Assyria, the period between the Old Assyrian and the Middle Assyrian Kingdom

[lionheartrjc]

Little seems to be known about Assyria under the Adaside Dynasty until it becomes the Middle Assyrian Kingdom.  Around 1430 BCE it is sacked by the Mittani under Shaushtatar and then becomes a vassal of the Mitanni empire.

It seems to be omitted by army lists (I guess through lack of any evidence, but that doesn't normally stop lists being created!).

Is there any material that gives any clues to the Assyrians at this time?

[Adrian Nayler]

Stephanie Dalley in her chapter on "Assyrian Warfare" in "A Companion to Assyria" (edited by Eckart Frahm, 2017, published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd) says on page 523 "After a break of several centuries (roughly 1700–1400 BCE) for which information is lacking, a major change in the conduct of warfare is apparent, both from inscriptions and from sculpture." This may suggest that a more extensive literature search could prove fruitless.

If it was felt necessary to cover at least the latter part of this period presumably using the contemporary Mitannian list as a stand-in would be appropriate.

[lionheartrjc]

This period 1700 - 1400 BCE certainly seems to be an important period in the evolution of warfare with the rise of the chariot to dominate warfare in the Hittite/Assyrian/Mitanni/Syro-Canaanite and Egyptian armies until the Catastrophe. 

I think I would be tempted to extend the Later Amorite list down to 1430 to represent city states that wouldn't have had the resources that the larger Empires could develop.

Thanks for the response.

Richard

[DBS]

Frahm himself in his latest Assyria agrees that it is a dark period, but cautions against assuming a period of decline as may just be the vagaries of archaeological survival/discovery.  He does observe that at the beginning of this period of obscurity, Ashur was a city state, but when it emerges from the gloom it has become a territorial state, so obviously it had managed to expand and hold some acquisitions.

In the seventeenth century, there is some evidence that Nineveh was still independent of Ashur, and possibly had a Hurrian cultural profile from kingly names.  At Ashur itself, several kings of the sixteenth century leave inscriptions of building new temples and a palace, strengthening the walls, and adding a new suburb.  They are also signing treaties with the new Kassite dynasty in Babylon, so do not seem to have been hit by the Hittites and to have had the independence to make their own diplomatic arrangements.  There are also royal Assyrian inscriptions down on the Lower Zab, so territory now held quite some way from the city.  And if Nineveh was Hurrian influenced, Frahm points to the start of Ashur's Babylonian acculturation from this point.

Yes, in the second half of the fifteenth century, Shaushtatar of Mitanni boasts of having nicked a silver/gold door from Ashur (not sure whether outright force or just tributary extortion specified) so some degree of overshadowing by Mitanni, but the Assyrian King List claims the dynasty remained in power, so Frahm suggests that Mitanni, if it was exercising hegemony, was not overly centralised.