Most of the achievements of the Sumerian-Akkadian and Egyptian civilizations in various fields of human activities were achieved earlier than the end of the third millennium BC. By 2000 BC, they had lost the distinction of being the only two civilizations in the Old World, and around them other regional civilizations were flourishing. At the same time, these two oldest civilizations were struck by disaster. Nonetheless, they were revived before the beginning of the third millennium BC. This resurgence demonstrated a tenacity and endurance that sustained Sumerian-Akkadian civilization until after the beginning of the Christian era, and Pharaonic Egyptian civilization until the 5th century AD.
In Chapter 13, the author has already mentioned the mutual role played by these two ancient regional civilizations in promoting the development of civilizations in all regions of the eastern Mediterranean. During the New Kingdom, Pharaoh Egypt Civilization built a worldwide empire, which became a melting pot of culture. At the same time, the Akkadian language, expressed in Sumerian texts, became the medium that gave literary works of Sumerian origin a classical form, in which , these works became an integral part of the cultural heritage of many regions, which extended far beyond the boundaries of the Sumerian-Akkadian world. For example, it already included Syria and Asia Minor. At the same time, Akkadian became the language of diplomatic communication. It was used not only among monarchs in the eastern Mediterranean (including the Pharaohs of Egypt), but also between the Egyptian government and its tributaries in Palestine and Syria. .
Politically speaking, from 1761 BC to 1753 BC, Hammurabi attempted to reconstruct the entire Sumerian-Akkadian world (including Assyria, Mari and Carchemish). ), but soon suffered defeat. After this, both Sumer and Akkad were weakened. Egypt eventually became politically weak as it fought back against the invasions of Libyans and "Sea Peoples" from 1220 to 1188 BC. However, in each of the societies of these two ancient regions, a province far away from the center still flourished. We have already noticed that Assyria, which was engulfed by the great migration of the Mitanni people in the 18th century BC, had risen again as a militaristic power by the 14th century BC. During the continuous great migration of people from about 1250 BC to 950 BC, although Assyria was forced to concentrate its efforts on the defensive again, it still maintained its political characteristics and independent status. From about 932 to 745 B.C., Assyria again attacked its neighbors, albeit with none of the diabolical fervor and savage brutality that had led to its downfall at the end of the empire. The final phase of the empire began with the accession of Tiglath-Pileser III in 745 BC.
At this stage from about 932 BC to 745 BC, neither the Egyptian civilization nor the Sumerian-Akkad civilization has become the main source of cultural creation activities, or even constitute an important part of cultural exchanges. At this time, new regional civilizations began to continue to play this role. They all emerged from the recent great migrations of peoples. These new regional civilizations were Syria, Hellenistic Greece, Vedic India, and China. In China, the inheritance relationship between the Zhou Dynasty and the Shang Dynasty far exceeds the cultural inheritance relationship between the various new regional civilizations located in the west and their predecessors. However, these two oldest civilizations have not yet completely lost their cultural creativity. They still attract cultural converts with their seductive charm. After 950 BC, the Egyptian civilization acquired a new cultural province far away in the upper Nile Valley, between the third and fourth cataracts. During the same period, the Sumerian-Akkad civilization also gained a new cultural province located on Lake Van, separated by two tributaries of the upper Euphrates River from Assyria, the Mesopotamian lowlands, and the upper Tigris basin. north of the watershed.
In Egypt itself, the 22nd Dynasty of the Kobeans (from about 945 to 730 BC) and the Kassite dynasty of Babylonia replaced it in about 1169 BC Like the native Babylonian dynasty of the Kassites, they were all very prosaic. The only achievement of the Libyan pharaohs was to accidentally launch a fruitless raid on Palestine. However, this was the period when Napata, the border town of the former New Kingdom of Egypt, became the political and cultural center of a country. The citizens of this country were not Egyptians, but its monarchs were devout converts to Pharaonic Egyptian religion and other Pharaonic cultures. Upstream along the Nile River, below Napata, there is a fertile strip of land that still produces high yields every year under artificial irrigation. By 730 BC, this agricultural base had made the Kushite Kingdom of Napata populous and powerful, and had begun to produce its rulers. The entire Egyptian world up to the Nile Delta was once again unified by the Kushites. The dream of a monarch wearing a double crown.
