonian chronicle in 743 bc a king named humban nikash became the ruler of elam he was a contemporary of the powerful assyrian king tigath pelazer iii though there was no open conflict between elam and assyria at the time humban nikash must have felt threatened when tilath pelazer took over large parts of babylonia and named himself king of babylon there was also at least one instance where tigalath pelazar even crossed the elamite frontier to pursue his aramaian enemies however there was little that the elamites could do as tiglath palesar was way too powerful to challenge in an open conflict finally in 720 bc and after tigalat pelazer iii's death hunban nikash decided to throw in his lot with the babylonian kaldayan freedom fighter or if you were an assyrian rebel marduk ii there was also though a new assyrian king in town sargon ii in the first major battle between the elamite babylonian alliance and assyria the babylonian chronicle actually credits the elamites with doing most of the fighting on their behalf despite marduk apla idina not showing up until after the battle was over the chronicle reports that hunban nikash had a resounding victory against assyrian forces for now mardukapla idina was safe as the ruler of babylon though the elamites may have won the battle sargon's troops still occupied the strategic fortress city of dare often called the gateway to ilam and the east upon the death of huban nikash in 717 bc the babylonian chronicle again our main source tells us that he was succeeded by shuruk nahunte ii who turns out was not his son at least according to inscriptions found in ilam at the time sargon ii was busy campaigning in other regions leaving babylonia virtually undefended which allowed marduk appla idina to return and take power there yet again shutruck nhunted ii seems to have had a more cautious policy towards babylon and assyria than his predecessor though outwardly he supported babylon against assyria he didn't support them in their hour of need when sargon returned in 710 bc to deal with marduk apla idina in fact when mardu kaplan fled babylon he tried to bribe shuruk nahunte with a fine bed thrown table silver wash basin and jewelry shut-rook tahunte took the objects but ultimately fell short of lending any military support or even granting marduk asylum in elam shortly afterward though the two kings did come to blows over a small mountain kingdom called ilipi today in the area of the zagros mountains south of the modern day city of kermanshah the conflict started over the death of king dalta of ilipi who was a vassal of assyria dalta though had not left behind in air and so a power struggle broke out between his nephews nibi and ishpavara while nibi turned to shuruk nahunte and ilam for support ishpabara had the backing of sargon ii of assyria according to a syrian texts shutruck nahunte sent 4 500 bowmen to aid nibi but ultimately these weren't enough to combat the resources at the disposal of the assyrian army ishpavara became king of elipi with sargon later writing that he and i quote filled the entire land of elam with paralyzing fear for attempting to challenge him though each side would continue to do things to antagonize the other it became clear at the time that neither wanted an all-out war between their two nations besides the prize babylon was once again firmly within assyrian control and so there was no need for sargon to possibly jeopardize his position there sargon also was content to leave marduk apla aidina in his stronghold in the south as long as the latter agreed not to cause unrest in babylon in 705 bc sargon ii was killed in battle fighting against chimerians and succeeded by his son senakireb two years later in 703 bc the rebel marduk apla idina returned this time around he was seemingly more powerful as he'd secured the allegiance of several khaldayan and aramaian tribes perhaps due to this shut rukh nahunte ii also decided to join the fray sinakareb gives us an account of his first campaign against the babylonian elamite alliance in one of his many inscriptions mardukapla king of babylon a rebel plotting treachery a criminal abhorring justice turned to shut-ruknahunte king of ilam for help and bestowed upon him gold silver and precious stones and asked him for support as help for him he shut rukh nahunte sent to sumer and akkad imbapa the general together with nergal nasir the sutian chieftain eighty thousand bowmen and horses though we don't have any other accounts especially elamite ones it seems to have been a pretty impressive anti-assyrian coalition the problem though may have been the willingness or lack of courage or even simply the inability of marduk appla idina to lead the forces backing him against sennacherib it was also the elamites who were doing most of the fighting perhaps fearing defeat idina fled south yet again to the kaldayan strongholds where he had sought shelter in the past while shuruk nahunte's forces realizing that their candidate for king was perhaps a coward retreated back to ilam this allowed tanaka rip to enter babylon once again and install his son ashr nadeem shumi as king deciding for the moment not to pursue marduk aplaidina he then went to the northeast to campaign in the zagros mountains it turns out that ispabara the king of eliphi whom his father sargon had pretty much given the throne to was in open rebellion against assyria in 700 bc sinakira returned to babylon and put an end to marduk appla idina once and for all forcing the ladder to flee yet again this time for good according to sanakareb's inscriptions the two-time nuisance had simply died in the marshes the ilamite incursions into babylonian and assyrian affairs had ultimately been failures for shuruk nahunte and perhaps due to this in 700 or 699 bc the elamite king was deposed by his brother alushu in shushinak