History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent DiscoveryKing, L. W. (Leonard William)
History
History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery
King, L. W. (Leonard William)
Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C.; History, Ancient
Neither in Hammurabi’s letters, nor upon the stele inscribed with his
code of laws, is any reference made to the contemporary governor or
ruler of Assyria, but on a contract tablet preserved in the Pennsylvania
Museum a name has been recovered which will probably be identified
with that of the ruler of Assyria in Hammurabi’s reign. In legal and
commercial documents of the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon the
contracting parties frequently swore by the names of two gods (usually
Shamash and Marduk) and also that of the reigning king. Now it has been
found by Dr. Banke that on this document in the Pennsylvania Museum the
contracting parties swear by the name of Hammurabi and also by that of
Shamshi-Adad. As only gods and kings are mentioned in the oath formulas
of this period, it follows that Shamshi-Adad was a king, or at any rate
a patesi or ishshakku. Now from its form the name Shamshi-Adad must
be that of an Assyrian, not that of a Babylonian, and, since he is
associated in the oath formula with Hammurabi, it is legitimate to
conclude that he governed Assyria in the time of Hammurabi as a
dependency of Babylon. An early Assyrian ishshakku of this name, who was
the son of Ishme-Dagan, is mentioned by Tiglath-Pileser I, but he cannot
be identified with the ruler of the time of Hammurabi, since,
according to Tiglath-Pileser, he ruled too late, about 1800 B.C.
A brick-inscription of another Shamshi-Adad, however, the son of
Igur-kapkapu, is preserved in the British Museum, and it is probable
that we may identify him with Hammurabi’s Assyrian viceroy. Erishum and
his son Ikunum, whose inscriptions are also preserved in the British
Museum, should certainly be assigned to an early period of Assyrian
history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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