by
Damien F. Mackey
And
so lacking in this virtue [of modesty] was Sargon II, in fact, that historians
have had to create a complete Babylonian king, namely, Nebuchednezzar I, to
accommodate the
Assyrian's
rôle as ‘King of Babylon’.
What follows
here presupposes my view that Sargon II and Sennacherib ‘were’ one and the
same royal person, as explained in
(for example) my:
Assyrian King Sargon II, Otherwise Known As
Sennacherib
and in:
Sargon II and Sennacherib: More than just an overlap
Now I am going
to take a stage further, into the realm of Babylon, my expansion of the mighty
Sargon II, by proposing also that Nebuchednezzar I himself, who had a famous
battle with the Elamites outside Dêr, is to be recognised as the Babylonian
version of Sargon II/ Sennacherib, who indeed fought with the Elamites outside
Dêr. The neo-Assyrian king had succeeded Merodach-baladan as king of Babylon in
his 13th year, and had continued to reign there, placing now one governor, now
another, over the city. But Merodach-baladan himself had had a lengthy reign in
Babylon before finally being overthrown by the Assyrian king. What therefore
complicates a reconstruction of so-called ‘post-Kassite Babylonia’ - apart from
a serious dearth of material as noted by J. Brinkman, in A Political History
of Post-Kassite Babylonia. 1158-722 B.C. (Roma, Pontificium Institutum
Biblicum, 1968), who continuously laments this fact, “fragmentary inscriptions”
(p. 88), “veiled in obscurity” (p. 89), “relatively obscure” (p. 90), “quite
uncertain” (p. 92), and so on - a dearth due, I think, to the failure to
connect it with its C8th BC ‘other face’ - is this tricky Babylonian
succession, with, now Sennacherib, now the Chaldean king, Merodach-baladan,
ruling there; then Sennacherib ruling again; and now placing a son or other
official in charge. And also having to cope with the constant Elamite
interference in the region.
Whilst one can
basically follow this complex series of successions in Babylon in the
well-documented C8th BC context, it becomes extremely difficult in the
fragmentary ‘other half’ C12th BC context.
But let us try
to make some inroads.
Art,
Architecture and Other Overlaps
Revisionist
scholars have argued for an overlap of the art and architecture of both
(supposedly) historical periods in question here – but eras that I am
suggesting need to be fused into one. The likes of professor Lewis M. Greenberg
(“The Lion Gate at Mycenae”, Pensée, IVR III, 1973, p. 28); Peter James
(Centuries of Darkness, p. 273); Emmet Sweeney (Ramessides, Medes and
Persians, p. 24), and others, have all come to light with art-historical
observations of striking likenesses between art works of the 13th-12th
centuries BC, on the one hand, and the 9th-8th centuries BC art and
architecture, on the other. I, in my postgraduate university thesis,
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
quoting P.
James, wrote as follows about this art-historical overlap (Volume 1, Ch. 7, p.
181):
I should like to
recall that my revision of this actual period of Mesopotamian history may have
some degree of art-historical support; for, as already noted in Chapter 3 (p.
81), James claims to have found artistic likenesses between the C13th-12 th’s
BC and the neo-Assyrian period – though admittedly the data is scarce [Centuries
of Darkness, p. 273]: ….
Developments
in art are also difficult to trace. Not only is there a dearth of material, but
styles on either side of the gulf between the 12th and 10th centuries BC are
curiously similar. One scholar noted that the forms and decoration of the
intricately carved Assyrian seals of the 12th century are ‘clearly late’, as
they ‘point the way to the ornate figures which line the walls of the
Neo-Assyrian palace of Assurnasirpal [mid-9th century BC]’. The sculptors
employed by this king, in the words of another expert on Assyrian art, ‘worked
within a tradition that went back to the thirteenth century BC’. Not
surprisingly, then, the dating of the few sculptures which might belong to
this grey period has been hotly debated.
[End
of quote]
Nebuchednezzar I and his Contemporaries
------------------------------------------------------
And
so lacking in this virtue [of modesty] was Sargon II, in fact, that historians
have had to create a complete Babylonian king, namely, Nebuchednezzar I, to
accommodate the
Assyrian's
rôle as ‘King of Babylon’.
