|
 THE ARAMAIZATION OF ASSYRIA:
ASPECTS OF WESTERN IMPACT
HAYIM
TADMOR
Historian of the
Bible and Ancient Near East who established an international centre of
Assyriology
Hayim Frumstein (Hayim
Tadmor), Assyriologist: born Harbin, China 18 November 1923; Professor,
Department of Assyriology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1971-93;
married 1953 Miriam Skura (one son, one daughter); died Jerusalem 11
December 2005.
Modern scholarship has recognized the impact of the
Arameans and Aramaic upon the Assyrian empire ever since Layard
discovered the bronze lion weights of Shalmaneser V at Nimrud, with
denominations of the weights incised in Akkadian and Aramaic (1).Then
followed the appearance of the cuneiform tablets with Aramaic
endorsements, Aramaic dockets and the representations on the monuments
of an Aramean scribe alongside the Assyrian scribe (2). The interest in
these significant, though few, finds has been renewed with the recent
stress in scholarship on inner social, economic and cultural processes
of Assyria, rather than its political history. It is now generally
accepted that the conquered Arameans and other West Semitic peoples
strongly affected the cultural development of their conquerors, not
unlike the Greek imprint upon the Romans.
And indeed, hundreds of thousands of captives from
West of the Euphrates, largely soldiers, craftsmen and artisans were
assimilated into the conqueror`s society, thus making their imprint upon
the small but warring Assyrian nation. In the language of the sources
they “were regarded as Assyrians" (3), sharing equally, it seems, with
their captors in the burden of taxation and conscription (4).ln the
provinces along the Khabur and the Balikh the West Semitic element had
always been predominant; but from the ninth century on, the population
of the newly built capitals Kalakh, Dur-Sharrukin and Nineveh also
consisted in the main of people from the West; the deportees from the
Aramean and the: Neo-Hittite states, Phoenicians, Israelites and
Judeans, as well as some semitized Philistines and Arabians.
Four aspects are chosen to illustrate the extent of
the Western, mainly Aramaic, impact: The Westerners in Assyrian office,
The Use of Aramaic in the Empire; Bilingualism and Lexical Interference
and Borrowed institutions.
I.
Westerners in Assyrian Office and Army
The Westerners in Assyria are traced primarily from
the personal names appearing in administrative documents and letters
(5); rarely are the deportees, now regarded as Assyrians, marked by
their origin.
In the initial process of acculturation it may be
supposed that many Westerners, especially those of high social status,
may have chosen, or, have been given, Akkadian names for prestige value
(6). Perhaps the most famous is the case of Naqi'a-Zakkutu, the powerful
queen-”mother of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, who kept her original
West-Semitic name, alongside its Akkadian equivalent (7).
On the lower social level one finds bearers of
Akkadian names with West Semitic patronymics, such as; Bel-Ushallim son
of Ia-di-il (8). Ilu-Nadin-Apli son of Ra-hi-ma-a, a weaver
(9),Mannu-ki-Arba'il son of
Ahi-ia-u (an Israelite) (10), Nusku-aha~iddina son of
Ia-ta-na-e-li (a Phoenician) (12), Sin-aha-iddina son of Adad-Idri (13)
and Kidin-Sin, the young scribe (tupsarru sehru) the son of Su-ti-i,
'the Sutean' – the
royal scribe (14), Another example of acculturation
is the case of the four sons of an Itu’uean
(KUR I-tu-'a-a): Nabu-asharid, Mushallim-Ashur,
Ashur-mata-taqqin and Nabu-Na'id, in a document from the reign of
Tiglath-pileser III (15), shortly before the East-Aramean tribe of the
LU Itu'u began to be employed as garrisons in the newly conquered West
(l6).
The number of people bearing West Semitic proper
names may be even greater than the documents reflect, since they refer
to a limited cross-section of society. Furthermore, in the Assyrian
legal and administrative documents the patronymic of the witnesses and
parties concerned is usually not specified.
