The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I in History and Historical Memory

John P. Nielsen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317300489
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Altertum

Nebuchadnezzar I (r. 1125-1104) was one of the more significant and successful kings to rule Babylonia in the intervening period between the demise of the Kassite Dynasty in the 12th century at the end of the Late Bronze Age, and the emergence of a new, independent Babylonian monarchy in the last quarter of the 7th century. His dynamic reign saw Nebuchadnezzar active on both domestic and foreign fronts. He tended to the needs of the traditional cult sanctuaries and their associated priesthoods in the major cities throughout Babylonia and embarked on military campaigns against both Assyria in the north and Elam to the east. Yet later Babylonian tradition celebrated him for one achievement that was little noted in his own royal inscriptions: the return of the statue of Marduk, Babylon's patron deity, from captivity in Elam.

The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar reconstructs the history of Nebuchadnezzar I's rule and, drawing upon theoretical treatments of historical and collective memory, examines how stories of his reign were intentionally utilized by later generations of Babylonian scholars and priests to create an historical memory that projected their collective identity and reflected Marduk's rise to the place of primacy within the Babylonian pantheon in the 1st millennium BCE. It also explores how this historical memory was employed by the urban elite in discourses of power. Nebuchadnezzar I remained a viable symbol, though with diminishing effect, until at least the 3rd century BCE, by which time his memory had almost entirely faded. This study is a valuable resource to students of the Ancient Near East and Nebuchadnezzar, but is also a fascinating exploration of memory creation and exploitation in the ancient world.

Part I
Writing history and recovering memory, sources and methodologies

1
Toward an understanding of the Babylonian memory of Nebuchadnezzar I

1.1 Nebuchadnezzar I

In an unknown year in the final quarter of the twelfth century BCE, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar I was faced with a dilemma. He had marched his army from Babylon to Sippar and then east to the confluence of the Diyala and Tigris Rivers where he had then proceeded upriver along the course of the Diyala until turning southeast to follow the contours of the Zagros Mountains to the city of Dēr in eastern Babylonia (see Map).¹ Along the way his army’s numbers had swelled with reinforcements as the chieftains of the various Kassite tribes loyal to him that inhabited the region flocked to his banner. Now in the sweltering heat of the summer month of Du’ūzu, he was contemplating the final phase of his campaign. His objective was the kingdom of Elam with its capital at Susa, but this was not the first time he had attempted such an assault. A previous campaign led by Nebuchadnezzar I had been cut short when disease had ravaged his army. Weakened and facing an advancing Elamite force on that earlier occasion, Nebuchadnezzar I had been compelled to withdraw from his position on the Uqnû River to the safety of the city of Kār-Dūr-Apil-Sîn.² Having been turned back once before, he must have been determined not to fail again.

Victory for Nebuchadnezzar promised an end to a war with Elam that he had inherited from previous kings. A generation earlier, the Elamite king, Kudur-naḫḫunte, having asserted claims to the Babylonian throne based on descent in his maternal line from a Kassite king of Babylonia,³ had ravaged the cities of northern Babylonia, sacking Nippur, Borsippa, and Babylon and in the process bringing to an end the Kassite Dynasty that had ruled over Babylonia for nearly four centuries. The dynasty’s last king, Enlilnādin-aḫi, had been taken prisoner by Kudur-naḫḫunte, but this act paled in comparison to the greater indignity inflicted upon Babylon: the theft of the cult statue of the god Marduk, Babylon’s patron deity, and its removal by Kudur-naḫḫunte to Elam.⁴ More than the capture of their king, the loss of the Marduk statue would have dealt a severe blow to the Babylonian psyche. To the Babylonian mind, the statue’s absence meant that Marduk himself had departed Babylon and therefore his divine protection had gone from the land. Furthermore, the loss of the statue was made all the more conspicuous in the eyes of the Babylonians because it prevented the proper observation of Marduk’s cultic rites, most critically the public celebration of the akītu festival at Babylon. This occasion marked the beginning of the Babylonian New Year in the month of Nisannu in the spring and featured the parading of Marduk’s statue through the streets of Babylon on the eighth day to the akītu house located outside the city walls and then back once again on the eleventh day to his newly cleansed and purified temple, the Esagil.⁵ The king played a crucial and visible role in these ceremonies. The critical events of the akītu festival occurred when the king grasped the hand of Marduk and led him in procession back to the Esagil. Then, within the sanctuary of the Esagil, he made pronouncements and swore oaths before Marduk and the priest of Marduk that confirmed and renewed his kingship for the year to come.⁶ The proper observation of the akītu festival was so critical to the ideology of Babylonian kingship that a new king’s first regnal year was not recorded as having begun with his accession to the throne, but rather with his first participation in the akītu festival.

