Marduk-balāssu-iqbi

Kudurru BM 90834. The inscription names Marduk-balāssu-iqbi as the founder, 9th century BC. Chr.

Marduk-balāssu-iqbi was from 823 BC. Until approx. 813 BC King of the Babylonian Empire. He succeeded his father Marduk-zākir-šumi I as the 8th king of the 9th dynasty . The research mainly assumes that he was a brother of Šammuramat , the wife of the Assyrian king Šamši-Adad V and a role model for the Legend of Semiramis . His reign ended in military defeat as a prisoner of the Assyrian Empire.

Marduk-balāssu-iqbi seems to have been a bit older when he came to power. At least the inscription of a Kudurru on a property transfer mentions him as a witness, which is dated to the second year of his father's reign, i.e. 25 years before his own accession to the throne. Another kudurru with his name even dates from the 31st year of his grandfather's reign. Here, however, he is described in more detail as bēl pīḫati , i.e. governor of the province and son of Arad-Ea. It is therefore not considered certain whether this inscription actually refers to the king of the same name. On the Kudurru on the right in the picture, which is mounted on a granite stele , he appears as a donor. Unfortunately, the exact origin of the find is not known.

The main seat of his government was probably Gannanāti, a city on the Diyāla River . He developed building activity in Seleucia on the Tigris and extended the area under his control to Der and Nippur . His officials, like himself, seem to have obtained their position by inheritance, including Enlil-apla-uṣur, the šandabakku , i.e. governor of Nippur, as well as the sons of Tuballiṭ-Ešdar, the sukkallus (official at the court) and šākin ṭēmi (regional governor ), which indicates a rather weak central government and great local autonomy of the provinces.

After the Assyrian and Babylonian empires were politically very close in the previous generation and had mutually supported each other in campaigns against usurperers and insurgents, relations deteriorated dramatically during the reign of Marduk-balāssu-iqbi. A contract signed with Šamši-Adad V under his father's presumption should have tipped the balance . The Assyrian had inherited the throne in the middle of a civil war and asked for help from Marduk-zākir-šumi I, who was probably his father-in-law, but in any case an ally of his father Salmānu-ašarēd III. had been. In contrast to the partnership between the two kingdoms under the fathers, as recorded on the black obelisk from Nimrud , the treaty concluded with the heir Salmānu-ašarēd meant a humiliation and submission of Assya as a vassal to Babylonian supremacy.

Šamši-Adad V led two campaigns against Marduk-balāssu-iqbi. According to his annals, which are handed down on a stele from Nimrud , he marched with his army first along the Tigris to the south, as the direct route through the fortress of Zaddi was blocked, the then northernmost city of Babylonia on the Little Zab . The synchronist story reports that he captured numerous cities on his way and decisively defeated the army of Marduk-balāssu-iqbi and his allies. In the capital Gannanāti, however, there only seems to have been raids on the suburbs. The second campaign then led to the conquest of the city without any detours. Marduk-balāssu-iqbi, who had fled to the area around Diyāla, was arrested, captured and chained to Assyria before the city of Der was taken. Less than a year later , his successor, Bāba-aḫa-iddina, met the same fate.

literature

John A. Brinkman: Political history of Post-Kassite Babylonia (1158-722 BC) (= Analecta orientalia vol. 43). Pontificum Istitutum Biblicum, Rome 1968, pp. 351-352.

Dietz-Otto Edzard , In: Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Aräologie , Vol. 7: Libanukasabas - Medicine . Walter De Gruyter, 1990. ISBN 978-3-11-010437-0 , p. 376.

Individual evidence

↑ Kudurru in the Louvre , AO 6684, see: Joan Aruz, Sarah B. Graff, Yelena Rakic, Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age , Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014. ISBN 9780300208085 . P. 340 f.
↑ Kudurru in the British Museum , BM 90834, see also: Karen Radner, The power of the name: ancient oriental strategies for self-preservation , Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. ISBN 9783447053280 . Pp. 127-129
↑ Luis Robert Siddall: The Reign of Adad-nīrārī III: An Historical and Ideological Analysis of An Assyrian King and His Times. Brill 2013, ISBN 9789004256149 , pp. 75-77.

predecessor	Office	successor
Marduk-zākir-šumi I.	King of Babylonia 823–813 BC Chr.	Bāba-aḫa-iddina

personal data
SURNAME	Marduk-balāssu-iqbi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Babylonian king
DATE OF BIRTH	9th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH	9th century BC Chr.

[1] Kudurru in the Louvre , AO 6684, see: Joan Aruz, Sarah B. Graff, Yelena Rakic, Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age , Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014. ISBN 9780300208085 . P. 340 f.

[2] Kudurru in the British Museum , BM 90834, see also: Karen Radner, The power of the name: ancient oriental strategies for self-preservation , Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. ISBN 9783447053280 . Pp. 127-129

[3] Luis Robert Siddall: The Reign of Adad-nīrārī III: An Historical and Ideological Analysis of An Assyrian King and His Times. Brill 2013, ISBN 9789004256149 , pp. 75-77.