Ore finds “Westerners" in various sectors of
Assyrian society and though precise statements cannot be made for lack
of prosopographic” - statistical studies, it may not be an overstatement
to say that they had penetrated even into the high ranking officialdom
as provincial governors and limmu-holders (17)
Elsewhere, I have pointed to some of the officials,
who bore Aramaic or other West Semitic names (18):
e.g. Bur-Sagale - the eponym for the ominous year
763, Sidqi-ilu (eponym for 764), Hananu (eponym for 701), Gihilu/Gi'il-ilu
(eponym for 689), Atar-ilu (eponym for 673), Girisapunu, a
Phoenician-named governor of Rasappa (eponym for 660), and the literary
hero, the wise Ahiqar, "the keeper of the king's signet and counselor of
all Assyria," (19) ummanu of Esarhaddon. On a somewhat lower
level, we find provincial governors and district governors bearing West
Semitic names: e.g. Gulu-su the governor (shaknu) of the Itu'u,
Arbaya a provincial governor, (bel pihati) (Z0) and Adad-suri the
governor of the Arameans (shakin-mati [GAR.KUR] Ara-ma-a-a) (21)
Recently, cylinder and stamp seals of some high
ranking officials inscribed in Aramaic have come to light. Of special
interest is the cylinder seal impression on a tablet from the Mamu
temple at Balawat, which carries the last part of a name in an
alphabetic script (most probably Aramaic); [x]bdkr (22) Its owner was
apparently the senior officer in whose presence the transaction was
made. The text reads:
“Seal of the governor of Arzuhina, seal of Rimni-ili,
seal of Ahu-ili”, but the west Semitic name, or whatever remains of it,
cannot be reconciled with the two latter names. It must therefore be the
seal of the unnamed governor of Arzuhina. Why, then, should an Assyrian
governor have a seal inscribed in alphabetic script unless he served in
a West Semitic speaking area, or was of West Semitic descent?
The same would perhaps be true of the bearer of the
Aramaic stamp seal impression found as Khorsabad
pn ' sr/mr srsy/srgn,
"Pan-Ashur (short for Pan-Assur-lamur), the master (?) of the eunuchs of
Sargon " (23). It could, perhaps, be claimed that this courtier of
Sargon had two seals, a cylinder seal with cuneiform legend for tablets,
and this stamp seal tor Aramaic scrolls. At the same time, it stands to
reason that the existence of this stamp seal, as well as of the other
stamp and cylinder seals from Assyria inscribed in Aramaic (24),
suggests that their bearers were of Western descent; if so, then the
name Pan-Ashur-Lamur, points to another aspect of acculturation; the use
of Akkadian names as a sign of prestige and a manifestation of social
status .
A most important sector of Assyrian society in which
numerous deportees from the West were expectedly acculturated, was the
army augmented from the times of Tighlath-pileser I by the select troops
of conquered lands. In the ninth century, Ashurnasirpal II carried off
charioteers, cavalrymen, and foot-soldiers from Carchemish. This was
repeated in the late eighth century by Sargon II after the annexation of
Carchemish. Similarly, he carried off 50 (or 200) charioteers from
Samaria, as well as charioteers, cavalry, 20,000 bowmen and 1,000 shield
bearers from Kummuh (25). From this time onward it became an established
practice that the royal guard - kisir sharruti - was strengthened
by captive soldiers - a practice continued in the reigns of Sennacherib,
Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal,
No wonder therefore, that bearers of west Semitic
names are mentioned not infrequently as officers in the Assyrian army:
e.g. hanunu, "commander of the Eunuch’s guard [rab kisir sha
reshi, Salamanu, "commander of Queen Mother's guard rab-kisir-ummi-sharri
(26), Abdi-ili from Ashkelon, "the 'third on the chariot' of the chief
eunuch ", tashlishu-sha-rab-sha-reshi (27), or, on the lower
level, Ba'al-halusu the "commander of fifty", {rab-hanshu) (28),
Two administrative documents from Nimrud list
persons - soldiers, no doubt - "residing in fortresses” (29). They
include among others the following Israelites, to judge by their names;
Qu'ya[u],Hilqiya(u), who was in charge of 76 persons, Giriyau and Yasuri
(30).
