Tukulti-apil-Ešarra III.

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Stele of Tiglat-Pileser III, Louvre

Tukulti-apil-Ešarra III. ( Akkadian ) or biblically Tiglat-Pileser III. was from 745 to 726 BC. King of the Assyrian Empire .

Tiglat-Pileser succeeded in building Assyria - at the beginning of his rule a local power - into the most important great power in the Middle East . He reformed the structure of the empire and abolished tax privileges in order to guarantee the financing of militarization and the policy of expansion.

Surname

Its Akkadian name means: "My trust rests on the heir of Ešarra". The name is seen as particularly politically ambitious. Ešarra denotes the main temple in Aššur . The heir son of Ešarra is the deity Ninurta , the son of the city and state god Aššur . Since Tukulti-Ninurta I , who was the first to include this deity in his Assyrian royal name, Ninurta has been considered a god who can choose or overthrow the king, right after Aššur and sometimes next to Nergal . In the inscriptions of his predecessor Tukulti-apil-Ešarra I. Aššur and Ninurta are mentioned as his patrons in war and hunting. Ninurta gives the king a combative character that makes him infallible in war and hunting.

swell

Reports of Tiglat-Pileser's deeds and campaigns are preserved on numerous inscriptions and steles. He is mentioned several times in the Old Testament .

Inscriptions

The annals of Tiglat-Pileser III. were held on wall panels in the central palace in Kalhu , but after the destruction of the same by Assurhaddon around 672 they were reused in the construction of the south-west palace. Austen Henry Layard was able to recover numerous plates in 1847; However, they were naturally no longer in the correct order.

The annals were in chronological order. In addition, there were individual representations that were arranged according to areas ("chronological-geographical pattern"). They may have been kept in the area of ​​the Nabu temple in Kalhu. These include, for example:

  • Broken plate inscription from the southwest palace in Kalhu with the Assyrian conquests between 747 and 735, from Babylonia to Kummuhu .
  • Plate K 3751 from the southeast palace in Kalhu, conquests up to 730
  • Fragment from Kalhu, Governor's Palace (ND 400) with the report on the campaigns in Phenicia 734
  • Copy of an inscription, lost today, with the campaigns in Syria, Phenicia, Israel, Arabia and Egypt up to 728 by George Smith .
  • Inscription fragment (fired clay) from the Cella of Tašmetu in Nabu Temple of Kalhu (ND 4301 + 4305) to the campaign against Urartu of 735th

Bible

The Bible refers to Tiglat-Pileser in 2 Kings 15.19  EU and 1 Chr 5.26  EU as Pul , after his Babylonian name Pulu. Otherwise he is called by his Assyrian name Tiglat-Pileser ( 2 Kings 15.29  EU , 16.7–10 EU ; 1 Chr 5.6  EU ; 2 Chr 28.20  EU ).

Life

It is not clear whether Tiglat-Pileser was a usurper or a legitimate heir to the throne. Who started the uprising against Aššur-nirari V. in 746 BC. Is not known. However, the uprising had its starting point in Kalhu and Bēl-dân, the governor of Kalhu, became the first eponym under Tukulti-apil-Ešarra. For this reason, and since the ruling clique under Šamši-ilu was probably ousted by Tukulti-apil-Ešarra, a participation in the 746 uprising is not unlikely.

Tukulti-apil-Ešarra III. himself (KAH I, 21) describes himself as the son of Adad-nīrārī III. who, however, ruled 38 years before him. The royal lists list him as the son of Aššur-nirari V, his predecessor, but this is the usual procedure and not always reliable.

He was married to Queen Yâba , whose grave, along with that of Sargon's Queen Atalia , was found in Kalhu.

Domestic politics

Tiglat-Pileser reformed the provincial division of the Assyrian Empire and downsized some of the provinces significantly, perhaps to reduce the power of the local rulers. In the course of his reign, however, some provinces were expanded to include newly conquered areas. As in central Syrian times, the governors ( Šaknu ) were appointed directly by the king. In fact, the office was often hereditary. The governors mostly came from the powerful Assurs families.

