Hello, and welcome to Western SIEV. In today's Bonus Author interview, I
sit down with historian Eckert from and we talk about his most recent book,
Assyria. I don't think I need to explain what the book is about this
time, because it is pretty obvious. The Assyrians are one of my favorite
ancient civilizations for a lot of reasons. We talk about a lot of this
in the interview, but I think that they provide the first real blueprint for
how to run an empire one oh one, and they get a lot of
bad rap for being this horrifically vicious people. But again at night, as
I talk about in the interview, I think that this is us maybe projecting
a little bit back on people's of the past. And do you want people
to do that to us two thousand and three thousand years from now? I'm
not so sure now. As always, the link to purchase the book is
in the show notes. This one, I think is fantastic. No technical
issues either with the interview this time, so everything went according to plan.
It's always nice when that happens. The book itself is over four hundred pages
long. It's very detailed and extremely readable. I couldn't recommend it enough link
in the show notes if you want to purchase it. So, without further
ado, here's the interview, right, I'm here with his story and Eckert
from We're talking about a new book on the Assyrians, as I just mentioned
previously when we were meeting in the introduction here, and it's an amazing book.
I'll talk about that a little bit more later on. And I'm so
happy that people are still producing histories about civilizations that are so old, because
I find them endlessly fascinating. You know, as I was reading the book,
you know, in the beginning of the book, you start out by
outlining some of the similarities between Assyrians and Romans, and they jump out to
just about anybody I think who has a working knowledge of ancient and classical histories.
They're very apparent, and I would guess that you know of ancient civilizations,
casual history fans are probably the most familiar with the Roman Empire when we're
talking about classical world. So I thought maybe you could start by just outlining
some of those similarities from the introduction, because I think it's a great segue
into the depth of the topic itself. Absolutely so Adam many things for having
me and giving me a chance to talk about Assyrian with you, and I
think it's a good way to enter this conversation, especially given that this is
the Westensive podcast, to start off with the classical Western civilization, the Romans.
And yeah, I mean stress that. Indeed, what I'm arguing in
my book is that Assyria it actually has some rather interesting, well parallel features
with ancient Rome. One is simply that both are empires, and you could
argue Rome became the archetypal empire of all empires, the greatest empire of the
ancient world. Undoubtedly Assyria I claim, and of course one can debate it,
but I think there are reasons to make that claim. Assyria, in
my view, is the first weird empire in the world. And of course
there were other large states before which you could define as aspirational empires, the
Kingdom of Aga day in the late third millennium BC in in Mesopotamia, for
example, or a new kingdom Egypt. But I would say that with Assyria
there's a new quality to that state, and we can get a detail a
little more later that makes it really an empire. And Assyria is not only
an empire, it also shares with Rome, let's say, a focus on
a certain practical ethosum military spirit, things like that well organized colleague of mine
called the Assyrians, the Prussians of the ancient Near East, which our cause
is like every comparison, somewhat anachronistic. God gets something right. I think
about the Assyrians, and you could say something quite similar. People have said
similar things about ancient Rome. There's also an additional thing, namely that both
Rome and Assyria, as sort of emerging superpowers, relied for their for their
culture, literature and and and religion very much actually on um on on the
culture of an earlier and somewhat more sophisticated civilization. So in the case of
the Romans, that's of course the Greeks. The Romans read Homer and and
eas easier than and and the great Greek literature for a long time without really
having any of their own, before finally, of course, creating Latin literature
with the indid and so on and so forth. The Assyrians very similarly relied
very much on Babylonian culture. Their literature essentially was Babylonian literature, and to
significant extent, their religion was based on Babylonian religion, even though there is
an important difference here in that the Assyrian state guard Ashua was always of central
importance for the Usurians. And it's a final thing where I think one can
compare Rome with Assyrian. That's the fact that both of course were not created
as empire as they were originally organized along very different lines and in both cases,
and we can get to that as well and more detail where we got
to Assyria. At some point one could discus like the ways were organized as
being based on the mixed constitution, so with with with monocratic oligarchic but also
almost democratic adamant. So these would all be features I would say the Romans
and Dassilians share. And I think that one of the things that you talked
about in the very beginning, and that they're both sort of original empires,
Romans much less. But the thing that I find fascinating about ancient history especially
is that these people, you know, the Assyrians, and I do think
that the argument that this is really this is really the first at least in
the West. I'm much less well versed on Eastern history, so I can't
speak to that, but at least in the West. You know, this
really is kind of like the first empire that fits the definition. There have
been other maybe proto empires, aspirational, as you say. But what I
love about ancient classical history is that, you know, the Assyrians, they
had to figure this out for themselves. There weren't there weren't archetypes before them
that they could look and say, well, this is what happened and worked
in the past, so we'll do this, and we'll do that, and
so on and so forth. And I think you could say a similar thing
about the Romans. Not that it's there have been empires of course, as
Persian Empire and so on and so forth, but to have an empire of
that size for that length of time, that requires a certain level of change
throughout the time period and adaptability and those are those are things that you know,
other states have grappled with and have not been successful. And I will
talk a little bit more. I want to talk about the collapse of the
Bronze Aid and so on and so forth said and and we'll get into that
in a little while. But let's say, you know, as the classic
you know, Lewis Carroll would say, let's begin at the beginning and when
we get to the end, let's stop. Um, So if we get
if we start in the beginning, like, what can we say And this
is another area of my fascination, and which is the beginnings of civilizations,
Like you know, when it was just you know, a small group of
individuals, you know, that expands out slowly over time. And what was
it like in the beginning for Assyria? What can we say about that?
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. What is contascinating in fact, when
you look at the long term history of Assyria is that Assyria originates. Assyrian
civilization originates as something almost diametrically opposed to the idea of empire. Assyria is
the core area of Assyria is located in northeastern Iraq. But actually the very
beginning of Assyria is associated with one single city only, and that's the city
of Ashur, after which Assyria later gets its name, a city located some
sixty miles south of the modern Iraqi city of Mosul on the Tigris River.