In another document from the same archive a
qurubutu-officer - a special courier of some sort - bearing a
Phoenician name Sapinu, is sent to, or entrusted with, a group of
deportees (written ga-AB i.e. ga-liti), while another qurubutu-officer,
Ib(?}-ni-ia (an Israelite?) is sent to a group of (exiled) Israelites (KUR)
Samerinaya,(i.e. people of Samaria) (31). Probably, it was the task of
these and other similar officials (32) no doubt bilingual, to instruct
the exiles ā€¯to fear God and King" (palab
ili u sharri) (33) - the primary duty of the coerced, new "citizens"
of the Empire.
Occasionally, in contrast to these Western
homines novi, the descendent from an old, established family is
designated as Kalhu labiru, an “old Kalkhean" (34) or qinnate sha
Ninua labiruti - "old time families of Nineveh" (35) The newcomers
to Nineveh are derogatively referred to in that document - a letter to
the king ” as nashi'ani, perhaps "social upstarts" and
shagluti, deportees (36), (a word play on sakluti -
ignorant?). In any event, the resentment felt by veteran Ninevites
towards these newcomers is clearly expressed in that letter. Though
incidental, this is a significant statement, since we do not have
private correspondence from that period and according to the official,
imperial view, repeated time and time again in royal inscriptions, all
the deportees to Assyria were "regarded as Assyrians", with the
incumbent rights and obligations.
II.
The Use of Aramaic in the Assyrian Empire
There appears to be some evidence that in the
western parts of the Empire, Aramaic served as the language of diplomacy
and administration alongside of, or instead of Akkadian.
Three cases - ”all from the Assyrian royal
correspondence - can be cited. The first, and a rather intriguing case,
is that of the egirtu armitu, an Aramaic letter (37) referred to
in ABL 872. A servant of a certain Ashur-da'in-apli son of
Shulman-asharidu, is reported to have de- livered such a letter, which,
in turn, was sent to the king. The question is whether this person is
identical with Ashur-da'in-apli the son of Shalmaneser III, defeated and
dethroned by his brother Shamshi-Adad V (38), If so, then ABL 872 would
antedate by one century the other references to Aramaic letters in
Assyrian sources!
The second case is that of Nimrud Letter 13.
Qurdi-Ashur-lamur, (from the time of Tiglathat”pileser III, writes to
the king that he is sending an Aramaic letter from Tyre together with
the Assyrian letter which we have at hand: "I have had Nabu-ushezib
bring this sealed Aramaic letter (kaniku annitu armitu) from the
city of Tyre " (39). Likewise, it stands to reason, that the sealed
letter ” kaniku – mentioned in Nimrud letter 14 (40), sent by
Ayanuri the Tabilaean (whom Albright considered to be the "Son of Tab'el"
of Isaiah 7:6 (41) concerning the Moabites was also written in Aramaic,
since one can hardly expect Ayanuri - most likely a Moabite (42) - to
write in cuneiform.