The new cultural province that the Sumerian-Akkadian world received after 950 BC was Urartu. We've already talked about its location. During the great ethnic migration in the 18th century BC, Huli immigrants migrated from this area to the Fertile Crescent.
The Urartu people of the last millennium BC were the descendants of the Huli people who stayed in their hometown. As early as the 9th century BC, the indigenous Huli districts of Urartu united and formed a kingdom with a capital. At Tushpa on the east shore of Lake Van. We can guess that the motivation for this political unification was the fear of Assyrian invasion. In fact, Shalmaneser III did launch an invasion of Urartu in the first year of his reign (reigned from about 858 to 824 BC). Militarily speaking, compared to the two countries, the Assyrian army was more tightly organized and better equipped, but Assyria never conquered Urartu. By 612 BC, the year Nineveh was lost, Urartu still existed on the political map of Southwest Asia.
The geographical location can explain the reason why Urartu did not surrender to the powerful country. Before its collapse, this powerful country had invaded Egypt to the southwest and Elam to the southeast. Urartu is a dangerous place. The straight-line distance from Tushpa to Ashur (the oldest of the Assyrian capitals, located at the southernmost tip of the empire) is even slightly closer than the distance from Ashur to Babylon. However, on land, there was a shortcut to Babylon from Ashur. But there is no direct way from Ashur to Tushpa.
An Assyrian army aiming to attack Tushpa could not reach the upper reaches of the Great Zab River, because this area, like the Lake Van Basin, was also an insurmountable natural danger. It is also impossible to cross the high mountains and ridges that serve as the watershed in the south of Lake Van. The Assyrian army that invaded Tushpa had to first march to the northwest instead of due north, climb over the relatively easy-to-walk mountains, enter the upper basin of the Tigris River from Mesopotamia, and then turn northeast and cross the long and steep After passing through Bitlis, it enters the northwest corner of Lake Van. The road along the south bank of the lake is extremely difficult even today. Once the invaders encounter another military attack in this area, the place will be even more daunting and dangerous. Extremely. In fact, the Assyrian invaders had no choice but to move along the north and east shores of the lake and move back further, crossing the more accessible basin of the southern tributary of the upper reaches of the Euphrates River (now called the Murat River). A relatively civilized area in China. This is enough to explain why the Assyrian army only occasionally reached Tushpa but never stayed there. On the other hand, the Urartu army was not only protected by the high mountains in front of it, but also welcomed by the neighboring peoples (because they, like the Urartians, opposed being Assyrian subjects), this was enough to prevent the Assyrian army from crossing the mountains and marching towards them. Any attempt to move northeast into Iran, or northwest into Asia Minor.
As mentioned above, among Assyria's several opponents in the last thousand years BC, Urartu was the most combative and courageous one. On the other hand, in the 9th century BC, when Urartu began to be invaded by the Assyrians, they consciously accepted Assyrian culture. When they carved their inscriptions, they expressed their Hurrian language from the Akkadian version of the Sumerian script, which was translated from Assyrian. Assyria is the cultural heir to Sumer and Akkad, and this rich, ancient heritage makes Assyria culturally fascinating, even if it is repellent in its own right. However, Urartu was not just a passive recipient of foreign culture. In at least one important field of art - stone construction craftsmanship, Urartu's stonemasons surpassed their Assyrian masters in terms of finesse (but not in scale), almost to the level of the Egyptians.
For the Assyrian invaders, the weakest resistance they encountered was not in the north or the east, but on the western front across Mesopotamia and into Syria and into Babylonia. the southern line. Since the 18th century BC, when Hammurabi brought Assyria to its knees, the military balance between Babylonia and Assyria has changed. After the 14th century BC, Babylonia could no longer compete with Assyria militarily. However, although Assyria continued to wage war against Babylonia and even occupied it for a short period (such as during the Assyrian king Tukurti-Ninurta), the Assyrians still respected Babylonia and Think of it as the birthplace of the same culture between the two countries. This was, of course, before Tiglath-Pileser III came to the throne (around 745 BC) and advanced Assyrian militarism to its brutal final stage.
