Athura ( Aθurā ), also called Assyria, was a geographical area within the Achaemenid Empire in Upper Mesopotamia from 539 to 330 BC as a military protectorate state. Although sometimes regarded as a satrapy, Achaemenid royal inscriptions list it as a dahyu (plural dahyāva), a concept generally interpreted as meaning either a group of people or both a country and its people, without any administrative implication.Cook, J.M.: "The rise of the Achaemenids and establishment of their empire", pp. 261–262, in Ilya Gershevitch, Briant, Pierre (2002): From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, pp. 177, 390-391, 909.
It mostly incorporated the territories of Neo-Assyrian Empire corresponding to what is now northern Iraq in the upper Tigris, the middle and upper Euphrates, parts of modern-day northwestern Iran, modern-day northeastern Syria (Eber-Nari) and part of southeast Anatolia (now Turkey). However, Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula were separate Achaemenid territories. The Neo-Assyrian Empire collapsed after a period of violent civil wars, followed by an invasion by a coalition of some of its former subject peoples, the Iranian peoples (Medes, Persians and Scythians), Babylonians and Cimmerians in the late seventh century BC, culminating in the Battle of Nineveh, and Assyria had fallen completely by 609 BC.
Between 609 and 559 BC, former Assyrian territories were divided between the Median Empire to the east and the Neo-Babylonian Empire to the west. Both parts were subsumed into the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC, and it has been argued that they constituted the satrapies of Media and Aθurā, respectively. In Herodotus's account, the Ninth Tributary District comprised "Babylonia and the rest of Assyria" and excluded Eber-Nari.Briant, Pierre, op. cit. p. 391.
Despite a few rebellions, Aθurā functioned as an important part of the Achaemenid Empire and its inhabitants were given the right to govern themselves throughout Achaemenid rule and Old Aramaic was used diplomatically by the Achaemenids.
Known for their combat skills, Assyrian soldiers (along with the Lydians) constituted the main heavy infantry of the Achaemenid military. Due to the major destruction of Assyria during the fall of its empire, some early scholars described the area as an "uninhabited wasteland." Other Assyriologists, however, such as John Curtis and Simo Parpola, have strongly disputed this claim, citing how Assyria would eventually become one of the wealthiest regions among the Achaemenid Empire. This wealth was due to the land's great prosperity for agriculture that the Achaemenids used effectively for almost 200 years.
In contrast to the policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Achaemenid Persians did not intervene in the internal affairs of their ruling satrapies as long as they continued the flow of tribute and taxes back to Persia."The Culture And Social Institutions Of Ancient Iran" by Muhammad A. Dandamaev, Vladimir G. Lukonin. Page 104
Fall of the Assyrian Empire
Between the mid 14th centuries and late 11th century BC, and again between the late 10th and late seventh centuries BC, the respective Middle Assyrian Empire and Neo-Assyrian Empire dominated the Middle East militarily, culturally, economically and politically, and the Persians and their neighbours the Medes, Parthians, Elamites and Mannaeans were vassals of Assyria and paid tribute.
However, the Assyrian empire descended into a period of civil war in 626 BC, which drastically weakened it, and eventually led to a number of its former subject peoples, namely the Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians, forming an alliance and attacking the civil war-ridden Assyrians in 616 BC. The Battle of Nineveh in 612 BC eventually left Assyria destroyed for years to come.Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Assyrians continued to fight on with the aid of another of their former vassals, the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, also known as the Saïte dynasty, who feared the rise of these new powers. A costly but victorious Battle at Megiddo against the forces of the Kingdom of Judah in 609 allowed Saïte Egypt to advance to the rescue, only to be defeated by the Babylonian-Median-Scythian alliance. Harran, the new Assyrian capital, was eventually taken the same year, thus ending the empire.
Despite this, part of the remnants of the former Assyrian army continued to fight on, along with Egypt, until final defeat at Carchemish in 605 BC.
The Babylonian rule was unpopular but did not last long. In 539, Cyrus the Great defeated the Babylonian king Nabonidus—ironically himself an Assyrian from Harran—took Babylon and made it, along with Assyria, into provinces of the new Achaemenid Empire.