Yet, the most noted case of the use of Aramaic in
the service of Assyrian diplomacy is, no doubt, that of the Rab-shaqe,
the Chief Cupbearer (II Kings 18:17 ff,). When this high courtier was
about to address the ambassadors of Hezekiah, he surprised them and the
people standing on the walls of Jerusalem by speaking "in the language
of Judah" rather than in Aramaic. It is, therefore, a truism, yet worth
re- peating, that Sennacherib's Chief Cupbearer, when in the West,
generally had to speak Aramaic ("Please speak to your servants in
Aramaic, for we understand it", ibid. 26) not Akkadian. The message of
Rab-shaqe, delivered in the "language of Judah" and which bears some
close affinities to the style of the royal Assyrian inscriptions (43),
might have been read from a scroll (44). It was clearly prepared in
advance, probably by an Israelite or Judahite secretary (45). Some
evidence·: on the use of Aramaic in the military administration of the
Empire may be found in the Assyrian palace reliefs, beginning with
those or Tiqlathpileser III (46), There, as is well known, two scribes
are portrayed in the act of writing while on a campaign: the Assyrian
scribe is holding a stylus and what was believed to be a tablet and
which is now interpreted as a wax-coated wooden board (47); the other
scribe is holding a pen and parchment or papyrus. This scribe must be
the tupsharru Aramaya, the Aramean Scribe, referred to in the
economic documents (see below), Both scribes are usually depicted in a
considerable distance from the battlefield, counting captives, dead or
alive and recording booty and spoil (48), The question is: Why two
different scribes? When interrogating captives, an Assyrian scribe
accompanied by an interpreter would seem to be adequate (49). Can we not
assume that the Assyrian royal chancellery employed a secretary for the
purpose of keeping records also in Aramaic (50)?
However the presence of the Aramean scribes was not
restricted to the military sphere; occasionally they are mentioned in
administrative and economic documents as serving in the royal court. The
earliest
attestation to date is found in the Nimrud Wine Lists
from the begin-
ning of the eighth century. In several documents the
Aramean scribes
(LU.A.BA.MESH KUR Ara-ma-a-a) appear among other
recipients of wine
rations (51).
Of special interest is a document from the year 786
which lists three categories of scribes: Assyrian, Egyptian and Aramean
(52). Later, in the seventh century, we find the Aramean scribes serving
in the palace and the household of the royal family ā€” e.g. Abagu, the
scribe of the palace (53) or Nuriea, the scribe of the prince (54) as
well as several other Aramean scribes ~ Sa'ilu, Ahu-[...] and Ammaya -
without specific attributes (55),Finally, the Assyrian and the Aramean
scribes are listed consecutively in a prophetical query put before
Shamash, the lord of the oracles (56) and in a lexical text of the lu=sha
category (57).
III.
Bilingualism and Lexical Interference
In the foregoing section we have presented evidence
for the coexistence of the Aramean scribe alongside the Assyrian in the
royal service. Furthermore, there are several indications that at least
some of these scribes were bilingual. One is the occurrence of Aramaic
superscriptions and endorsements on cuneiform documents, mostly
economic, known from the early days of Assyriology and which have been
widely studied. (The collections of Stevenson and Delaporte (58) can now
be supplemented by the tablets published recently by Millard (59) and
Bordreuil (60).
The tablets are of two types; rectangular - the
dannatu / dnt i.e. "a valid tablet a loan word from Neo-Assyrian
(6lL (occasionally also called egirtu and spr," deed" (62)
a term which becomes frequent in the later Aramaic papyri), and
triangular, the corn-loan dockets, the purpose of which has been most
recently studied by Postgate (63) The Aramaic superscription on the
dannatu / dnt - tablet is either incised or written in ink. These
are no more than abbreviations: a word, two words or occasionally a full
line, for the sake of identifying the deed.
It seems almost unfeasible that two different
scribes were employed in inscribing the very same tablet.
Is it not more likely that only one scribe wrote both
the Akkadian text and the Aramaic superscription?
Certainly this is the case with those tablets on
which the superscription is incised. That scribe obviously must have
been bilingual.
The second category, the triangular shaped corn-loan
dockets (64) (from Ashur, Nineveh and Tell Halaf) are, in the order of
their development, unilingual (= Akkadian), bilingual and unilingual (=
Aramaic) - all incised. Again, it stands to reason that in a bilingual
docket, only one scribe was involved.