And this is where Assyrian civilization essentially begins, but really in the form of
a city state and not in the form even of a territorious state. We
know as it often goes to the situation with Rome. It's not that different,
of course, not that much about the very earliest beginnings. What we
can say is that in the mid third millennium BC, around two thousand and
five hundred BC or so, in the city of Usha, you have a
number of temples, pretty pretty large templates, substantial templates built over which later
on the Assyrians would would build new new temple buildings, and we can assume
that the same deities were already worshiped at that time. Those included the temple
of Ishtar, goddess of Love and War, and we can be pretty sure
that if not at that very early time, then not much later after a
temple photo good Usha was erected. We have statues, votive statues of both
men and women. It's quite interesting there were play into those temples as to
perpetuate prayer before the divine statue, so to speak. So we have some
visual evidence for those very very early Assyrians, but otherwise we know very little
about them. They probably spoke a Semitic language. It may have been an
early form of Assyrian is a Symitic language, just like Arabic, like Hebrew,
and also like Babylonian in the south, but we know very little about
the political organization of this time. We know that the cities of Usha during
the second half the third millennium BC was often ruled from the south from Babylonia,
for example by the kings of Agade, which I mentioned earlier, by
kings of Ur, another large kingdom in the south, which was more developed
at the time towards the end of the third millennium, and then it comes
sort of into itself around two thousand BC when it gains its independence and becomes
a city state that engages in ways quite remarkable and perhaps not a unique,
but but still unusual in long distance trade. So the Assyrian people, people
of Usher should rather say, they import tin from the east and textiles on
Barbylonia. They create textiles themselves. They transport those goods on donkey caravan some
six hundred miles or so to the north west to central Anatolia, and there
they sell them and so an interlocking trade circuit for silver and also some gold,
which they then bring back. And this is essentially how they make their
money, and this is how they accumulate wealth. So it's quite interesting.
There's no tendency at all to engage in war at this time. The elites
in Usher are not interested in war. In the South you have almost perpetual
warfare at this time in Assyria. In Usher, you don't acquisition by means
of trade is the way they get rich. And then another really important difference
the later times, of course, and that is something I've already mentioned,
is this political organization again also very much in contrast to the South, where
all these smaller states, small territory states and city states as well were ruled
by kings. The titled king, which in Assyian and Babylonia was shahum,
was not used. Instead, there was an hereditary dynasty, but couldn't use
that title, and in fact, the members of the dynasty didn't really have
much of a say. They didn't even have a proper palace, they had
no court and so on, so they were allowed to build temples and things
like that, but they were otherwise not particularly powerful. Instead, power arrested
very much with a popular assembly that was in charge of legal affairs, met
on a regular basis and a very prominent spot near the Usher Temple, and
the institution of the so called Lemmm. That's an Assyrian word for an officer
out of taxation and a few others of administrative and economic issues, after whom
every year in the Syria was named. And it's interesting too to realize that
in the Salle's years were named after kings, and they're great deeds been so
called year names, and all this controlled paprikinda didn't exist by this time in
Assyria itself. So it's a it's a very different type of political organization we
find um for aff for certainly roughly two thousand to seventeen hundred BC. Yeah,
and so starting out the gate, it's it's one of those things that
you have to remember that, Okay, when we're talking about original Assyria,
when we're talking about the founding, we are talking about ladies and gentlemen,
very old history here. This is m I was reading recently because I've been
doing some work on Alexander the Great in the time period leading up to him.
You know, Xenophon, the good Greek writer, is going to travel,
you know, to what is then going to be the Persian Empire to
participate in what is basically a dynastic dispute that doesn't matter, but he comes,
he comes upon some of these old cities, and he's reflecting in his
writing on just how impressed he is by those And it's important to remember,
you know, he's writing in you know, the fourth century, you know,
so he's writing, you know, roughly seventeen hundred years after the founding
of some of these civilizations that he's looking at. If you go back seventeen
hundred years from where we are today, you know, we're in the late
Roman period. You know, that's how long ago it is. By sort
of a comparison, we're talking about really sort of foundational history here. And
that is what I think is so interesting because you have, you know,
we're going to think about the Assyrians later on, as you know, imperialists
and kings and so because they have some good ones, they have some power
pful ones. But to think that they were experimenting with different sorts of political
organizations that they're founding is I think important to recognize. But let's jump forward
a little bit and talk about how how Assyria is going to rise to the
status of a regional power, because before you become an empire, you have
to be a regional power. And nobody, nobody gets to go straight from
city state to empire overnight. That's not a thing that we do. So
I think it's it's important to recognize to talk for a second about how they
get there and what was going on in the region in say fifteenth fourteenth century
BC. Yeah, first, let me actually confirm what you just said that
when you're dealing with ancient Egyptian and as obtaining history, you're effectively dealing with
the first half of history, even a little bit more than that. And
as a as a predecessor of mine at the Alia has always said, and
I think that's important to remember, that is something we cannot really dismiss.
It's really a significant portion of human history defined by the emergence of writing.
