Middle Assyrian Laws

Context

Although there is a wealth of documentation concerning the history of Assyria during the late Bronze Age (ca. 1600–1200 BCE) and the early Iron Age (ca. 1200–900 BCE), knowledge of the period immediately after 1500 BCE is limited. The region of northern Iraq (Assyria) was under the control of the neighboring Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, which was centered in coastal Syria. By the end of the fifteenth century BCE, there was evidently an independent Assyrian state, and a series of royal inscriptions have been found concerning the Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I, who reigned in the middle of the fourteenth century BCE. This monarch corresponded with the kings of Egypt, showing that Assyria was now considered a major role player on the international scene.

By the time of Adad-nirari I in the early thirteenth century BCE, Assyria was able to expand deep into Syria to the west, conquering the old Mitanni capital of Washukanni and going as far west as Carchemish in present-day Turkey. Assyria was now a powerful state, bordering the Hittite kingdom to the west and the Kassite kingdom of Babylonia to the south. Numerous annals at Assur from the time of Shalmaneser I (1274–1245 BCE) attest to the continuation of Assyrian military expansion and cultural interaction with Babylon. Shalmaneser's son, Tukulti-Ninurta I, also continued this expansion, which is especially known from a unique historiographic and propagandistic document known as the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic, in which the monarch claims to have conquered and plundered Babylon, deporting many of the Kassite citizens to Assyria. Moreover, the Assyrian king began direct Assyrian rule in Babylon and transported the state deity of Babylon—Marduk—to Assyria, where the god remained for more than one hundred years. In addition, Tukulti-Ninurta I plundered numerous Babylonian literary texts, thereby creating a catalyst for Assyrian literary development. However, a palace revolt ended in the imprisonment and subsequent death of this Assyrian monarch, after which there was a dearth of textual and literary sources from Assyria until the reign of Tiglath-pileser I.