As part of the Achaemenid Empire The former major Assyrian capitals of Nineveh, Dur-Sharrukin and Kalhu (now Nimrud) were only sparsely populated during Achaemenid rule. Most Assyrian settlement was in smaller cities, towns and villages at plain level, in the mountains, or on mounds such as Tell ed-Darim. However, according to more recent Assyriologists such as Georges Roux, cities such as Arrapḫa, Guzana (now the ruins of Tell Halaf) and Arbela (now Erbil) remained intact, and Ashur was to revive. Despite many of the Assyrian cities being left largely in ruins from the battles that led to the fall of its empire in the seventh century BC, rural Assyria was prosperous according to the Greek scholar Xenophon.Arrian, Anabasis, III.7.3. After passing Kalhu and Nineveh (which he described in ruins with only a handful of Assyrians dwelling amongst them), Xenophon and the Greeks turned north-west, following the east bank of the Tigris. He described rural Assyria:
The testimony is an example of the rich agricultural resources of Assyria's region and the existence of a satrap's palace. It is not known exactly where this palace was located, but Austen Henry Layard suggested it may have been near Zakho.Layard, A. H., 1853. Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, p. 61 and 686
An inscription found in Egypt, written by Arsames, describes Assyrian cities that obtained administrative centres under Achaemenid rule: Lair: Assyrian Lahiru (Eski Kifri), by the Diyala Valley Arzuhina: Tell Chemchemal, 40 kilometers east of Kirkuk Arbela Halsu: Location unknown Matalubash: Assyrian Ubaše (Tell Huwaish), 20 kilometers north of ancient city of Assur
Prior to the Persian rule of Assyria, the Achaemenids were greatly Assyrianized,"The 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project", Muhammad Dandamayev, R. M. Whiting. 41–48. and Aramaic continued as the lingua franca of the Empire in the region, with the Imperial Script the everyday writing system. Traditional Mesopotamian religion within the empire was tolerated, and the judicial system, Assyrian calendar and imperial standards imposed by the Assyrians remained in force everywhere."Syria-Palestine under Achemenid Rule", by Israel Eph'Al. in: The Cambridge Ancient History 2nd Edition, Vol. 4. Pages 147–161.
The Assyrians, like all other tributary peoples of the Achaemenids, were obliged to pay taxes to the Emperor and, whenever he campaigned, supply troops as well. Reliefs of Assyrian tribute bearers carved on the east and north sides of the Apadana, consist of seven bearded men: one carrying animal skins, one carrying a length of cloth, two carrying bowls, and two leading mouflons.Briant, P., 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, Winona Lake, Indiana. Page 175.
Rise of Aramaic The Assyrian Empire resorted to a policy of deporting troublesome conquered peoples (predominantly Aramean tribes as well as many Jews, Elamites and others) into Mesopotamia. While this allowed some integration, it may have also led to the various rebellions within the Empire in the seventh century. By the sixth century, the indigenous and originally Akkadian-speaking peoples of Assyria and Babylonia spoke Akkadian-influenced varieties of Eastern Aramaic that still survive among the Assyrian people to this day. Consequently, during the Persian rule of Assyria, Aramaic gradually became the main language spoken by the Assyrians.
Even before the Empire fell, the Assyrians had made Aramaic language the lingua franca of its empire; many could speak it and the ruling elite of Assyria needed to be bilingual, capable of speaking both Akkadian and Aramaic. The conquest of Assyria and the violent destruction of the cities meant that many of these bilingual skilled individuals died with their language and the Aramaic script was incorporated into the Assyrian culture by around the late 6th century BC.
Following the Achaemenid conquest of Assyria under Darius I, Imperial Aramaic was adopted as the "vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages." The use of a single official language is thought to have greatly contributed to the success of the Achaemenids in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did. p. 251
Imperial Aramaic was highly standardized; its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect, and the inevitable influence of Persian gave the language a new clarity and robust flexibility. In 1955, Richard N. Frye questioned the classification of Imperial Aramaic as an "official language", noting that no surviving edict expressly and unambiguously accorded that status to any particular language. p. 457.
Frye reclassifies Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Achaemenid territories, suggesting then that the Achaemenid-era use of Aramaic was more pervasive than generally thought.
For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenids, Imperial Aramaic–or near enough for it to be recognizable–remained an influence on the various native Iranian languages. Aramaic script and–as ideograms–Aramaic vocabulary survived as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi scripts..
One of the largest collections of Imperial Aramaic texts is that of the Persepolis fortification tablets, which number about five hundred.
Many of the extant documents witnessing to this form of Aramaic come from Egypt, and from Elephantine in particular. Of them, the best known is the Wisdom of Ahiqar, a book of instructive aphorisms quite similar in style to the biblical Book of Proverbs. Achaemenid Aramaic is sufficiently uniform that it is often difficult to know where any particular example of the language was written. Only careful examination reveals the occasional loan word from a local language.
A group of thirty Imperial Aramaic documents from Bactria were recently discovered, and an analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the fourth century BC Achaemenid provinces of Bactria and Sogdia.
Aramaic dialects and written script survive to this day among the Christian Assyrians of Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran.
Assyrian revolts in 546 and 520 BC In 546 and 520 BC, the two Assyrian provinces of Mada and Athura revolted against the Achaemenids. Though the revolts were suppressed, it illustrated that the two regions acted in unison, suggesting perhaps an ethnic and cultural link. Having said this a rebellion could occur in several different parts of an Empire for geographical reasons and it may have been that the whole of the Mesopotamia region became swept with rebellion.
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