So that's that, Yes, what actually happens then after seventeen hundred, what
is going on in this area? Unfortunately we must say here it's still very
much a mystery because what's the problem for modern historians is that between seventeen hundred
and fourteen hundred PC we have very very few sources, both in terms of
text soucreineer from texts which were written on clay and essentially are the most important
source type for our reconstruction of Hissorian history. But even in terms of our
archaeology, it's just not that much that we know about this time. So
around seventeen hundred, what we can see is that this old political system,
with these interlocking governmental institutions, the civic institutions, very much still in place,
no kings and so on, and that seems to essentially only change in
the fourteenth century, when then for the first time, we actually get an
Assyrian ruler who assumes the title of king. But what really happens between those
centuries is betrothed in darkness. At some point, a new dynasty in Assyria
comes to power that goes back to a man named Adasi. We know absolutely
nothing about him, essentially, only that he ruled for a short while,
perhaps early seventeenth century BC or so. From him all the later members of
the Cyan world House seem to originate, so that's also impressive. It's a
dynasty that remains in place essentially for one thousand years. It's not always father
to son. Also side branches of this family that comes too come to power
occasionally, but it seems like so far at least we have no evidence forever
another family actually assuming rulership, and members of this family would still not call
themselves king until the mid fourteenth century, when there's a ruler theonym of Ashaal
the First, and with him we really see the invergence of a new geopolitical
entity in Assyria. What is then in fact for the first time actually a
territorious state, not just the city state, because what we can see under
Asha Balat is that he now controls also, for example, the city of
Nineve, which is further to the north of Ashwa, opposite of the modern
city of Mosul on the eastern bank of the Tiger Server, so this becomes
now part of the power sphere of this Asha First. He probably also woods
over areas further to the east, so Ashwa actually becomes Assyria only during this
time as it is the first ruler as I said, to assume the royal
title. He also interacts with other territorious states in the region and even beyond,
including Egypt, and very soon sort of tries to become one member of
this as it has been called Club of Great Powers that by this time dominates
the political scene in the Middle East. This would be Babylonian the south,
the Hittites in Anatolia, a state named Mitani in Syria Um and well Assyria
itself, maybe also Elam and Cyprus, but less importantly sou So the Assyrians
now enter the stage, the historical stage. And we have a letter written
by Ashaabalid to the Egyptian Pharah in the mid fourteenth century, in which he
asks him to send him gold. It makes it very clear that he now
needs to be just taken just as seriously as, for example, the king
of Babylonia. The Babylonians initially don't like that at all, and they've rite
to the Egyptians in famous Almana correspondence from Egypt which was conducted in canea form
on clay tablets. So the Babylonian rights to the Egyptian condepart and says that
the Assilians are his subjects and you shouldn't really have any commercial and other interactions
with them. But the genius out of the bottle, and the Assilians from
now on our powerful terry tory estate in the region, not an empire yet
though still fairly small by this time. Yeah, and just you know,
just a word about the history part broadly speaking. Sometimes you know, when
I when I teach ancient even classical history, you know. Yeah, I
can tell the students getting frustrated because we don't know everything, you know,
we have to um sometimes fill in the gaps. We have documents sometimes that
reference other documents that we do not possess because they haven't made it through.
But to me, that's the good part. That's what makes it fun,
you know, because we don't know everything yet. That's the that's the exciting
part. You know. We don't have the various tweets from these kings,
which would be interesting to have, sure, or some other information. But
I think that just the fact that it's it's sort of it's veiled in a
little bit of miss You can kind of make through some of it. And
the closer we get to it time wise, the more you can see in
the further back, the harder it is to see, but you can still
see some shapes. And I think that's the interesting part. To me,
at least, that's why I love ancient and classical history, because we are
still kind of piecing it together and there's there's sort sort of a puzzle to
an extent, but I want to I want to kind of jump forward because
you were talking about the Club of Great Powers and you know, these these
powers, they're gonna they're chugging along, they're doing great, and then the
Bronze Age is going to abruptly collapse. Um. And that's going to upset
the apple cart here um. And you know, so just to ground our
listeners, you know, this is when this is when we're talking about New
Kingdom Egypt. This is the coming of those infamous see peoples these, This
is the end of Mycenaean Greek ages. This is Metani, this is the
Hittites, and many of those civilizations are going to simply cease to exist when
the dust settles. Assyria makes it through and Assyria changes, like what happens
during that time period? And I don't know if you can answer the question,
but why is it that you see Assyria survive this collapse whereas other civilizations,
notably like the Hittites, the Meisne and Greeks, they're not so lucky.
What's the difference? What's going on here? Yeah? So, perhaps
briefly, just to talk a little bit more about the so called Middle assuming
periods, so the centuries between the fourteenth and eleventh centuries b CEO, so
fairly early on, and especially then the thirteenth centuries, the Assyrians actually expand
their kingdom, especially further to the west, so they consolidate their power also
in areas formerly ruled by the so called Mittani state, which was which governed
by kings with in European names, otherwise based on a sort of Harrean population.
The Assyrians profit from inner strife within the Mitani Voil family and essentially,
along with the Hittites, eliminate the Mittanie state and take over large portions of
it, and in this way essentially become settled also in what is now modern
Syria, especially some more eastern parts of modern Syria along the Kabua River,
which is a northern tributary of the Euphrates River, and in this way become
a really powerful state that also puts pressure on the Ahtites and so on.
And then though essentially coexists with the Hittites and the Babylonians in Western Asia,
with the Egyptians in Egypt, and a number of small states along in the
Lebanon, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean, some of which are vessels of the
Hittites, other vessels of the Egyptians. So co exist for seven centuries essentially
in what you could describe as a pretty stable arrangement. So there was and
so on, but the situation doesn't really change dramatically. And and then,
as you have pointed out absolutely correctly, there is really a major collapse occurring
all of a sudden, and it is often associated with the so called sea
peoples as they were have been called in modern times. So these were groups
of people called the sclete or the Palacete. Palacete is clearly the origin of
the name of Palestine. They come on boats from the Mediterranean and destroy cities,
for examples such as Ugaret. So there is in fact archeological evidence for
the destruction. We have a letter announcing King's writing to the Hittite ruler that
the boats already on the horizon. He has no way to defend himself.
We see these sea peoples on reliefs in Egypt, and what we then also
see is in many at many sites, destruction horizons. When we look at
the archaeology that go back to the twelveth to the earlier twelfth century BCEs or
the eleven seventy seven, that's the year of a famous battle between the ce
peoples and the Egyptians on the Nile RIVERA has often been taken so as the
combination of this development, and in the wake of all this we also see
the collapse of major states, such as the Hittites. For example, the
Hittite state is a large state existed for forms half a million millennium in central
Anatolia and northern Syria. Within just a few decades essentially completely disappears from the
scene. Recently, archaeologists have claimed that the destruction altogether wasn't quite as bad
as it sometimes portrait, and that actually also several sides survived, apparently unharmed,
and that may well be the case. I would still say, though
that there is massive destruction. What really caused it, of course, it's
still not quite clear to Again one of these big questions was it just migrations?
Were these migrations perhaps caused by climate change, as has been argued,
I think for good reasons in a way? In this case, were there
also social issues involved, for example, the expropriation of the farmers in the
countryside by these palatial elites, and at some point, perhaps with slowly decreasing
harvest, that could just no longer sustain that, and they just left their
plots of land alone. It may all be a combination. Anyway, the
consequences this pretty massive breakdown, especially on the Eastern Editrani, also affects,
as you said, to Masceneans and so on. Why does it affect the
Assyrians lass Well, first, I would say it affects them to some extent
as well, because one thing that happens is that they are new sort of
political players that emerge from this whole disaster, and they're organized of more along
tribal lines. They are often not very hierarchical democratic elements in the political organization.