we'll simply call him halushu his early years on the throne were relatively quiet and he may have initially wanted peace with assyria however sinakireb wasn't in the same frame of mind perhaps like his father and grandfather before him he also wanted to make a name for himself as a great conqueror up until then he had just been chasing rebels and essentially been putting out fires it was time for him to make a name for himself in 694 bc sennacherib decided to preemptively attack ilam as punishment for its past support of babylonian rebels he built a fleet of warships in nineveh had phoenicians sailed down the tigris to the gulf loaded the boats with his troops and then ferried them to southern ilam in order to lead a ground assault on the elamite capital of susa though the assyrians did capture several elamite principalities and towns they didn't reach their goal of taking susa alushu retaliated not by attacking the assyrians head-on in the south which he probably left to the locals to take care of but instead by marching directly into babylonia a babylonian chronicle recounts what happened next haluchu king of ilam came against akkad entered sipar toward the end of the month teshritu and slew the inhabitants ashr nadeem was captured and carried off to elam the king of ilam placed nergal ushizib on the throne of babylon and invaded assyria in a letter from sannakareb to his son and the future crown prince isar hadan he also mentions ashra nadine shumi's capture but it's by babylonians not elamites who captured and then extradited him to elam where it's assumed that he was executed as for nurgal ushizib who was the new elamite appointed puppet king of babylon he didn't last too long and was eventually captured by sanakareb who tells us that his men threw him fettered into a cage and brought him to me i tied him up in the middle city gate of nineveh like a pig of course sanakareb had the right to be angry after all the elamites with babylonian support had just murdered his son so much for elam's latest babylonian adventure as for elam's own king halushu according to a babylonian chronicle his people rebelled against halluchu king of ilam imprisoned and slew him this seems to have been a common pattern in ilam a king would launch a foreign campaign only to be defeated and shortly afterward his restless people or opportunistic princes replaced him in most cases with violence you see in such wars especially with a superpower such as assyria it wasn't simply just the loss of men and territory that hurt everyday elamites but the halt of economic activity as well along with its military might assyria would have also placed severe economic sanctions on ilam and other states that did business with it this most definitely would have included grain and other foodstuffs from babylonia which sanakareb would have no doubt ordered to have been completely cut off and so facing starvation and economic ruin it's not hard to see how or why in times of crisis the general elamite population would have been eager to foster some sort of change by overthrowing the kings that they saw as the cause of their suffering the instability in ilam was also an opportunity for sanakareb who in the aftermath of hulusu's death in 693 bc to launch an offensive against his now most hated enemy the new elamite king koto najunte ii had little time to muster together any significant defense and he's said to have evacuated many of his people from the areas that were under a syrian attack with regard to what was left behind sennacherib claims the strong cities his treasure houses and the small cities as far as the pass of bitburnaki i besieged i captured i carried off their spoil i destroyed i devastated i burned with fire as for couture nojunte ii a babylonian chronicle merely states that he was seized during an uprising and killed shocker there i know he ruled for no more than ten months kutunuhunte's successor was humban nemena iii who according to sanakareb gathered to himself a large body of confederates the men of parsoua anshan pasiru ilipi the whole of kaldea and all the aramaians these with the king of babylon drew near and set upon me offering battle trusting in the might of usher my lord i fought with them on the plane of holule so this is actually a very interesting quote it refers to what's known as the battle of halule and mentions a grand coalition consisting of some very interesting participants of course we have sennacherib's great nemesis of any king of babylon who was not appointed by him and also the troublesome backstabbing kingdom of elipi which was mentioned earlier however it's the non-traditional adversaries including the parsoua and anshan which i feel we should take a closer look at in the old iranian language parsoua means borderland which makes sense as it was literally one of the border or buffer states between the assyrian heartland and elam who the parsoua were though is still hotly debated you have some scholars that make the claim that they're actually the persians but this has also been shot down by others who point out that though they may have been an indo-european people they're not the same group from which the akaminids would eventually sprout from this though is definitely a topic for another time equally interesting is the reference to anshan which had been missing from neo-assyrian inscriptions and almost just as absent from elamite ones as well save for the title king of anshan and susa that kings up until sritruk nahunte ii had used pierre briant who's one of the top experts on akameen in persia suggests that this may have been because by then anshan had probably been lost by the kings of susa to the arrival of a new power mainly indo-european tribes like the persians so then the question becomes was this contingent in the coalition from anshan led by elamites