Another possible case of bilingualism can be
observed in the oracular queries to Shamash written mostly in Babylonian
script (65) There we find repeatedly the following statement (66) "PN,
whose name is written on this niyaru” or, sometimes:"on this
nibzu (67) should he be appointed to an office? And when appointed,
will he be loyal to Esarhaddon (or Ashurbanipal), king of Assyria?" It
follows, that a
a name of a person or, occasionally, of a city (68),
mentioned in the query was put before Shamash who was expected to answer
“yes" or "no". It is obvious, that when on niyaru, a slip of
papyrus, the query was written in Aramaic, whereas, when on nibzu,
a docket, it was in incised either in Akkadian or in Aramaic. In one
text the names of the scribes who performed the extispicy were incised
in Aramaic, in between the two parts of the query (69). Aramaic, it
would seem, had entered the sanctum (70)
Languages in contact, and especially bilingualism,
produce mutual influence recognizable in phonetic, grammatical and
lexical interference (71). In the latter category the most obvious are
the lexical borrowings. Of special value for the present topic is
therefore the recent study of S. Kaufman (72), who has analyzed
thoroughly the lexical borrowing from Akkadian found in Aramaic
dialects. Kaufman’s list includes 220 verbs and nouns, considered by him
as certain borrowings. These words are in the realm of political and
legal terminology, names of professions, architectural or topographic
terms, etc. (73).
However, no similar classification has yet been made
of the Aramaic and other west Semitic loanwords in Akkadian, though W.
von Soden has significantly contributed towards the topic by publishing
a provisional list of approximately 250 Aramaic loanwords in Akkadian
(both the Assyrian and Babylonian dialects) (74).
To the scribal sphere belong the obvious "ordinary
borrowings" in Bloomfield’s terminology; words like sepiru,
scribe (75) niyaru (itself of Egyptian origin), later urbanu,
papyrus (76) magallatu, scroll (77) kerku, roll (78) and
egirtu, letter (79). "Lexical borrowing of this type ran be
described as a result of the fact that using ready-made designations
more economical than describing things afresh. Few users
nl language are poets." (80).
In the military and administrative sphere one finds
nouns like galutu : exile (81), galiti = deportees (82),
gududu = gang, platoon (83), hayalu = troops (84),
kinishtu = gathering, congregation (85), qarabu = battle (86)
and urbi, an old Crux interpretum in the Sennacherib Annals,
which is, I believe, a W.S. designation of a special type of soldiery
(87). One also finds verbs like: beheru = to select, enlist (88)
(hence behirtu (89), census, call for arms, mobilization)
kanashu to gather (90) radapu, to pursue (an enemy (91)) and
of course shaglu, to deport, actually a calque formation, -
”hence shaglutu, deportees (92). Naturally, loanwords in the
sphere of scribal art are to be expected, but the existence of loanwords
in the military sphere side by side with rich Akkadian cognate
terminology would exemplify more than anything else the extent of W.S.
penetration. This is only natural, as the army was the first to absorb
the deportees and foreigners some of whom, eventually, became commanding
officers (93).
Most of these borrowed terms from the military and
administrative spheres are known from the royal correspondence unearthed
in Nineveh and Kalah, usually written in the Assyrian dialect. It is,
indeed, in these letters, composed by functionaries in the provinces or
addressed to them by the royal chancellery (=abat sharri =
"King's ordinance") that additional West Semitic words from other
sphere: of life
not infrequently occur. The following examples - on a
minimal count – will exemplify the case; gazalu=to rob (94),gadu=male
kid (95),gubbu=water cistern (96),harurtu=throat (97),kataru=to
wait for(98),marasu=to squash(99),madbaru, mudabiru=steppe(100),nasiku=tribal
chieftain, ”prince"(101),pahazu=to be reckless(102),palu=to
search (l03),qudduru=round,or blackened(104),qarahu=to
freeze, and qarhu=ice (105), sapaqu=to be sufficient(106),saqalu=to
cleanse,polish(107),sapitu=watch tower(108),siparatu=morning(109),
and words like mandetu=information(110),or nadadu=to
escape(111) occurring in the letters written in the NB (Neo-babylonian)
dialect.
The language of these letters and administrative
documents, nearest to the spoken vernacular, reflects the actual degree
of West Semitic lexical interference in Akkadian of the 8th and 7th
centuries (112),
This may remind us of contemporary Franglais, though
we have no evidence of any similar cultural campaign against the
vulgarization of a national language as nowadays.