So they include the Arabs, for example, the Israelites, the fridge
Ands, they all appear at around this time, and they also include the
Arnians and the Armians, Smitic speaking people sort of emerging somewhere from southern Syria,
it seems, especially though within the twelfth century, and they're still also
in the eleventh century. They migrate towards the east, and they actually threaten
Assyria and they do wreak havoc in Assyria. So Syria is absolutely affected by
this. We don't read about this in as Cernan rol inscriptions, which of
course only talk about the great successes of the Assyrians, but we do read
about it in chronic codes, which are in a way more objective, and
then we can see that well, the Arni were attacking cities that the Assians
were not able to cultivate their fields. That was famine Assorians to flee.
So it was certainly a crisis in Assyria as well, but what I would
argue is it was probably less of a crisis than elsewhere. One thing that
we can observe is that the royal dynasty, as I've already mentioned, actually
stays in office. So these were very resiliant kings. They might have known,
I mean, they knew how to fight. They had managed to somehow
survive against the Mitani state. They were good at this, and they just
were able to keep their stronghold cities such as usher At nine Way, but
also a few cities further in the west on the Kabu River and so on.
And eventually, when the dust settled, when the Armians began to establish
themselves in small polo states along the fighters and elsewhere, it was the Assyrians
where essentially, of all those pretty much downbeaten states who were the strong list
and who were now suddenly able at the beginning in the tenth century and the
later tenth century after the crisis century was over, to expand into a region
that was substantially weakened. They're also profited again from from climate change. In
this case, it seems that in the tenth century BC there was more rainfall
than before, which allowed them to cultivate more grain and established more wealth and
all these things together and able to Asserience then first to reconquer significant portions of
the territory that had lost. This is what I dubbed, I mean what
actually in Italian historian before me has dubbed the Reconquista period, in which Asserian
researched itself as a as a major power. And this is then followed later
in the eighth century by the Imperial period, but by the Asserience is the
first state really to get out of this crisis again. Yeah, And it
just strikes me that I've always sort of felt this way, and reading your
book brought it home to me again, especially this section that you know,
one of the things that just sets certain empires apart, and we're talking about
I suppose all the pre modern period, but particularly this period, is some
empires, some kingdoms are able to take a punch and others aren't. And
that's what one of the defining features tends to be of an empire that has
lasting ability, because again you're talking about pre modern states that I mean,
certainly they wouldn't have understood climate change from a scientific perspective, and they don't
have truly the capacity to maybe see some of these things coming. The communication
networks are still relatively rudimentary. But the difference between Rome and Assyria and some
of the other early modern states is they can take a punch, they can
get back up, and they can recover. And that is critical in sort
of understanding the distinction between who makes it and who doesn't, because nobody gets
through unscathed. As you mentioned, Assyria is pressured during this time period.
There are constant wars that they're having to deal with. There's other issues that
you have going on during this time period, and you can say the same
thing on the Romans when we're talking about the Crisis of the third century or
anything else. But they get back up, and that capacity to get back
up is very, very important. The other thing I wanted to point out
that you said that I think is really worth mentioning is that you know the
Hittite civilization effectively collapses. And I know that, Yes, I've read some
more modern scholarship that suggests, you know, maybe it wasn't a total collapse,
and so on and so forth. But the reality is that they're not
a major power in the region anymore. But they had existed for a thousand
years roughly. You know, you look at modern earned day nation states and
do you just take the United States for an example, and we're not quite
three hundred years out, so you know, and I would guess that if
you would have asked anybody in the Hittite Kingdom, you know, in the
thirteenth century, you know, will the Hittite Kingdom always be here? They
would have said, of course, it's always been here, It's always going
to be here. So there's a lesson in history there that maybe nothing is
permanent in those in the way that we might think that it is in modern
eras. But the next thing I wanted to ask you about is that,
and this is I guess this kind of goes along the vein of what I
was talking about, where premodern civilizations tend to go through crises, and the
question is who can get through the crisis and who can't get through the crisis.
And one of these sort of archetype crises that most premodern kingdoms, empires,
etc. Go through at some point is a succession crisis. It doesn't
matter who you are, at some point, you're going to go through a
succession crisis and you're going to have to deal with it. It's just not
everybody gets an uninterrupted line of fantastic rulers. It just doesn't seem to happen.
So you talk about this sort of age of magnates, and I was
hoping you could define that, explain what was going on and how the Assyrians
are going to ultimately sort of deal with this issue as we sort of inch
towards the Assyrian empire. Right, Yeah, it's true, of course what
you say about also about individual it's actually having an agency in history. I
do think that is the case. Of course, that doesn't mean one can
discount the structural and systemic factors such as climate change, geography, et cetera,
et cetera. And I'm trying to make that very clear in my book
about Assyria. But I also do think you're right the decisions made by individual
rulers the way they organize their kingdoms politically, and the administration implemented and so
on. All these things of course matter very much as well. And yes,
in Assyria, one big problem was that when I mean at a time
when the Assurian kings essentially really were very much in charge, of course,
that then when a king died and the new king came to the throne,
that this was a moment of instability, and on various occasions this led to
we are crissis and we will talk about some of the later ones as well.
It's not that this ends ever entirely, I would say, but you're
also right that sort of late in this so called reconquista period, the asseryings
now essentially have reconquered their former territories, and they have actually now made incurasions
also in areas further beyond into Innatolia to the Mediterranean. Haven't yet annexed those
places, but they sent their armies. There's in the ninth century BC,
so around Um in the eighteen eight hundred and twenties, during the last years
after the reign of King Shamanisa the Third, there begins to be a problem
about who's to succeed him. There's a battle between two sons of this king,
um Ashoda and Uply and another son Shamshi added the fifth letter eventually becomes
king under name Shamsha Added the Fifth. But Um, this is this is
a problem. There there are isn't clear a clear indications who's supposed to follow
after Shamanisa's death, and there's really seven year long civil war which destabilizes Um
to some extent, of course the Assyrian state UM and never during the reign
of Shamshad the fifth, the situation is never really fully remedied. When Shamshi
Added the Fifth dies Um his son and successor is apparently in minor their young
child. Probably still this is a very interesting period in a Sering history because
for the first years of the reign of this new king Ada Narari the third,
so very late ninth century BC, we now actually have a woman essentially
being in charge, the wife of Shamshi Adad the fifth, the mother of
this Ada Narari, woman by the name of Samo Ramad, who will later
be celebrated in Greek legend as semi Ranis. So she goes on campaign and
all that. But I think these years of dynastic unrest lead to a situation
where the well important military officers and administrators somehow realized that the royal dynasty is
somewhat weak. At that time, those administrators and military officers are often unichs.