or persians based simply on the name we can't tell but it's something interesting to think about and perhaps explore in another program but back to the battle of holule on this there are conflicting accounts the babylonian chronicle says that and i quote the armies of ilam and akkad made an attack upon assyria at halule and defeated assyria sidnakareb though insists that he won in what's known as the nebi yunus inscription he states i defeated them cutting down with the sword 150 000 of their warriors the king of babylon and the king of elam the chilling terror of my battle overcame them they let their dung go into their chariots they ran off alone and fled their land later that year in 689 bc humban nemena iii suffered a stroke and died the next few years were chaotic in both southern mesopotamia and elam for one tsinakireb absolutely decimated the city of babylon now i've discussed this event in some detail in other programs so i won't dwell on it here but just to remind you of how total the destruction was i'll let some of synakareb's words speak for themselves 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 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 sennacherib was true to his word he also had no intention of rebuilding the city and thus denied the next elamite ruler a new babylonian king to be his ally very little is known of humban haltash the first with the exception that he seemed to die of natural causes in 681 bc and was succeeded by humban haltash the second sanakareb also died that year and was succeeded by his son isar hadan the new king of assyria was not like his father for one he pursued a policy of reconciliation with babylon including rebuilding the city this policy also seemed to extend to babylon's allies including ilam humban haltash ii's brother ortok became king in 674 bc and concluded a treaty with isar hadan where in addition to a cessation of hostilities looted property such as religious statues were exchanged between both countries this good will even extended after isar hadan's death when the new king of assyria asharbanipal sent grain to elam to help relieve the effects of a famine elamite refugees were even allowed to settle in assyria until conditions in their homeland improved urtuk though didn't return the favor according to asher nepal he was duped into a war with assyria by three other officials who wanted to see the assyrian presence in babylonia eliminated in his annals ashurbanipal stresses ortok's betrayal of his father's treaty and describes the conflict that ensued thereafter on my eighth campaign i marched against urtoc king of ilam who was not mindful of the favors of the father who begat me and did not maintain friendly relations when hard times arose in elam and there was famine i sent him grain to keep his people alive grasped his hand those of his people who had fled before the hard times and settled in assyria until rain fell in his land and there was a harvest those people who had kept themselves alive in my land i sent back to him the elamite in attack by whom i had never considered with my heart of whose enmity i had not even thought bel-ixa chief of the gambulu tribe nabushum irish governor of nipur and marduk shum ibn a general of uttak who had made common cause with them they incited urtoc king of ilam with lies urtak with whom i was not at enmity mustered his army rushed the war into the land of cardunyash for reconnaissance upon the king of elam i dispatched my messenger i sent him in haste and he went returned and reported reliable information to me saying the elamite like the encroachment of grasshoppers is covering all of akkad keep in mind that this is usher banipal's version of events we currently don't have another elamite account of what happened or ortox real motive for breaking the treaty and joining what seemed to have been a relatively insignificant coalition at least in comparison to years past anyway asher banipal tells us how he fought against and defeated the anti-assyrian coalition as for urtoc the gods according to asher banipal gave him a slow death what in reality was probably some sort of disease asharbanipal tells us when he heard of the advance of my army fear overcame him so he returned to his land i took after him accomplished his defeat pursued him to the border of his land ortok king of ilam who had not maintained friendly relations on a day not appointed by fate death became hostile to him a mid-morning he began to reach his end and seep away his feet no longer stood in the land of the living that same year his life came to an end he went to his dismal fate asher and ishtar his royal dynasty they removed the dominion of the land they gave to another afterwards te uman image of a galu demon sat on the throne of urtak given the relatively short reigns of previous elamite kings due to domestic unrest tehuman took no chances and went about purging elam of urtuk's family or anyone who was closely associated with him asharbanipal though was more than happy to grant asylum to any of these individuals for him they were simply more political leverage that he had over ilam ashurbanipal lists several family and other members of the dead king's entourage who sought refuge with him according to an inscription taehuman sent messengers monthly to ashurbanipal demanding that he extradite the remaining members of ortox family to elam but the assyrian king refused with each king making demands and throwing insults at the other the stage was set for yet another protracted conflict between elam and assyria in 653 bc te uman began raising an army with which to attack assyria in response asher bannipal led a sizable force to dare the babylonian gateway to elam and the east the two met in a pitched battle at tiltuba on the banks of the ulai river in short ashar banipal and the assyrian