------------------------------------------------------
For the C12th BC
period the next substantial ruler of Babylon after Nebuchednezzar I - and not
connected to the latter’s dynasty - was one Adad-apla-iddina (c. 1067-1046 BC,
conventional dating). Now Adad-apla-iddina, a non-native Babylonian it is said,
appears to make a very good alter ego for the Chaldean, Merodach-baladan
(i.e. Marduk-apla-iddina). The origins of Merodach-baladan may well have been
with the incursion into Babylonia of semi-nomadic groups (Aramaeans, Chaldeans)
consequent to the sacking of Babylon by Tiglath-pileser I. I have already
identified the latter with Tiglath-pileser III, during the final part of
whose reign Merodach-baladan II first appears on the Babylonian scene. See e.g.
my:
Tiglath-pileser King of Assyria
At this point
[i.e. Tiglath-pileser I's destruction of Babylon], semi-nomads from the middle
Euphrates region interrupted the internal flow of Assyro-Babylonian history.
Crop failures and famine in at least two separate years debilitated the
inhabitants of the cultivated areas in Assyria and Babylonia; and the Arameans,
unable to obtain food through regular channels, spilled into the civilized
lands in search of food and plunder. The Assyrians in large numbers retired
towards the mountains, and Tiglath-pileser himself seems to have beaten a
strategic retreat to a region in the neighbourhood of the later Commagene.
[End
of quote]
Soon the throne
of Babylon passed to one of these newcomers [loc. cit.]:
… Adad-apla-iddina,
whom later Babylonian tradition linked with one of these semi-nomad groups.
During his reign, the Arameans and Sutians living along the Euphrates irrupted
into the land, devastating cult centers in Sippar, Nippur, Uruk, Der, and
Dur-Kurigalzu and perhaps fomenting trouble in Babylon itself. Relations
between the Assyrian and Babylonian kings remained friendly for the most part
during this period of changing regimes in the south. Though Assyria may have
assisted Adad-apla-iddina in gaining the throne, he paid the northern country
back by later interfering in the Assyrian royal succession.
[End
of quote]
This account by
Brinkman could perhaps also be a plausible explanation of how Merodach-baladan
had come to power in Babylon, with the assistance of the Assyrians (hence
perhaps the Adad element included in his name). And his having Assyrian support
might account, too, for how he managed to survive for so long. Though, all the
time he apparently had his own agenda that would eventually bring about his
ruin at the hands of his benefactors. Merodach-baladan appears to have been a
classic example of Isaiah’s ‘cunning, crooked serpent that was Babylon’ (27:1).
As for
Nebuchednezzar I, he, as we shall see, makes a very good Babylonian version of
Sargon II/Sennacherib. The major problem with this last suggestion, though,
would be that his father is thought to have been, as Brinkman tells, one
Ninurta-nadin-shumi [op. cit., p. 99], whose name does not bear any
resemblance at all to that of the father of Sargon II/ Sennacherib. A possible
explanation, given the dearth of genealogical material for this same
Ninurta-nadin-shumi as attested by Brinkman [op. cit., p. 98], is
that Ninurta-nadin-shumi may actually have been the like-named (but with
Assyrian theophoric) Ashur-nadin-shumi, son of Sennacherib, whose name actually
precedes Sennacherib’s in a second phase of the latter’s as ruler of Babylon,
as given in the Xth Babylonian Dynasty list [See C. Boutflower’s The Book of
Isaiah. Chapters [1-XXXIX], London, Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, 1930, p. 101].
I have, in a
most recent re-assessment of “Holofernes”, the anti-hero of the Book of Judith,
identified him with this same Ashur-nadin-shumi (and with “Nadin” of the Book
of Tobit):
"Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the
"Holofernes" of Judith
Much of king
Nebuchednezzar I’s own history is recorded in Sumerian, about which culture the
highly adventurous professor G. Heinsohn,
in his “The Restoration of Ancient History”, makes the following intriguing
connection with Chaldean:
Though the ancient Greeks
freely admitted that their science teachers were Chaldaeans (from Southern
Mesopotamia/Babylonia), they never gave any hint that they trailed their
inspirers by one-and-a-half millennia. They rather gave the impression that Chaldaean
knowledge was obtainable by travelling Greek students. Today, we are taught
that there were no Chaldaean teachers to speak of. This supposedly most learned
nation of mankind, did not leave us bricks or potsherds, not to mention written
treatises.