That is, they don't really have an incentive to create a dynasty of
their own because they have no offspring. But nonetheless, what we can see
during the eighth century the first of the eighth century is that these of officers
and administrators of seen nobles, if you wish, now take a lot of
power right inscriptions and royals die, whereas the actual kings who remain in place
the dynasty is never replaced, actually have little to say about themselves, so
the inscriptions that they produce become less and less detailed. And then in the
seven hundred and sixties and seven hundred and fifties you actually can see that the
real crisis emerges. So initially, I would say the rise of those magnets
are sometimes called isn't necessarily so much of a problem in countries. Some have
argued, perhaps widely so, that they were motivated to develop the areas of
vire that they were that they would, so they dug canals and did things
like that. But then the seven hundred and sixties and seven hundred and fifties,
you have not only continuing sort of crisis of the crown, but you
also now have actually outbreak of several bouts of plague only too familiar to us,
of course, and that leads then to insurgencies against the count in a
number of Assylian cities, and so an army stays at home, it no
longer goes on campaign. So it's a real crisis that emerges. And one
of the great mysteries of Assylian history, then is how from these from the
ashes of these ani horribilis the phoenix of empire rises, because that is what
then happens in seven forty five in Uking comes to the Assyrian throne, that
Tiglapilezer the third, and under him, Issyria actually becomes this great empire.
At at the end of the Glapilza's vein, it's Syria is twice as large
as as before. So it's a remarkable turnaround. It was not to be
expected. One could also have expected, really a collapse of the state in
seven hundred forty five or so. It's exactly opposite. And here I think
we see again that the agency of individual rulers does really play a role,
because I think what Tiglapilaza does is he he acts very strategically. He realizes
there's all this loss of life and of wealth. He needs to replenish the
workforce. So what he does he annexes, he conquists other lands. He
still has enough soldiers for that, so the crisis also not totally devastating.
He conquers a lot of new lands, he annexes them, he taxes them,
and he deports hundreds of thousands of people from those lands and brings them
to Assyria and to other areas where he needs them to work on construction sites
and in agriculture, and in this way essentially forges the Assylian Empire into existence.
Yeah, and that's you know, it's it's an interesting topic because again
we don't know everything, but we also do have to remember that human capital
is one of the most important resources that we're talking about. In the pre
modern eras, of course, when economies were overwhelmingly agricultural and dependent on large
workforces to be able to produce those those surplus food items, and so deportation
and the transportation of populations starts to become more of a state policy, which
is fascinating to me because you used to see it in different places around the
world at different times, so it's not necessarily something unique that anybody first thought
of, but very disparate civilizations, you know. I mean, we see
it in the New World. You know that the Inca are going to be
doing it in the fifteenth century, and obviously they knew nothing of the Assyrians.
So this is this is something that you know, is utilized by other
organizations. But I do want to turn to the empire, you know,
so now we're talking about mid eighth century, we're entering into the Assyrian Empire,
imperial excuse me, period. But I really I'm interested in knowing,
Okay, what does the empire look like from a logistical standpoint, because again
going back to Rome, my guess is that's what most people are sort of
familiar with and what most people would expect. I think we get this bias
that like, oh, well, there's going to be an empire, which
means there must be provinces, and provinces must be ruled by you know,
provincial elites or provincial governors. Do we have that going on, or you
know, is it more of a compulsory tribute. I maybe Delian League situation
where there's not as firm Assyrian local control, but you know you have to
provide x amount of tribute every year and that's understood. And if you don't,
well you know the army is going to come and you don't want that.
So I just was hoping maybe you could flesh out for the listeners.
You know what, Let's say we're in the mid to now late eighth century,
you know what is the Assyrian Empire start to look like? Yeah?
Absolutely. I think every empire uses techniques off of power that can be direct
or that can include direct rule or indirect rule. So you have a large
stat of land that is route directly and in the periphery you will have vessel
kings or client kings as we're called in ancient Rome, who have to provide
tribute rather than taxes and would help you in war, but would still remain
in place. In my view, the Asserlian Empire is actually as far as
its organization and its concerned, is actually quite similar to the Roman Empire and
not to the Delian League, which is at least formally kind of more like
like a union of different political entities, of course eventually essence calling the shots,
but it's also short lived. Rome is of course an empire that remains
in place much longer. And I do think many of the institutions you find
in Rome you also find in Assyria, and that includes what you mentioned,
namely provinces. So you have the central authority, of course of the king.
He's the lynchpin of the whole system. Isn't a god, but he's
often compared to gods. He must have seemed to many of his subjects like
a god. He calls the shots. So this is not a system very
much um based on one man, one man whole. But of course such
a system cannot work without the collaboration of sophisticated administrative and and military elites.