army decimated the elamite force and killed both teiuman and his son tamarito in inscriptions found at nineveh asher banipal tells us i cut off the head of te uman their king the boaster who plotted evil countless of his heroes i killed the battle of tiltuba is famously depicted in several reliefs that were carved onto panels on the walls of asher nepal's palace at nineveh now in the british museum they look like several comic strips put together to create an ancient graphic novel which is not really too far off the mark because actually in their day these panels would have been painted with bright colors the assyrian army is depicted as having some of the best iron weapons breast armor and helmets basically the best and most advanced military technology of their day however the elamite soldiers if you could call them that are simply dressed in short tunics with headbands all that they really have are a sack of arrows and some carts that seem as if they were used as troop transports one may wonder if this is even a professional army and not just some ragtag militia hastily put together to combat the assyrian invasion force we'll never really know because we only have the assyrian side of the story which blames te uman for everything the result of the battle of tiltuba was that the elamite army was massacred and te uman's head was severed off his body and taken back to nineveh where it was suspended by a ring from a tree in ashurbanipal's garden something that's also clearly illustrated in a well-known relief from asher banipal's palace strategically the defeat of te uman had lasting some would say fatal consequences for elam ashibanipal clearly had the upper hand militarily and he also had princes and other members of ortox family that he could send to susa with his backing to rule as puppets basically elam would become a client state of assyria it's ironic that two of the princes whom taeuman demanded to be extradited to ilam actually were sent back just not in the way that te'uman would have wanted ruling over different parts of territory they became the new kings of elam the name of one of these kings was umanigash who went by the throne name humban nikash ii in the end it was really an assyrian civil war that sealed the fate of ilam just before isar hadan asher banipal's father had died he divided rule of the assyrian empire between his two sons the older ashar banipal received jurisdiction over assyria and its outlying territories while the younger shemashumuwkin was named king of babylon technically they were part of the same empire but in charge of two different areas over time though shamashu muhuken felt like a second class ruler compared to his brother who presided over a much larger chunk of the empire than he did and so in 653 bc he declared war against his brother asher banipal for the throne of assyria once again the man who sat on the babylonian throne in this case the assyrian shamashumu formed an alliance with the kings of elam including those whom ashurbanipal had sent back without surprise ashervanipal was obviously a bit ticked off to say the least umanigash the refugee who had seized my royal feet whom i had placed on the throne of elam umanigash for whom i had done many favors made king of elam who was not mindful of the good relations he did not keep the oath of the great gods he accepted a bribe from the messengers of shuma muhuken my faithless brother my enemy in 652 bc umanigash aka humban nikash ii sent troops to join shamashumu'ukin's forces in southern babylonia near the elamite border there the combined elamite babylonian army was defeated by the assyrians again a familiar pattern emerges elamite forces are decisively defeated in battle the king leading or in charge of those forces is overthrown and a new king takes his place this is pretty much exactly what happened to umanigash who was dethroned and eventually murdered in 649 bc by a man believed to have been his nephew one of the best sources that we have of what was going on in ilam at the time was not one of usher banipal's inscriptions but letters from one of his generals named bel ibni these letters periodically inform the king of events in the elamite camp and beyond it's from these documents that we learn about anti-assyrian activities in the southern marshes of babylonia that there was famine on the elamite side of the gulf and that bel-ibny orchestrated raids across the elamite border that resulted in the capture of hundreds if not thousands of cattle using cavalry and archers in squadrons of 100. umanigash's successor was inda begash who ruled perhaps for just over a year between 649 to 648 bc realizing that shamashumukin would eventually lose the civil war to his brother he threw out an olive branch to ashurbanipal by releasing several assyrian prisoners and then sent an ambassador to nineveh to conclude a treaty with assyria asharbanipal though wanted other prisoners to be released as well or else he'd make sure that indubagash would suffer the same fate as te uman whose head was probably still hanging from a tree in nineveh either the message never got to elam or it fell on deaf ears after arriving because the release of the prisoners demanded by asher banipal never happened and so asharbanipal yet again marched against elam and when the elamite people heard that he was on his way in a repeat of history they revolted against inda bhigash and killed him the man to replace him was uman al-dash who took the throne name humban haltash iii by now there was chaos if not total anarchy in ilam in addition to the political turmoil the economy was in shambles and there was famine as for the war between asher banipal and his brother shamashumukin after four years it finally ended in 648 bc when assyrian troops entered babylon sacked the city and if the techs are to be