Campaigns

Location of Assyria and its neighboring peoples

First, Tiglat-Pileser successfully fought Sarduri II of Urartu in the north (see map), who had extended his rule to northern Syria. He attacked 735 Tušpa , but could not take it. The campaign is described, among other things, in an inscription fragment (fired clay) from the Tašmetu cella in the Nabu temple of Kalhu (ND 4301 + 4305), which was discovered in 1955. The fragment also describes the landscape in the area of Van and mentions, among other things, Mount Sizir west of Bitlis . Possibly the new borders between Urartu and Assur. In Ulluba a new Assyrian fortress was built, Ashur-iqiša that with new people in Ya'udi was settled. The province was under the rab reši .

Then he turned his attention to the Hatti area to the west. Tiglat-Pileser annexed areas between Arpad and the coast of the Mediterranean Sea ("upper sea") at Antioch and Hamath . Ja'udi , Karkemiš , Aram , Samaria and the Phoenician cities became tributaries.

In Assyrian inscriptions around 740 BC The name Azarja appears, who is mentioned as a usurper. Whether it is the biblical Azariah is a matter of controversy among experts. In the Syrian-Ephraimite War 734/733 BC King Rezin of Aram allied with Pekach of Israel and the Phoenician cities against Ahaz (in Assyrian sources: Jahu-khazi), the king of Judah . Ahaz called Tiglath-pilesar for help. Tiglat-Pileser conquered Damascus and killed Rezin. He also conquered parts of the Empire of Israel and had numerous residents deported. The land of the Philistines came under the control of Assyria. According to the biblical report (2 Kings 15 and 16), however, Hoshea is said to have killed Pekach and declared himself his successor, while Assyrian sources report that Tiglath-Pileser removed Pekah and installed Hoshea as a vassal king. This also corresponds to the inscription III R 10, No. 2, in which Tiglat-Pileser reports that the Samarian people killed Pekach and chose Hosea as the new king.

Then Tiglat-Pileser conquered Babylon . There he was crowned King of Babylonia under the name Pulu. After his death, Crown Prince Ulūlāja (Ululaju) ascended the throne. Like his father, he used his prince name as King of Babylonia. In Assyria he called himself Salmānu-ašarēd V. , the bibl. traditional name is Shalmaneser .

buildings

Tiglat-Pileser had the royal palace built in Kalhu, which was later demolished by Assurhaddon .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Dominik Bonatz: Assyrian war ideology and its pictures . In: War Society - Institutions: Contributions to a comparative war history ed. by Burkhard Meißner, Oliver Schmitt, Michael Sommer, Walter de Gruyter 2005, p. 75 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  2. ↑ Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Roland E. Murphy (Eds.): The Jerome Biblical Commentary. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs NJ 1968, p. 211.
  3. ^ A b c D. J. Wiseman: A fragmentary Inscription of Tiglath-Pileser III from Nimrud . In: Iraq . tape 18 , no. 2 , 1956, p. 118-120 .
  4. ^ Eduard Meyer : History of antiquity . Vol. 3, 4th ed., Darmstadt 1965, pp. 3ff., Viewed him as a usurper and described his ancestry as fiction
  5. ↑ For a participation z. B. Stefan Zawadzki: The Revolt of 746 BC and the coming of Tiglath-pileser III to the throne . In: State Archives of Assyria Bulletin . tape 8 , 1994, pp. 53 f . and Felix Blocher: Assyrian dignitaries and governors in the 9th and 8th centuries: A reassessment of their role . In: Ancient Near Eastern Research . tape 28 , 2001, p. 298-324 .
  6. ^ Rejecting and more in favor of a revolt. Šamši-ilu: Paul Garelli: The Archievment of Tiglath-pileser III: Novelty or Continuity? In: M. Cogan, I. Eph'al (Ed.): Ah, Assyria ... Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor . Jerusalem 1991, p. 196-212 .
  7. ^ JN Postgate: The Land of Assur and the Yoke of Assur . In: World Archeology . tape 23 , no. 3 , 1992, p. 251 .
predecessor Office successor
Aššur-nirari V. Assyrian king
745–726 BC Chr. 		Salmānu-ašarēd V.
(Shalmaneser V.)
Nabû-mukīn-zēri King of Babylonia
728–726 BC Chr. 		Salmānu-ašarēd V. (Ulūlāja) ( Shalmaneser
V.)
personal data
SURNAME Tukulti-apil-Ešarra III.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tiglat-Pileser III .; Phul; Pul; Pulu; Tiglath Pilesar III.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Assyria
DATE OF BIRTH 8th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 726 BC Chr.