And yes, Assyria has provinces at the height of its power, some seventy
or so in all directions in southern Anatolia, in western Ivan, in the
levant Um, and those provinces are governed by provincial governors who whose residences are
little palaces in these provincial capitals that are sort of mirror images of the royal
palaces that the Assyan kings inhabit in the Asseryan corps area, they communicate with
the kings, and this is important I think, to keep in mind the
communication structures established by the Assyrians based on earlier once already in place, but
but also some of them really innovations under Assyrian rule are very efficient. So
the Assurians create royal roads with road stations and all these things with a relay
system where a message can be transported not just by one messengers, but on
one road station to the next, with fresh animals bringing them on, so
that essentially a message from from Cilicia in near modern city of Ardana or so
to the nint to Ninnovative so in capital would take less than seven days,
as has been estimated from one of my colleagues, which would be faster than
anything that was possible ever before the arrival of the telegraph. So communication was
important. The Assorian military, of course, was an extremely important part of
Asserian power. There were military contingents in the capitals of Assyria, but they
were also of course military contingents in the provincial capitals, so that it was
possible for the asseriance to react quickly to any kind of unrest, especially in
border areas. And another thing that the Assyian empire is characterized by is ethnic,
religious, and linguistic diversity. It has that perhaps more in common with
the Persian empiresment Roman Empire, because the Assorians, like the Persians, were
not interested in anything akin to romanizations. So what they did not do was
imposed their culture. They expected defeated enemies to swear by Asserian gods, but
they didn't build temples of Ushua in Jerusalem, I anywhere. I mean,
this would have been, in fact, probably being considered totally inappropriate by the
Assyrians if anyone I tried to build such a temple. So they also left
those defeated populations a lot of color actual autonomy, which I think is part
of the strength of the Assaying Empire. So these are some of the elements
that I would say constitute the empire as it exists for more than one hundred
and twenty years or so, from the mid eighth century onwards. Yeah,
and so one of the things that I definitely want to ask about with the
Assyrian Empire is it's kind of going to be a two part question. So
I want to ask about the military structure because I think that's important for people
to understand. But this the second sort of hitch point on the question is
the word Assyria and Assyrian for a long time sort of becomes, I guess,
i'll say, almost a byword for cruelty. You know that they have
this reputation in the ancient and classical world of being just this is sort of
an overwhelmingly not instructive, but a cruel civilization when it comes to their treatment
of conquered people. I just wonder to what extent that that's deserved reputation,
or to what extent is that they were just simply continuing practices that had already
been existed and would continue to exist in the near e. So sorry for
the two part question, but I kind of go together. Yeah, let
me start with a second. And perhaps I think it's important, indeed to
engage with it, because, yes, especially today, Assilians are often associated
with unusual levels of violence and brutality, and I think it is important to
make a couple of points. You're not to downplay it, and I'll say
a few words about the reality of that violence, but I think it needs
to be contextualized. First. It's important not to essentialize the Assilience here.
As I mentioned, when you look at the history of the long delay of
the history, and they start off a civilization. They're actually extremely peaceful,
much more peaceful than anyone else. They do not engage in war during the
so called Old Associan period in the first centuries of the second millennium. Changes
there now, of course, but um initially they are not particularly violent.
The other thing to say here is that, of course the Assurians were absolutely
not alone in using violence in order to realize their political goals. Anyone essentially
in the ancient world with the state would use violence. The Egyptians are often
now associated with beautiful scenes and frescoes and tombs showing showing dancing girlds, but
of course you also have the frescoes showing how Egyptian soldiers heap up heaps of
severed heads and penises before Pharaoh after coming back from a campaign. So not
that the Egyptians certainly weren't peaceful. The Romans neither. Probably they're actually more
brutal than the Assorians in many guards and they knew that also full well,
I mean, Seneca kind of ridicules this whole talk about the mission of civilization.
The Romans often claimed they were engaged in by saying, well, in
fact, what we do is we kill everyone, and these people have no
rights whatsoever when we go there and conquer them. So I think it's important
to say first that indeed, in this respective assurance aren't really they are different.
I think where they are a little bit different, though, and that's
true, is that they showcase this violence very prominently in their texts, in
the royal inscriptions in particular, but also in images that we find on reliefs,
lining the walls, officer in palaces, in any way in other places.
So those are really often focused very much on violence. And we read
about how Egypt, how assuring kings gauge out the soldiers, gauge out the
eyes, the eyes of enemies, how even occasionally young boys and girls are
burned, and so on and so forth. But I would also say probably
actually these inscriptions and these images exaggerate the amount of violence the Assuans actually implemented,
because, as I mentioned, the assurance new full well that and you
you pointed it out too, that a large workforce was really vital for them.
They had no interest in genocide. So it's totally wrong, for example,
to compare the Assurians with Nazis. This was not These were not attempts
really to kill everyone off. Who would be killed were so of the elites
of the enemies who had engaged in insurgencies, and occasionally a few other people
probably as well. So there as a warning. But on the whole,
it is my impression almost as if these many images and texts about violence were
so geared towards an inner audience somewhat takeaway remorse for killing from the Assurance themselves,
so they would actually go on campaigns. And that, of course is
what they did. And this is your second question, now, the question
about the military. The Assurian Empire, of course it was was created by
armies that would go I mean it's not that as a will everyone just happily
came and and so and that, even though they did often happen, but
usually more like as a consequence of a state run protection record. I would
say, So the army would show up and there was an ultimatum either you
submit or we fight you, and then often enemies would submit. So,
yes, there were armies. They were well organized, certainly one of the
great strengths of the Assyrians a station, as I said in various parts of
the empire with special troops, often comprised of specific ethnic groups. For example,
the Sammarians from Israel, interesting enough, were integrated into the Asserian army
as chariot troops or something they were apparently very good at. There were sort
of armine police troops the Etuians that were used in order to fight rebellions.
So you had special troops, you had chariot troops, you had bowman the
artillery of the ancient world infantry. Of course, you had very sophisticated implements
in order to engage in siege warfare, sorre siege towers and things like that,
battering ramps. You can see this very nicely on assuring reliefs. So
we have a lot of information on how this all worked. It was definitely
not a pacific thing. It was very much based all on military power that
was justified by the Assyrians, and it was based on violence. But I
think except perhaps for a few kings, and he especially Usherbandiba comes to my
mind, is otherwise so well known for his library. But I mean that
was a man. I think you had a certain sadist tendency. And he
describes in his texts the torture inflicted on his enemies at home. Usually those
were high ranking politicians who were tortured before the public. At an interview,
he describes that with sort of somewhat unpleasant glee. And I think he did
enjoy it. And so we are we have someone who really was very keen
on, really enjoyed violence. So highly problematic degree. Otherwise, violence was
was really a tool and not something I would say that the Assurian kings would
would necessary supa excited about. Almost. Yeah, I think there's a couple
of things there. I mean, first of all, it is worth again
remembering that because of the dependence on agricultural labor, you would never just for
no purpose go out and kill a thousand people. Those are a thousand people
that you need to work the land, you know. And it kind of
gets back again to this the ancient problem or fascination in my case, of
we don't have all the sources, like we only have what they wrote down.