believed killed shamashumu ukin by burning him alive as he took shelter in his palace with his rebellious sibling out of the way asharbanipal could now focus more energy on the perennial elamite problem the situation in ilam had gone from very bad to worse bel ibni asher banipal's main general in the south wrote the following in a series of letters umanigash son of ahmadirah has formatted a revolt against umanaldas from the hood hood river to the town of handanu the people have rallied to him umanaldas has gathered his troops right now they've taken up a position on the river facing each other in another letter he wrote that the people were in full revolt and that uman al-dash fearing for his life had taken refuge in the mountains by this time asher banipal must have been tired of having to deal with his eastern neighbor again and again and so he along with his generals such as belle ibny launched one final massive campaign to deal with the elamite problem once and for all in 647 bc the assyrian army ravaged and plundered the elamite countryside claiming to have destroyed 29 cities before laying waste to susa itself there was really nothing that the elamites could do their leader if you could call him that was in hiding and any rival princes or new claimants to the throne had little support outside of their own little principalities many of which were also laid to waste by the assyrian juggernaut umanaldas tried to rally whatever forces remained loyal to him for one last stand against asher banipal but without any success there's a passage from daniel t potts's book archaeology of elam that describes the situation quite well he writes crossing the edeed river umanaldas prepared his forces for battle using the river as a line of defense city after city fell to asher banipal's forces sending umanaldas once more into flight toward the mountains at this point the assyrian forces pressed eastward as far as the border of hidalu destroying cities and towns smashing some cult statues and seizing others as booty laying waste to an enormous area before turning back and heading for susa here asher banipal entered the elamite palaces opened their treasuries seized hold of the booty taken by earlier elamite kings from sumer akad and babylonia and took everything previously given by shamash to buy elamite allegiance all of the gods and goddesses of elam along with their treasures their possessions their ritual paraphernalia and their priesthood along with the statues of kings made of gold silver bronze and limestone were seized and taken back to assyria as booty the graves of former kings were opened and destroyed and monarch's bones were also transported to assyria the destruction lasted one month and 25 days there was even a statue of the goddess nanea that had been looted from uruk over 1600 years prior that was taken to nineveh in fact there must have been many such objects that had been accumulated by the elamite kings over the centuries as well as even a greater number that must have been left behind one of the more famous ones that we know about was the iconic monument with the law code of hammurabi now on display in the louvre that was actually uncovered in susa in 1901 by a french team of archaeologists now you all know how much i love quotes or primary sources and so i wanted to tack in one more from asher banipal with regard to the destruction of susa this is what happened in his own words in a month i leveled the whole of elam i deprived its fields of the sound of human voices the tread of cattle and sheep the refrain of joyous harvest songs i turned it into a pasture for wild asses gazelles and all manner of wild animals sousa the great holy city home of their gods seat of their mysteries i conquered i entered its palaces i opened their treasuries where silver and gold goods and wealth were amassed i destroyed the ziggurat of susa i smashed its copper horns i reduced the temples of elam to not their gods and goddesses i scattered to the winds the tombs of their ancient and recent kings i devastated i exposed to the sun and i carried away their bones toward the land of asher i devastated the provinces of elam and on their lands i sowed salt as for uman al-dash he was captured brought to nineveh and humiliated by being forced to draw asher banipal's carriage in a celebration and thus assyria's campaigns in ilam and really ilam itself as a formidable political entity ended the land which had for millennia developed side by side with the peoples kingdoms and empires of mesopotamia had been almost completely destroyed many elamites whether prisoners of war or captured townspeople were deported to all parts of the assyrian empire including the assyrian heartland samaria parts of what's today northern syria and even egypt some of them were even drafted into the assyrian army though obviously they fought in locales relatively far from their homeland though ashurbanipal may have dealt susa a nearly fatal blow in truth ilam's decline had probably started long before as it seems that the other great center of ilam the once magnificent city of anshan had all but been abandoned a few centuries prior this may have made it relatively easy for the parsa who we today know as the persians to have taken it over and for one line of the akameenids to have established a dynasty there we'll talk about elam during the persian period in another program thanks so much for joining me for this podcast i really hope you learned something and if you did definitely check out the history with psy channel and other material on instagram facebook and twitter thank you so much and i'll catch you in the next episode take care and stay safe

Channel: History with Cy

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Length: 42min 2sec (2522 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020