Aššur-dan II.

Aššur-dan II. ( Ashur-dan, Assur-dan ) was from approx. 935 BC. BC to 912 BC King of the Assyrian Empire . His name means: (The God) Aššur is (my) judge or Assur is strong .

He was the successor and son of Tiglat-pileser II. Under him a development began that led to the formation of the so-called New Assyrian Empire , which had previously gone through a long phase of weakness. Aššur-dan, however, was able to secure Assyria's position of power in Mesopotamia against the Arameans and in the south against the Babylonians.

Aššur-dan won several victories against the Arameans, including in his first year of reign against the state of Jausa, which was probably at Karkemiš . However, these did not always mean long-term land gain, as in some cases he had to conquer the same cities several times in different years, so they had been recaptured by the Arameans in the meantime. He also punished the robbers of the countries east of Assyria who had repeatedly carried out raids on imperial territory. In doing so, he gave the Assyrian economy access to the Iranian highlands again . In another war, the king of Katmuḫḫi was captured and " beaten alive". Also campaigns against the Muṣri Mountains in the northeast of Nineveh(Ğebel Maqlūb) are documented. Overall, Aššur-dan still had to fight for the defense of the Assyrian heartland, but went back on the offensive to a small extent even after a long period of weak foreign policy in the empire.

The focus of his activities, however, was on domestic politics, whereby his name is associated with some administrative, economic and military reforms: by making uncultivated land arable by settling peasants, promoting irrigation and ordering plowing, he laid the foundation stone to the recovery of the empire after the crisis of the previous decades. The hunt for wild animals, which he pursued on a large scale, was not only a royal leisure activity, but was also intended to minimize the loss of agriculture due to wild consumption. In addition, the reconstruction of temples and palaces and the reorganization of the army is attested for Aššur-dan. The fact that under Aššur-dan II. The Assyrian annals start again speaks for a success of his politics. Nevertheless, troop levies and famines continued to burden the population.

His successor and son was Adad-nirari II.

literature

• AK Grayson: Assyria: Ashur ‐ dan II to Ashur ‐ nirari V (934–745 BC). In: John Boardman et al. a. (Ed.): The Cambridge Ancient History . 2nd Edition. Volume 3.1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, pp. 238-281, here pp. 248f.
• René Labat: Assyria and its neighboring countries (Babylonia, Elam, Iran) from 1000 to 617 BC BC / The New Babylonian Empire until 539 BC Chr . In: Elena Cassin , Jean Bottéro , Jean Vercoutter (eds.): Die Altorientalischen Reiche III. The first half of the 1st millennium (= Fischer Weltgeschichte . Volume 4). Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1967, p. 11 f ..
• Karen Radner (ed.): The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Vol. 1, Part 1, The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1998, pp. 178 f.
• Aššurdân II. In: Erich Ebeling , Bruno Meissner (ed.): Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Aräologie . Vol. 1, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Leipzig 1928, p. 209 f.

Remarks

1. ^ AK Grayson: Assyria: Ashur ‐ dan II to Ashur ‐ nirari V (934–745 BC). In: John Boardman et al. a. (Ed.): The Cambridge Ancient History. 2nd Edition. Volume 3.1. Cambridge 1982, here p. 248.
2. ↑ Hartmut Schmökel : Ur, Assur and Babylon. Three millennia in Mesopotamia. JG Cotta'sche Buchhandlung Nachf., 6th edition Stuttgart 1962, p. 126.
3. ↑ Hartmut Schmökel : Ur, Assur and Babylon. Three millennia in Mesopotamia. JG Cotta'sche Buchhandlung Nachf., 6th edition Stuttgart 1962, p. 125.

predecessor	Office	successor
Tiglath-pileser II.	Assyrian king	Adad-nirari II.