....
Nevertheless, researchers
before 1868 - when Jules Oppert created the term Sumerian - had called
proto-Chaldaean that today is called Sumerian. Up to the end of the 19th
century, art historians labeled as Chaldaean artifacts which today are called Sumerian
artifacts. At the turn of the century, major European museums underwent a
relabeling procedure from Chaldaean to Sumerian on their exhibition pieces from
Southern Mesopotamia.
Whilst I am far
from accepting most of Heinsohn’s radical model of revision, I do find rather
interesting what E. Sweeney has written in support of the former’s
Sumero-Chaldean link (“Gunnar Heinsohn’s Mesopotamian Historiography”, SIS
Chronology and Catastrophism Workshop, No. 2 [UK, 1987], pp. 20-21):
The Chaldaeans, according to
Assyrian sources from the first millennium, occupied 900 cities, 88 of which
were walled. Many of these were presumably located in Lower Mesopotamia, where
the Assyrians regularly located the Kaldu, yet of the 900 cities not a trace,
not a single brick, or inscription, has been discovered. On the other hand, a
whole civilisation (Sumerian), unknown to the ancients, but which left an
abundance of records and remains, has been discovered in exactly the same area.
.... Concomitant with the loss
of the Chaldaean cities was the loss of the Chaldaean language. Yet against
this painful loss was the great gain of the Sumerian tongue, previously
unknown. Archaeology seems basically to lean in the direction of this
identification, in that the old ‘Sumerian’ remains of the Ur III dynasty are
frequently found directly underneath the remains of the later Babylonian kings.
This, Heinsohn's explanation, appears to have solved the age-old Sumerian
problem.
The
Elamite/Shutrukids
In 1985, Lester
Mitcham had attempted to identify the point of fold in the Assyrian King List
[AKL], necessary for accommodating the downward revision of ancient history.
(“A New Interpretation of the Assyrian King List”, Proc. 3rd Seminar of C
and AH, pp. 51-56). He looked to bridge a gap of 170 years by bringing the
formerly C12th BC Assyrian king, Ninurta-apil-Ekur, to within closer
range of his known C14th BC ancestor, Eriba-Adad I. In the same publication,
Dean Hickman had argued even more radically for a lowering, by virtually a
millennium, of formerly C19th BC king Shamsi-Adad I, now to be recognised as
the biblical king, Hadadezer, a Syrian foe of king David of Israel. (“The
Dating of Hammurabi”, pp. 13-28). And I myself have accepted this adjustment
in:
Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim
as Contemporaries of Solomon
Prior to all
that, Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had of course urged for a folding of the C14th BC
Kassite king {and el-Amarna correspondent}, Burnaburiash II, with the C9th BC
Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III, who had conquered Babylon. (Ages in Chaos, Vol.
I, 1952).
And there have
been other attempts as well to bring order to Mesopotamian history and
chronology; for example, Phillip Clapham‟s attempt to identify the C13th
Assyrian king, Tukulti-Ninurta I, with the C8th BC king, Sennacherib.
(“Hittites and Phrygians”, C and AH, Vol. IV, pt. 2, July, 1982, p.
111). Clapham soon realised that, despite some initially promising
similarities, these two kings could not realistically be merged. (ibid., Addenda,
p. 113). Whilst all of these attempts have some merit, other efforts were
doomed right from the start because they infringed against established
archaeological sequences. Thus Mitcham, again, exposed Sweeney’s defence of
Professor Heinsohn’s radical revision, because of its blatant disregard,
in part, for archaeological fact. (“Support for Heinsohn’s Chronology is
Misplaced”, C and CW, 1988, 1, pp. 7-12).
