Suteans

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The Suti were a nomadic people in northern and eastern Babylonia . Presumably it is a collective term that perhaps later became a real ethnonym.

swell

An Old Babylonian text mentions the land of the Suti (Su-ti-um ki ). The Assyrians have reported clashes with the Suti since the reign of Arik-den-ilu . They are mentioned along with the Ahlamu and the Iauri.

Suti are also mentioned in an Amarna letter from the Assyrian king Aššur-uballiṭ I , according to which they captured Egyptian ambassadors and endangered safe traffic between Assyria and Syria (EA 16) (cf. Chronicle P, I. 6). They also mention EA 297 (16) from Gezer and EA 318 (13) from TI-en-ni . They are known as desert nomads, probably residents of the steppe in northern Jezireh . The Amarna letters EA 122: 34 and EA 195: 29 report on Suteans in Egyptian service. The Ta'anak letters (No. 3, reverse 4) also mention Sutean mercenaries.

ID

The lù SU ki known from Ur-III-time texts were also interpreted as Suteans. This was contradicted early on. Thorkild Jacobsen saw them as a mountain inhabitant of the Zagros and Ignace Gelb as a Subaraean , François Vallat as a inhabitant of the Susania . Piotr Steinkeller wants to read the characters as Šimaški .

history

The Kassite king Kadašman-Ḫarbe (approx. 1355-1344 BC) defeated Suti who plundered. In the reign of Adad-apla-iddina (1068-1047 BC) they destroyed temples in Der , Nippur and Dur-Kurigalzu, according to the royal chronicle . In Sippar they destroyed the Ebabbar of the sun god Šamaš , the cult image of the god was lost, so that his cult could no longer be carried out according to the traditional rules. A section on the broken obelisk (III, 4) may also refer to these processes . Only Nabû-apla-iddina (approx. 887–855 BC) was able to drive the Suti out of Babylonia. After that, Nabû-apla-iddina restored the temples of the gods and their appropriate cult.

These processes are described in the Šamaš tablet, a stone relief from Sippar from the reign of Nabû-apla-iddina, which records a gift from the king to an ērib bīti priest of Ebabbar. He receives regular gifts of food and clothing from the temple.

The destruction of the Ebabbar by the Suti is attributed to the wrath of the god Šamaš.

Simbar-šīpak (1025-1008 BC), the first king of the Meerland dynasty , tried to restore the cult of Šamaš, but could not find the lost statue. So he had a solar disk made, to which regular sacrifices were made. He appointed a certain Ekur-šuma-ušabši as the sangû priest. Under the ruler Kaššu-nadin-aḫḫe there was hunger and hardship, and the victims were neglected. One of his successors, Eulmaš-šākin-šumi (1003-987), assigned the Ebabbar of Šamaš at the request of the sangû priest Ekur-šuma-ušabši part of the income of Esagila in Babylon , with which the cult could be resumed. Only under Nabu-apla-iddina (approx. 887-855 BC) was discovered by Nabu-nadin-šumī, a descendant of Ekur-šuma-ušabši, an image of Samas on the banks of the Euphrates, which served as a model for a a new statue could serve and so the right cult was restored, centuries of chaos ended.

In New Babylonian times, the Suti also appeared as allies of the Elamites , such as Nergal-naṣir, the chief of the Suti, "fearless in battle", the Šutruk-Naḫḫunte III. together with General Tannanu, the taslisu officer, ten rab-kisri commanders, 80,000 archers and horsemen in 703 BC. Chr. Marduk-Baladan for help against Sennacherib sent, albeit without success.

Suteans are recorded as slaves.

literature

  • MC Astour: The Rabbaeans: A tribal society on the Euphrates from Yahdun-Lim to Julius Caesar . Syro-Mesopotamian Studies 2/2. Malibu, Undena Publications 1978.
  • JA Brinkman: A political history of Post-Kassite Babylonia . AnOr 43 (Rom. Pontifical Biblical Institute 1968), 285 ff.
  • Michael Heltzer: The Suteans . Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale 1981.
  • LW King: Babylonian boundary stones and memorial tablets in the British Museum . London, Trustees of the British Museum, 1912.
  • J.- R. Kupper: Les nomades en Mesopotamie au temps des rois de Mari. Bibliotheque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Université de Liege 142 . Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1957
  • M. B. Rowton: Dimorphic structure and the problem of the 'apiru-'Ibrim . Journal of Near Eastern Studies 35, 1976.
  • Kathryn E. Slanski: Classification, historiography and monumental authority: The Babylonian entitlement Narûs (kudurrus) . Journal of Cuneiform Studies 52, 2000, 95-114.
  • Piotr Steinkeller : On the Identity of the Toponym LÚ.Su (.A) . Journal of the American Oriental Society 108/2, 1988, 197-202.
  • FX Steinmetzer: The Babylonian Kudurru (boundary stones) as a document form . Leipzig 1922.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Piotr Steinkeller: On the Identity of the Toponym LÚ. Su. (A) , in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 108/2, 1988, 198.
  2. ↑ AT Olmstead: Kashshites, Assyrians, and the balance of power , in: The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 36/2, 1920, the 132nd
  3. ↑ For the location, see C. Epstein: JEA 49, 1963, 53.
  4. ↑ Pinḥas Artzi: Some unrecognized Syrian Amarna Letters (EA 260, 317, 318) , in: Journal of Near Eastern Studies 27/3, 1968, 163.
  5. ↑ SN Kramer 1940
  6. ↑ See Ignace J. Gelb: Hurrians and Subarians. Chicago 1944, 24-27.
  7. ^ Piotr Steinkeller: On the Identity of the Toponym LÚ. Su. (A) , in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 108/2, 1988.
  8. ^ Kurt Jaritz: The problem of the "Broken Obelisk". In: Journal of Semitic Studies. Oxford 4 / 3.1959, 214. ISSN  0022-4480
  9. ^ JA Brinkman: Elamite military Aid to Merodach-Baladan. In: Journal of Near Eastern Studies. Erich F. Schmidt Memorial Issue. Chicago 24. 1965, 3, 165. ISSN  0022-2968
  10. ↑ UET V 108 3:19; Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Atlanta 78.1940, 23rd ISSN  0003-097X