As devastating as the loss of Marduk to Elam was, the Babylonians had been powerless to avenge it. In the wake of Kudur-naḫḫunte’s campaign, Babylonia did not come under Elamite rule, but a power vacuum was created in which a new dynasty emerged at the city of Isin in southern Babylonia well beyond the reach of Elamite raids.⁷ The early kings of this Second Dynasty of Isin that succeeded the Kassite Dynasty had been able to assert gradual control over Babylonia, but it was only with Nebuchadnezzar I’s accession to the throne in 1125 as the fourth king of the dynasty that Babylonian power was sufficiently restored to avenge the earlier defeats at the hands of the Elamites. Having arrived at Dēr, Nebuchadnezzar’s march into Elamite territory promised considerable challenges. The Elamites posed a clear threat, but the greater danger to Nebuchadnezzar was the harsh conditions his army would encounter as they advanced southeast toward Susa. Summer temperatures in the region today can climb above 50º Celsius (120º Fahrenheit), and the Elamites were in control of the water sources along the route.⁸ A strike into Elam at this time would have appeared foolhardy and therefore would have been unexpected; the one advantage Nebuchadnezzar had was surprise.

Launching his raid into enemy territory, Nebuchadnezzar was able to reach the Ulāya River before the Elamites could muster a response. There the Elamite king, Ḫulteludiš-Inšušinak, drew up an army in order to halt his advance.⁹ The harsh conditions of the march must have left Nebuchadnezzar’s men thirsty and exhausted as the Elamites offered battle, and it may be that Ḫulteludiš-Inšušinak was able to press his advantage at the outset. In the heat and dust of the fight, however, one man distinguished himself: Šitti-Marduk, the chief of the Kassite tribe of Bīt-Karziabku. From his position on the right flank of Nebuchadnezzar’s army, Šitti-Marduk made a decisive chariot charge into the Elamite ranks. With the tide of battle turned, Nebuchadnezzar I vanquished Ḫulteludiš-Inšušinak, who was never to be heard from again.¹⁰ Nebuchadnezzar I then followed up the victory by marching on Susa where he beheld the statue of Marduk,¹¹ the god to whom he had been devoted and whose absence had caused him so much personal vexation.¹² Taking Marduk by the hand, he set about making plans for his march back to Babylon. In advance of his return, Nebuchadnezzar sent word to the people of Babylon informing them of his victory over the Elamites and instructing them to make preparations for Marduk’s re-entry into the Esagil.¹³ A wave of euphoria must have met Nebuchadnezzar’s triumphant march into Babylon, and Marduk’s reinstallation upon his dais within the Esagil signified a restoration of the proper divine order.

With the war won, the joy of the occasion lingered and inspired hymns and literary compositions that celebrated the piety of Nebuchadnezzar I and, more importantly, the supremacy of Marduk. The notion that Marduk was the king of the gods was not without antecedents, but in the aftermath of Nebuchadnezzar’s victory this theological position received official sanction, and Marduk was elevated to the head of the Babylonian pantheon, replacing the god Enlil, whose home was the venerable city of Nippur and who had held that status for over a millennium. Nebuchadnezzar I’s place within the political history of Babylonia is notable, but the ideological transformations that occurred made the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I a significant turning point both for Marduk and for the history of Babylonian religion.¹⁴

That is what happened. Or at least that is how a historian might reconstruct the events of Nebuchadnezzar I’s reign and assign to them significance based on the admittedly sparse but varied historical records that survive. Such a reconstruction draws not only on the contents of those sources but also makes significant inferences and assumptions based on their contents, blurring the line between primary and secondary sources for Nebuchadnezzar I’s reign, and highlighting both the historiographical challenges that confront those attempting to write histories of the ancient Middle East and the contemporary biases that shape their efforts. The narrative that emerges from such a maximalist approach to the evidence is certainly appealing, evoking as it does within its emplotment a Nebuchadnezzar I who was both a brilliant military tactician determined to punish the Elamites for their past offenses and a pious monarch who longed for Marduk’s return to Babylon. This character is certainly present in the cuneiform sources, but one document from Nebuchadnezzar’s own reign notwithstanding,¹⁵ the compositions that depicted the monarch in this light are found only on tablets of a much later date. The earliest of these are found on tablets from Assyria and Babylonia that date to the seventh century BCE, nearly five centuries after Nebuchadnezzar I’s reign, and the latest reference to the king comes from the southern Babylonian city of Uruk from a tablet that dates to the time when the Macedonian-Greek Seleucid Dynasty, successors to Alexander the Great’s conquest of Asia, ruled Babylonia.¹⁶ Incredibly, some memory of Nebuchadnezzar I’s legacy endured for almost 1,000 years after his reign had ended. Of further interest is the reality that the event that was most celebrated in many of the later texts, Marduk’s return to Babylon and Marduk’s agency in bringing about that event, received a single mention – and then only in passing – in contemporary compositions from Nebuchadnezzar I’s own reign.¹⁷ Such a discrepancy between the contents of the contemporary sources and the literary texts found on later tablets could be overcome with the simple explanation that the later tablets contained copies of much older compositions that date to Nebuchadnezzar I’s reign. This explanation, however, assumes a slavish copying and recopying of tablets by scribes whose adherence to tradition left them devoid of any in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of map
• List of tables
• Foreword – history, memory, and the past
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• Part I Writing history and recovering memory, sources and methodologies
• Part II Nebuchadnezzar I and his times
• Part III Remembering Nebuchadnezzar I in the first millennium BCE
• Part IV The making of memory and the making of meaning
• Index