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KINGDOMS RISE AND FALL
A PEOPLE called the Amorites are well known to readers of the Old Testament, where the term is used for one of the main groups of inhabitants of Palestine before the final entry of the Hebrews under Joshua. These Biblical Amorites were descendants of settlers who had come in from the desert several centuries before. They had formed part of a great group of peoples, called in cuneiform sources the Amurra (singular, An-iurru), on the move in the Syrian desert and threatening all the fertile lands . 'Amurru' was probably originally the name of a particular tribe, but it came to be used of the whole of a certain wave of invaders from the Syrian deserthe presence of people of the Amurru group within the areas mentione
d is shown in the first instance by the
nature of
the personal names, and afterwards, with the final collapse of the
Third Dynasty of Ur, by the rise in a number of cities of dynasties in
which the personal names, god names and institutions are obviously of
Amorite origin. Such dynasties may for convenience be called 'Amorite',
although some regard the term as inaccurate when used in this sense. As
might be expected in view of geography, it is on the Middle Euphrates
that a dynasty of Amorite origin is first in evidence, the city
concerned being Mari. In other cities, some of the earlier peaceful
Amorite settlers actually became officials in the service of the
Dynasty of Ur. One such was Ishbi-Erra, who was in charge of the city
of Isin under the last King of Ur and who, after loyal to the end,
subsequently founded a dynasty of his own.the third Dynasty of Ur finally crumbled under the pressure of Amorite invaders, city after city ceasing to acknowledge the sovereignty of Ur. The final overthrow of the dynasty was, however, not the work of the Amorites, but of the Elamites (from southern Persia), who seized the opportunity to sack and occupy the capital, slaughtering the inhabitants and carrying away the King. This stunning blow, marking the final of the Sumerians as a political power, shows clear evidence in the relics of destruction found when the city was excavated. This disastrous event was long remembered in Babylonia.
With the breakdown of central control by Ur, dynasties arose in other cities, the two most prominent at first being Isin and Larsa. For this reason the century or so after the overthrow of Ur is often the Isin-Larsa period (2006-1894 B.C.). The Larsa dynasty increased its influence at the expense of Isin, but was finally itself overthrown (1763 B.C.) by the sixth ruler of the of Babylon, the great Hammurabi (1792-1750 B.C.).
The first Dynasty of Babylon (1894-1595 B.C.) is rightly thought of, particularly during the reign of Hammurabi, as one of the highlights of ancient civilisation. It was an age of material prosperity, and it is also fortunately one of the periods about which we are best informed. There are not only many thousands of business documents and letters from Babylon and other cities, but we also have the collection of laws promulgated by Hammurabi himself (82). Together these documents make it clear that the pre-eminence of Hammurabi amongst his contemporaries, which enabled him to raise Babylon to a cultural supremacy which it was never to lose, was not due solely to his military ability. It also owed much to his political insight and aptitude for diplomacy, and to his administrative ability and concern for social justice throughout his land.
Babylon the only city-state of significance at this period. Farther north there was the kingdom of Assyria, where another prince of Amorite origin, Shamshi-Adad I, an older contemporary of Hammurabi, established himself as king in 1814 B.C., and exerted considerable influence upon the regions to the south and south-west. In the early part of his reign Hammurabi had another powerful contemporary in the King of Eshnunna, who controlled the cities along the Diyala and in the neighbourhood of modern Baghdad. There were other Amorite centres of power in North Syria. The situation is summed up in a letter from this period which says
There is no king who of himself alone is strongest. Ten or fifteen kings follow Hammurabi of Babylon, the same number follow RimSin of Larsa, the same number follow lbal-pi-El of Eshnunna, the same number follow Amut-pi-El of Qatanum [in Syria], and twenty kings follow Yarim-Lim of Yamkhad [in North Syria].
Another city-state of considerable importance until finally conquered by Hammurabi in 1761 B.C. was Mari, on the Middle Euphrates. It was a city of respectable antiquity, having been one of the outposts of Sumerian civilisation, and in the early second millennium B.C. was the capital of a kingdom extending over 200 miles along the river. In 1796 B.C. it experienced what must have been common in its history, a change of dynasty, when Shamshi-Adad of Assyria, benefiting by a palace revolution in Mari, placed his own son Yasmakh-Adad on the throne of Mari as his sub-king and representative. French archaeologists working before the war at Tell Hariri, the site of ancient Mari, had the good fortune to discover the royal archives from this period, and amongst them correspondence between Shamshi-Adad and the sub-kings who were his sons, as well as correspondence between the various rulers and their officials. Of less immediate human interest, but still very important for many details of life of the time
After this first evidence of Cassite pressure, the following century saw a gradual increase both of peaceful immigration of individual Cassites, and of organised movements of armed bands. This may be connected with pressure upon the Cassites themselves by a southward movement of Indo-European and other peoples farther north. Amongst these peoples two of the most prominent groups were the Hittites and the Hurrians. The names of both groups will be recognised in the Bible (the Hurrians under the form Horites), but it should be borne in mind that the people called Hittites and Horites in the Bible may have had only a very slender id distant link with the groups known as Hittites and Hurrians in the cuneiform documents. The Hittites, an Indo-European people whose language was closely related to Latin, had begun to pear in northern Anatolia (eastern Turkey) early in the second millennium and had established a powerful kingdom in Central Anatolia soon after 1700 B.C. The Hurrians, who were neither Indo-European nor Semitic, had been centred on the region around Lake Van since before the Agade period, but had begun pushing southwards on a large scale by the early second Millennium
collapse of the central government in Babylonia inevitable, though surprisingly the actual overthrow of the city of Babylon was at the hands of the most distant of the peoples mentioned, the Hittites from central Anatolia. In 1595 B.C. the Hittite ruler made a sudden attack southwards into Syria, and then moved down the Euphrates to plunder Babylon. Political developments in his capital made the Hittite king return as suddenly as he had come, but Babylon was left powerless to resist a further aggressor, and Cassite forces descended from the hills to take over control of the capital and to impose their government upon North Babylonia. This Cassite dynasty, which rapidly adopted much of the culture and institutions of their predecessors in the land, lasted about 400 years (1595-c. 1150 B.C.).
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