IV.
Borrowed Institutions
I shall adduce here two examples of indigenous
Western institutions taken up by the Assyrians: the loyalty oath and
court prophecy.
A.
The loyalty oath.
Modern scholarship closely associates the loyalty
oath, vassal treaty and covenant in Assyria with their western and
especially Biblical counterparts. The following cursory observations are
not intended to discommend the use of the comparative method in the
study of the Ancient Near East, nor to minimize the intrinsic value of
its achievement, Their purpose is merely to focus the attention of the
historian on the ultimate Western origin of ade, the loyalty
oath, and to outline its role as a political institution in the Assyrian
Empire of the late eight and early seventh centuries.
The Aramaic origin of ade, the main term for
loyalty oath (lit. obligations taken under oath, hence: treaty
stipulations) can hardly be doubted any more. The word, borrowed into
Akkadian, is plurale tantum
(the alleged sing. form *add, listed in the current
dictionaries of the Akkadian is based on either a wrong reading (113) or
on a reconstruction made at the time when its etymology had not yet been
recognized (114)). It is also plurale tantum in Aramaic and in
Biblical Hebrew, where it is cognate; ‘dn, ‘dy; ‘edot, ‘edut, -
and once ‘adim (Isaiah 33:8 in 1QIs aMT ‘arim),
ordinances, legal obligations, covenant (115) The term, often rendered
"vassal treaty", following Wiseman's terminology from l958 (116) appears
in cuneiform documents for the first time in the middle of the eighth
century, supplanting the traditional Akkadian terms of the second
millennium, riksu or rikiltu (pl. riksate) u
mamitu, bond, obligation under oath, covenant. Though riksu
remained the term for bond and agreement also in later documents it was
not employed any more to designate the loyalty-oath,while rikiltu
became a derogatory term, denoting mainly - "bond of conspiracy", hence,
conspiracy, in general (117) like qesher its semantic equivalent
in Biblical Hebrew.
The distribution and the usage of the terms riksu,
rikiltu, mamitu, and especially that of ade have
been treated in extenso in the classical
work of Korosec from 1931 (118) and in recent works -
mainly those of McCarthy (119) and Weinfeld (120) Therefore, there is no
need to elaborate further. I shall delineate very briefly only the
essential stages
in the development of ade in Assyria. A more
detailed examination is being reserved for a separate study.
(a) We do not possess any Assyrian treaties of the
2nd millennium, and it is questionable whether they ever existed.
However, when royal inscriptions of the middle Assyrian period refer to
vassalage, the
Babylonian traditional terms are employed;
Adad-nirari I imposes a vassal-oath upon Shattuara of Hanigalbat (utammeshuma)
(121) Tiglathpileser I imposes vassalage on sixty captured kings of
Na’iri by setting them free before Shamash and making them swear the
"oath of the great gods" (mamit ilani rabuti utammeshunuti) to
pay homage (ardute) forever (122). Likewise, the poet of the
Tukulti-Ninurta Epic refers to rikiltu and mamitu, when
describing the violation of the parity-treaty on behalf of Kashtiliash
of Babylon (123).
(b) Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III, the
warring kings of the 9th century seem not to have imposed vassal oaths
on king of the ravaged Aramean and Neo-Hittite states of Syria and
south-eastern
Anatolia, or at least, no reference to these oaths is
made in their inscriptions.
The only extant cuneiform treaty from that period is
that of Marduk~zakir-shumi of Babylon and Shamshi-Adad V, Shalmaneser's
successor (124).Though only a fragment of this document (written in
Babylonian!) has survived there is enough there to show that the
Babylonian king is the hegemon, helping the Assyrian prince to secure
his throne in the battle for succession.
(c) The traditional terms for treaty and covenant
were still in use in Assyria at the end of the ninth and the beginning
of the eighth century. The relations between Assyria and Babylonla are
defined in the "Synchronistic History" - a chronographic document
compiled for political-propagandistic use - as riksate and
mamitu, "bonds of oath” or tubta u sulumme gamaru, "covenant
and peace', but not as ade (125).