Here I want
briefly to propose what I think can be a most compelling fold; one that
(a) does not infringe against
archaeology, and that
(b) harmonises approximately
with previous art-historical observations of likenesses between 13th-12th
centuries BC and 9th-8th centuries BC art and architecture. And it also has the
advantage - unlike Mitcham’s and Clapham’s efforts - of
(c) folding kings with the
same name.
I begin by
connecting Merodach-baladan I and II (also equated by Heinsohn - as noted by
Mitcham, op. cit.), each of 12-13 years of reign, about whose kudurrus
Brinkman remarked (op. cit., p. 87, footnote 456):
Four kudurrus ..., taken
together with evidence of his building activity in Borsippa ... show
Merodach-baladan I still master in his own domain. The bricks recording the
building of the temple of Eanna in Uruk ..., assigned to Merodach-baladan
I by the British Museum‟s A Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities
... cannot now be readily located in the Museum for consultation; it is highly
probable, however, that these bricks belong to Merodach-baladan II (see Studies
Oppenheim, p. 42 ...).
My proposal here
involves a C12th to C8th BC fold.
But, more
strikingly, I draw attention to the succession of Shutrukid rulers of Elam of
the era of Merodach-baladan I who can be equated, as a full succession, with
those of the era of Merodach-baladan II. Compare:
C12th
BC
|
C8th
BC
|
Shutruk-Nahhunte
|
Shutur-Nakhkhunte
|
Kudur-Nahhunte
|
Kutir-Nakhkhunte
|
Hulteludish
(or Hultelutush-Insushinak)
|
‘Hallushu’
(or Halutush-Inshushinak).
|
This is already
far too striking, I think, to be accidental. And it, coupled with the
Merodach-baladan pairing, may offer far more obvious promise than have previous
efforts of revision. There is also lurking within close range a powerful king
Tiglath-pileser, variously I and III. Apart from the approximate synchronisms
with the Elamite Shutrukids, as tabulated above, we find too that
Nebuchednezzar I’s reign length of 22 years conforms rather well to the
standard estimate of Sennacherib’s total period of rule of approximately 21-24
years. This new scenario also puts a completely new slant on Sargon
II/Sennacherib’s presumed ‘modesty’ in not taking the title of ‘King of
Babylon’ as had Tiglath-pileser III, preferring to use the older shakkanaku
(‘viceroy’). That modesty was not however an Assyrian characteristic we have already
seen abundantly. And so lacking in this virtue was Sargon II, in fact, that
historians have had to create a complete Babylonian king, namely,
Nebuchednezzar I, to accommodate the Assyrian's rôle as ‘King of
Babylon’.
Nebuchednezzar,
like Sennacherib, had successful and unsuccessful campaigns against Elam, on
one occasion striking deep into the Elamite heartland (Cf. Brinkman, op.
cit., p. 106 and G. Roux, Iraq, pp. 321-322).
‘Their’
restoration work in Babylonia may perhaps be compared. We know that
Nebuchednezzar, in Babylon, constructed a shrine for the god Adad (an
Assyrian god, note), “another of his divine patrons in war”; and he restored a
statue of the god Marduk to his temple. In Nippur, he restored the famous Ekur
temple; and, at Ur, he gave to a temple “precious gold” and “two bowls of red
gold” (Brinkman, op. cit., p. 113). Sargon II simply records, without
specific details (D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, Vol.
2, NY, #182): “I undertook the (re)habilitation of Sippar, Nippur, Babylon and
Borsippa,
… and remitted
the taskwork of Dêr, Ur, Uruk, Eridu, Larsa …”.