In the fact that the Assyrians chose to write down more of the violence
because it was clearly a propaganda tool that they were going to use as a
means of control, that doesn't mean that other civilizations weren't engaging in just about
the same thing. I mean, and you take the Romans. I mean,
you know, after Spartacus has failed rebellion, they're going to crucify thousands
of slaves, and that's absolutely a propaganda message. You are meant to look
at that and look at the what it would take to die on the cross
and think, wow, I am not going to step out of line,
because these guys are not messing around. And that gets me to my you
know, the other point that I always want to make is that, you
know, we have to remember the way that people long ago looked at the
world is not the same way that we look at the world today. You
know. I just I think about, you know, the modern United States,
which is where I live, you know, and our need to sort
of be the good guy on the world stage all the time. And if
if we're doing something, you know, how can we justify this as being
in the interests of liberty and democracy and so on and so forth. The
ancient Romans wouldn't have seen it that way, you know. They have said,
well, yeah, we conquered you because we're stronger than you are,
and that's the natural order of things. That's just simply how it is like
they wouldn't have necessarily felt the need to justify every action that they took.
And so it's important to remember that, you know, when we judge people
in the past, judging them based on our values and beliefs today is a
slippery slope because, as we mentioned previously, this was several thousand years ago,
and what are people several thousand years in the future going to think about
us? It might not be you know, all rainbows. So we're getting
close to time. But I want to ask, and I'm sorry for another
two part question, but I'm gonna it's going to do it again. I
want to ask a little bit about a Syrious collapse, and I think this
is a I'm not going to say a straightforward answer, but you know,
the Persia features prominently. But the other question that I want to ask,
because it's really important to me right now, is the state of Assyrian history
and archaeological remains today. It's on my mind because of the earthquake recently in
Syria and in Turkey that that did destroy a couple of sites, damaged a
couple of sites, and then you have tremendous unrest in the region today and
various groups who, some of which intentionally will destroy some of these sites.
So I want to I was hoping you could talk about a serious collapse,
and then I guess I don't want I don't know if collapse is the right
word, but the peril of the loss of what remains, and how important
it is for us to make sure that we say what we still have.
Absolutely no, And you're right, you can, of course compare the destruction
of issuing cities that led to the fall in collapse of the empire in the
late seventh century BC, to the second destruction if you wish, that occurred
in recent years, especially under Isis in the areas around most of the and
so on. So let me start with the question of the collapse. And
I'm fact it's not so straight. It's actually a very difficult, complicated question
here. I think when we talk about the collapse of this in empire,
here we see a big difference to Rome. I mean, no one can
really put a time frame to the collapse of Roman Empire as it really collapse.
I mean, there still is a Roman Empire of the German nation and
in the eighteenth century eighty, so it never essentially collapses, and and it's
very hard to pinpoint this. It's different in the case of Assyria. It's
just within some twelve years or so um that is Syria between six hundred and
twenty two essentially and m and six hundred and nine, that is Syria is
really wiped out. And this is really a striking thing because it is so
fast. You have this massive empire that would not the world, that would
of course be incorrect, but really large parts of Western Asia. For a
time, even Egypt and so on, seems invincible, and then suddenly it
is being defeated, not only defeated, but really eliminated from from the stage
of world history in its entirety. So what brings this about. It's a
complicated question. It's again a question where you can also sort of argue is
it for structural and systemic reasons or is it a personal issue. So recently
two theories have been advanced claiming it's the former. The one theory is that
it was climate change again and the second theory is migration. I'm not really
convinced that these are in this case are the major forces behind the collapse of
this an empire. There is indeed, apparently again greater degree of abridity.
But that starts already in the late eighth century, and that's of course the
time, and this theory is actually at the height of its power, so
it can't really see why that then would suddenly lead one hundred years later to
the collapse the other thing, migration. So there's a scholars argued that the
scisions, these these nomadic horsemen reaked havoc in the Levant in the second half
of the seventh century, and that the major impact on the fall of Is.
So we have the problem with that is it's only mentioned in aroder Is.
Essentially we know very little about it elsewhere. And so again I feel
like this isn't perhaps really the thing. So to me, it's a combination
of factors. It's sort of the perfect storm. On one hand, it's
again so the crisis of the crown, the crisis of legitimacy. I mentioned
this last great king of the Suryashobanipal. He dies in six thirty one and
is followed by a very young son. This young son is essentially more or
less a placing of the chief eunuch. The chief eunuch then becomes king of
in his own right, which is unheard of never before had a unuch who
cannot have offspring being a serwing king, so that must have damaged the authority
of this assering crown. The unuch is eventually removed from power, but the
last a Serwing king, then man by the namasha Ishkon can no longer really
stand the way of the tide that now suddenly comes over a sury and essentially
two powers I engaged in the destruction of the Assyrian state. On one hand,
it's Babylonia, the Babylonians with whom the Assyrians had this love hate relationship.
They were so keen on Babylonian culture, but they also wanted to rule
Babylonia that often destroyed Barbylon. The Bolonians, essentially by that time hated the
Assyrians, and at some point in the city of Org and then in Babylon,
a man by the name Nabopolaza Rose eventually became king in Barbylon, who
had actually who came from from a family that had worked for the Assyrians in
Babylonias essentially as administrators in the city of Org, so he knew the Assylians
very well. He knew how the empire worked, and the under great power
engaged in the fall of the Assylian Empire. That was the Meads in the
Zagros Mountains in western Iran who made an alliance with the Babylonians around six hundred
and fifteen BC. They too, essentially had sort of studied Assyria very well.
They had actually been four into a united kind of confederacy of tribes by
the Assyrians who wanted to text them at interest in bringing them together in a
way. So somewhat ironically, the Assyrians had created two enemies that then knew
them very well and were able just within a few years to yeah to wipe
out these Assyrian cities and wipe them out entirely. That is what happened.