Even in the middle of the seventh century the
vassal-oath of Samsi, Queen of the Arabs, is defined in the Annals of
Tiglath-pileser Ill as mamit Shamash, "an oath sworn (in
the name of) Shamash”, but not as ade (125) (In a broken passage,
describing the rebellion of the king Unqi, ade might perhaps be
restored: [ina ade nis ilani] ihti, lux tlw restoration is
conjectural) (127).
(d) The term ade appears for the first time
in the 'vassal treaty' of c. 750 B,C.E, imposed by Ashur-nirari V upon
Mati-ilu of Arpad (128), the exact expression being ade sha
Ashur-nirari shar mat Ashur ”
"the loyalty oaths (sworn to) Ashur-nirari, King of
Assyria" (129). Apparently from the reign of Ashur-nirari, or from that
of his successor, Tighlatpileser lll, comes a fragment of another
'vassal treaty' imposed on
an unknown king in Northern Syria. Although the word
ade is missing in that small fragment, BM.134596, published
recently by A.R. Millard.
(130), the phrases like [la] idaggaluni
“should they [not] respect", [la] ittalakuni "should they [not]
come", [la] <ta>sabbatuni “should they [not] seize', [la
tu]shebalan{nini] "should you “[not] bring to me" - seem to indicate
that it is, indeed, part of a ā€™vassal-treaty', though not from the
hand of the scribe who wrote the tablet of ade of Ashur-nirari,
as Millard observed. It was about the very same time (c.760-750), that
the Aramaic treaty between Mati”ilu and the elusive Bar-ga'aya of KTK,
was composed (131).This treaty in which ‘dy is the key term, was
apparently formulated by a scribe who also knew Akkadian legal
terminology and had been influenced by it (132)
(e) Probably, it was in the second quarter of the
eight century when the Assyrians borrowed from the Arameans the
terminology and form of the ade, a well established Western
institution, which regulated the political relations between major and
minor powers and transformed it into an effective, often brutal,
instrument of domination. Breaking the loyalty-oath was tantamount to
rebellion, punishable by dethronement, mutilation or death of the
"sinner” and ultimate annexation of his kingdom. Numerous passages in
the royal inscriptions from Sargon to Ashurbanipal, testify to the
significance of the loyalty oath in Assyrian political theory and
imperial practice (133).
(f) In the next stage, in Assyria proper, the
concept of the vassal-oath was extended to the relationship between the
monarch and his subjects, in cases of irregular succession. The first is
the case of Sennacherib. According to Esarhaddon’s "Apoloqy" some time
before 681, Sennecherib assembled his sons, courtiers and the "people of
Assyria, rank and file" and made them swear a loyalty oath to Esarhaddon,
the heir appointed, though not in the line of succession (134).
A similar extraordinary procedure was repeated in
672, when Esarhaddon appointed Ashurbanipal to succeed him as the king
of Assyria, favoring him over his brother Shamash-shum-ukin - apparently
the firstborn (135)-the designated king of Babylon. The ceremonies of
taking the ade are described in the so called "Vassal Treaties of
Esarhaddon" published by D.J. Wiseman in 1958 and widely discussed ever
since (136).