The Vizier
(Ummânu)
One indication
that I may be on the right track in attempting to merge the C12th BC king of
Babylon, Nebuchednezzar I, with the C8th BC king of Assyria, Sennacherib (=
Sargon II), is that one finds during the reign of ‘each’ a vizier of such fame
that he was to be remembered for centuries to come. It is now reasonable to
assume that this is one and the same vizier. I refer, in the case of
Nebuchednezzar I, to the following celebrated vizier (Brinkman, op. cit.,
pp. 114-115):
… during these years in
Babylonia a notable literary revival took place …. It is likely that this burst
of creative activity sprang from the desire to glorify fittingly the
spectacular achievements of Nebuchednezzar I and to enshrine his memorable
deeds in lasting words. These same deeds were also to provide inspiration for
later poets who sang the glories of the era …. The scribes of Nebuchednezzar’s
day, reasonably competent in both Akkadian and Sumerian…, produced works of an
astonishing vigor, even though these may have lacked the polish of a more
sophisticated society. The name Esagil-kini-ubba, ummânu or "royal
secretary" during the reign of Nebuchednezzar I, was preserved in
Babylonian memory for almost one thousand years - as late as the year 147 of
the Seleucid Era (= 165 B.C.)….
To which
Brinkman adds the footnote (ibid., n. 641): “Note … that
Esagil-kini-ubba served as ummânu also under Adad-apla-iddina and, therefore,
his career extended over at least thirty-five years”.
Even better
known is Ahikar (var. Akhiqar), a character both of legend and of real history.
Regarding his popularity, we read (The Jerome Biblical Commentary, NJ,
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968, 28:28):
The story of Ahikar is one of
the most phenomenal in the ancient world in that it has become part of
many different literatures and has been preserved in several different
languages: Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Slavonic, and Old Turkish. The most
ancient recension is the Aramaic, found amongst the famous 5th-cent. BC papyri
that were discovered at the beginning of the 20th cent. on Elephantine Island
in the Nile. The story worked its way into the Arabian nights and the Koran; it
influenced Aesop, the Church Fathers as well as Greek philosophers, and the Old
Testament itself.
There are
various fabulous legends about Ahikar and his association with Sennacherib.
For instance,
the latter supposedly commissioned Ahikar to build a castle in the sky. More
realistically though, according to his uncle, Tobit: “Ahikar had been chief
cupbearer, keeper of the signet, administrator and treasurer under Sennacherib”
and was kept in office after Sennacherib’s death. At some point in time Ahikar
seems to have been promoted to Vizier (Ummânu), second in power in the
mighty kingdom of Assyria, “Chancellor of the Exchequer for the kingdom and
given the main ordering of affairs” (Tobit 1:21, 22).
Ahikar was Chief
Cupbearer, or Rabshakeh, during Sennacherib’s Third Campaign when
Jerusalem was besieged (2 Kings 18:17; Isaiah 36:2). His title (Assyrian rab-šakê)
means, literally, “the great man”. It was a military title, marking its bearer
amongst the greatest of all the officers.
Tobit tells us
that Ahikar (also given in the Vulgate of Tobit as Achior, "son of
light") was the son of his brother Anael (Tobit 1:21). Ahikar was
therefore Tobit's nephew of the tribe of Naphtali, taken into captivity
by the Assyrian king, "Shalmaneser", father of Sennacherib. He is the
Achior of the Book of Judith. For more on this, see my:
Wise Ahikar (= Achior) one- time mouthpiece of king
Sennacherib
The New
Catholic Encyclopedia, whilst incorrectly (I believe) suggesting that:
“There does not appear to be any demonstrable connection between this Achior
[of Judith] and the Ahikar of the [legendary] Aramaic Story”, confirms however
that the name Achior can be the same as Ahikar (“Ahikar”, NCE, Vol.
VIII, p. 222):
A certain Achior is mentioned
in four passages of the Book of Tobit. He is presented as chief administrator
and royal adviser (“keeper of the seal”) under Esarhaddon and is claimed as
Tobit’s nephew (1:21-22) and friend (2:10). .... In view of these striking
similarities there can be little doubt that this Achior is to be identified
with Ahikar of the Aramaic Story. Moreover, the spelling of the name in the
Greek text [Axi{‹}karoû] eliminates any difficulty on that score.
In The
Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, article “Ahikar”, Abingdon Press,
N.Y., p. 69, E. Kraelin notes the name similarity, but is likewise reluctant to
identify the two.
Chaldea, a
cunning, 'crooked serpent' diplomatically, has also been a tortuous riddle for
historians to try to unravel.
