Urzana

Urzana ( ^m Ur-za-na) was a king of Muṣaṣir . On his seal he is called šár ^URU mus-šá-sir . On the stele of Topzawa , Rusa I of Urartu reports that he had installed him in his office. Sargon , however, saw him as an Assyrian vassal. His brother Šulmu-Bel has an Assyrian name. 714 BC Urzana allegedly refused to pay tribute (Letter from God, lines 306–308), whereupon Sargon attacked Muṣaṣir during his 8th campaign and had the palace of Urzana and the Temple of Ḫaldi plundered (Letter from God, lines 309–414).

Ursana's cylinder seal was acquired in Istanbul at the end of the 18th century by the Habsburg ambassador Josef Freiherr von Schwachheim . It is now in the medals cabinet in The Hague. It is made of chalcedony , which is believed to have powers against disease demons, and is in the Assyrian style. It shows a bearded winged genius grabbing two ostriches by the neck.

literature

• Dominique Collon : Urzana of Musasir's seal . In: Altan Çilingiroǧlu and DH French (eds.): Anatolian Iron Ages . Volume 3. British Institute of Archeology at Ankara Monograph 3, Ankara 1994, pp. 3-40.
• Kathryn F. Kravitz, A Last-Minute Revision to Sargon's Letter to the God. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 62/2, 2003, 81-95.