The next occasion of taking the loyalty oath - in
Assyria and Babylonia” was on the death of Esarhaddon in 669. The
dowager empress Naqi’a-Zakkutu imposed her authority to secure the
succession of her grandson Ashurbanipal (137). The latter’s son, Sin-shar-ishkun,
seems to have repeated similar arrangements, imposing upon his people,
the loyalty oath to safeguard his irregular succession (138)
It is mainly in connection with the events of 672
and 668 that ade was imposed not only on the courtiers, but also
upon the people of the central cities of Assyria and Babylonia. Several
letters from the royal correspondence testify that these ceremonies were
closely watched by the king's envoys and reported to him (139). There is
no justification to consider these irregular events, stemming from
irregular succession, as the customary procedure in Assyria throughout
its history. Indeed, certain specific regulations (riksatu) were
imposed on courtiers in Assyria of the XII-XI centuries, as shown by the
"Court and Harem Edicts" published by Weidner in 1956 (140). But these
have
nothing to do with the loyalty oath that courtiers
and populace would take to safeguard the successor to the throne. I
could not find any evidence that this latter practice, though common
among the Hittites under the Empire (141) ever existed in Assyria before
the seventh century, at the time when Aramaic ade gained prominence in
the Empire (142)
B. Court Prophecy
The second example of the West-Semitic impact upon
Assyria - though it be on a speculative note - is the phenomenon of
court prophecy. It is attested in Assyria (but not in Babylonia) in the
reign of Esarhaddon and in the early years of Ashurbanipal. (A
collection of court oracles was first published by George Smith (143),
supplemented by Strong and Langdon (144).A new edition of these oracles
is in preparation by K. Deller and Simo Parpola.) In high poetic style,
in the Assyrian dialect, court prophetesses (raggimtu), and
occasionally prophets (raggimu) (145) address Esarhaddon upon his
accession to the throne and encourage him in an almost biblical fashion,
uttering short prophecies:
"Oh king of Assyria, fear not ... Fear not,
Esarhaddon!
I, the god Bel, am speaking to you. I watch over your
inner heart, as did your mother who brought you forth. Sixty great gods
are standing together with me and protect you. The god Sin is at your
right, the god Shamash at your left. The sixty great gods are standing
around you, ranged for battle. Do not trust human beings! Lift your eyes
to me, look at me! I am Ishtar of Arbela; I have turned Ashur's favor to
you. When you were small, I chose you. Fear not! Praise me! Where is
there any enemy who overcame you, while I remained quiet? Those who are
(now) behind will (soon) be the leaders. I am the god Nabu, god of the
stylus. Praise me! (This oracle is) from the woman Baia of Arbela" (146)
To the best of my knowledge, there are no
antecedents of such a phenomenon in Assyria before the age of Esarhaddon
- the time when traditionally the Aramean Ahiqar was the royal ummanu.
It is a novelty and forms a departure from the traditional Mesopotamian
way to obtain the divine message through extispicy, dreams and other
omens. We may therefore venture to suggest that, indeed, court prophecy
of the oral-message type developed in Assyria under the impact of the
western models, like that in Hamath (147) and, especially, like those in
Israel.
Yet, this phenomenon which produced a new genre -
the finest, if not the most original among the literary products in
cuneiform of the Arameo-Assyrian fusion - was not destined to survive;
it lasted no more than a generation. It is still attested in the early
part of Ashurbaniapal’s reign. One of the two prophetic texts from his
reign that survived, K.83 - in part obscure and unfortunately
mistranslated (148)*contains allusions to foreign nations (Elamites,
Cimmerians) and political events or great significance (the conquest of
Egypt) - again, not unlike its Biblical counterparts in the prophecies
of Hosea and Isaiah.459
V.
Conclusion
An attempt has been made in this paper to outline the
evidence for the impact of the West on the Assyrian Empire,
predominantly that of the Arameans and the Aramaic language, initiated
by annexing the lands west of the Khabur and the Euphrates and by mass
deportations. In time the Arameans gradually transformed the cultural
face of the Empire and were to outlive Assyria by serving as the link
with the succeeding Chaldean and Achaemenid Empires (149).
The Assyrians, vastly outnumbered by their captives,
forced them to participate in the building and maintaining of their
state and inevitably, if therefore, absorbed much linguistically and
culturally from the West. That this was not a one-way process, but
rather a highly complex symbiotic relationship between the Assyrians and
the Arameans, can no longer be doubted (150).
I have adduced here some evidence for this symbiosis
in several cultural spheres and especially, in the two realms in which
the Assyrian phenomenon was manifested: the military and the imperial.
Further evidence for the complex and intricate process of Aramaization -
or rather "Westernization"
- of the Assyrian Empire will surely be forthcoming (151). |