During the period from 932 BC to 745 BC, Assyria used the areas outside its western borders as the target of venting its aggressive desires. Between 932 and 859 BC it conquered the Aramaean communities that had settled east of the Euphrates, at the western gate of Assyrian territory. In 858-856 BC, Shalmaneser III conquered Bit-Adini, an Aramaic country straddling the western protrusion of the Euphrates River, allowing the Assyrian army to enter Syria. However, the common dangers faced by the small Syrian states caused them to temporarily shelve their regional conflicts. In 853 BC, Shalmaneser was captured by the Syrian coalition forces at Kalqa, north of Hama on the Orontes River. beat. He invaded Syria several times in 849 BC, 848 BC, and 845 BC. The breakdown of the anti-Assyrian alliance allowed him to severely damage Damascus in 841 BC, forcing Damascus's past allies to recognize Assyrian suzerainty. However, in 831 BC Shalmaneser was revolted by the Urartians. In 827 BC, an uprising broke out in Assyria, which lasted until 822 BC. The uprising put him and his successor Shamsi-Adad V out of action.
In their struggle for control of northern Syria and eastern Cilicia, the Urartians, under their king Argishti I (r. 785-753 BC), had united into a powerful and competitive powerful country. Urartu defeated Assyria. By 745 BC, these strategic locations were under the control of the Urartians and no longer owned by the Assyrians.
This defeat of the Assyrians meant that the attempt initiated by Shalmaneser III to make Assyria a powerful power controlling the eastern Mediterranean had failed. Despite this, the military power exerted by Assyria from 934 BC to 853 BC is still unforgettable. Located in Assyria proper, the rich strip agricultural area from the left bank of the Tigris River to the southwestern foot of the Zagros Mountains is the economic foundation of Assyria. This fertile land in the heart of Assyria was larger than the agricultural area around Napata, the economic base of the Kushite military power, but far smaller than the farming areas of Babylonia. The Assyrians are neither like Babylonia nor Kush. Their agriculture mainly depends on the sky and does not rely on water irrigation. In Southwest Asia, the location of the Neolithic agricultural settlements that depended on the weather, which had been invented before the development of the alluvial basins of the lower Tigris-Euphrates basin, was the area that later became Assyria. This historical fact makes people inevitably ask whether the reason for this shift in the status of the country in the upper Tigris-Euphrates basin, first from Sumer to Akkad, and then from Akkad to Assyria, is the failure of the irrigation system. To destruction? At least that's part of the reason. Because irrigation systems turned the swampy wastelands of Sumer and Akkad into fertile farmland.
Irrigation systems can be damaged by humans or nature. It can also be destroyed by fighting between local communities or by wars of conquest by outside powers. Another possibility is that irrigation water brings a large amount of saline-alkali, or saline-alkali emerges from the underlying soil. As a result, nature makes man-made fertile fields barren. This mischief of nature has also partly destroyed modern irrigation projects, as in Punjab and Mexico. As for human misdeeds, there are countless such records from the very beginning of Sumerian-Akkadian history.
In the Nile Valley, nature is much more predictable than in the Tigris-Euphrates basin. Until 1902 AD, when Aswan's first dam was completed, the Nile's floods brought new, fertile silt to Egypt every year, a gift that neither nature nor man could refuse. Is the artificiality and fragility of the irrigation system in the lower Tigris-Euphrates basin the reason for the decline of Sumer and Akkad and the rise of Assyria? When the Mongols invaded Iraq in 1258 AD, its irrigation system was indeed in ruins, and reconstruction work did not begin until after World War I. However, before this sudden, man-made disaster in 1258 AD, had the power of nature begun to gradually barren the farmland in Iraq? We do not yet have enough evidence to answer this question, but the following fact can certainly serve as an indirect answer: after the collapse of Assyria, its land remained fertile enough to form the economic basis of many subsequent empires. This long series of empires began with the Chaldean successor states of Assyria and ended with the Abbasid Caliphate, which included the less fertile areas outside Babylonia.