By six hundred and nine. The last stronghold of the Assyrians in the city
of Haaran. Further to the west was Taitan. The Egyptians actually engaged in
these wars as well. It was really kind of an early World war on
the side of the Assyrians, apparently worried that then after the Assurians, the
Babylonians would become an even greater threat to themselves. They didn't prevail. The
Assyria was gone and was then followed first by the near Babylonian and then shortly
seventy years after US so by the Persian empires, who in many regards,
and we don't have the time to talk about it, yea, but I
would like to to point this at least out of course, followed the Assyrians,
who used the imperial toolkit the Assyrians had prepared for them and formed then
on the idea of empire and the practice of empire was in the world,
and in the book, I do argue that in a way it is something
that goes back very much to the Assyrian model. So Assyria as the blueprint
of empire for all those later imperial states, some of them much bigger.
Persian Empire was much bigger than Assyria, but basically working very much in the
same way, even emulating in the case of the Persians Assyrian and not Babylonian
art, which is quite remarkable, and so on and so forth. So
Assyrian was then remembered essentially only through the Bible and the classical historians Diadors,
Heroditus and so on, Mode Outdoors and Arouditus until in the eighteenth In the
nineteenth century AD, British and French and eventually also other excavators, adventurers initially
and not really proper archeologists, began to excavate these Assyrian cities, which led
to the situation that the Assyrians eventually spoke again in their own languages Canai formed.
The writing system they used was deciphered. Monumental inscriptions written by Syrian kings
became legible again, as Asho Bandipad's wonderful library of thirty thousand tablets and fragments
on the British Museum, still studied, still not fully explored, but of
course gave us an unbelievable insight into intellectual and religious culture and ancient the Syria.
So we didn't even touch upon this, but it would really be something
to talk about also at great length. But I think you also see from
what I'm saying here right now, this was very much of this. We
rediscovery of a Siria was very much a Western project. It was very much
the Brits, the French, later the Germans, the Americans who who excavated
in Assyria, and not so much actually any locals, not so much Iraqis.
When Ivraq became a nation state, Assyria and Babylonia were often used by
by ivak Hula's as models for an identity that transcended religious and ethnic divisions.
Saddam was saying, among others, did this, and of course Saddam was
a bootle dictator who killed scores of people. And so what then happened after
the fall of the Saddama regime in two thousand and three was that suddenly,
now the Iraqis found themselves confronted with this ancient civilization, and the question was
what to do with it. They knew before that, I mean, the
West had sor indorsed there's something belonging to itself. Sadam had indorsed it.
And there were many people in Iraq still very proud of these ancient sites and
the ancient history of the country. But there were also radical Islam Islamicist groups
that wanted to get rid of this tradition because they saw it on one hand
as something the West was infatuated with, and of course the West was to
be punished. And on the other hand, they realized this was something that
served as yeah welling ground for those who wanted to strengthen the Iraqi nation state.
The same thing in Syria, of course, and those groups, especially
isis at some point, of course, didn't want these nations states. They
wanted an Islamic caliphate that would would the whole Islamic world, and wanted to
get rid of states like Iraq, Syria, etc. Etc. So this
then explains why in twenty fifteen, after ISIS had in two thy fourteen had
taken control of the region around Mosul, why then suddenly members of the group
engaged in an orgy of destruction of these Assyrian wouins. Seems kind of paradox.
They destroy essentially ruins, but that's what they did. Whatever was left
on the ground, you would still have, for example, reliefs from the
throne room of these Surian kings and a croub standing up at an any way
being visible. There there was the museum and Mosol that showcased Syrian art.
There was the Palace of Ashnat, who were the second in the city of
Kla not far away from Moso. So all those sites, all these museums
were deliberately targeted by ISIS and were essentially destroyed, apart from also being looted.
Because while the destruction of those sites has been highlighted in Western media,
there was also a lot of organized looting and a lot of stuff was actually
sold on the antiquities market. Now, in twenty seventeen, Moso was liberated
by Ivaqi and US forces and since then Isis is sort of dormant again.
I mean, I hope it's more than that, but I'm afraid maybe they'll
come back at some point in some form. But for the time being,
and that's sort of the good news. For the time being, archaeological work
in the region has actually began again. So there are now archaeological excavation not
only in Kurdistan so farther away from the great sides of his area, but
also actually again at nineve especially at Nineway, where both German, Italian and
American archaeologists have engaged in archaeological excavations again. And here you have this paradox
of archaeological work. It always is facilitated by destruction. So Isis destroyed not
only these ancient Desyrian ruins, but also a large mosque on top of amount
where where Dessilian Palace lay hidden. The amount dedicated to the prophet Jonah,
who according to the Bible and the Kuran, had died at Ninevay. And
the destruction of this mosque enabled for example, Germany varchi archaeologists in recent years
for the first time actually excavate there, so we know actually know something about
the palace underneath that mosque for the first time because the mosque was destroyed.
So you see how political archaeology is, how contingent on all sorts of strange
things it is. But I mean it gives me also some hope that things
is going on there. Many any you pointed out, many really exciting questions
about Assiya still to be answered, Certainly much more to be found. One
of the great things about the engineer used is that a little bit different from
Greek and Greece and Rome, we really can expect new finds that change our
pictures so much. Again, because caneve on tablets essentially indestructible and they survive
in the ground, we will have more of those, and then many of
the questions I wasn't able to answer today maybe answerable in the future. I
think it's exciting. I think that it's it's exciting to think about the answers
that we might get about the ancient world someday. But it's always worth pointing
out. I try to point out to listeners as often as I can that
you know, as members of the human race, you know, we're all
responsible for making sure that our past is preserved in some way, and made
me to make sure that we oppose those who, for whatever reason, would
like to see it destroyed, because with ancient sources, once they're gone,
they don't come back, at least potentially. But all right, so,
as you mentioned, we touched this is the tip of the iceberg, folks,
we touched on a small fraction of the fantastic book. You barely referenced
the references to Assyria and the Bible. They're really interesting. They're in the
book, and there's a lot of other fascinating cultural historical aspects that we didn't
get to. So I would highly recommend picking it up. But I did
want to thank you again, first for coming on, but second just for
taking the time to do the research and to write the book, because without
new historiography, we tend to lose interest in some of these older aspects of
history that I think are absolutely essential to understanding our cultural past. So thank
you for writing the book. I think, yeah, I'm for giving a
chance to talk about it and about the Syrian General was that was great