Ashurnasirpal II: Warrior King of the Assyrian Empire

…the mighty warrior who treads on the necks of his enemies, tramples down all foes, shatters the forces of the proud; the King who acts with the support of the great gods and whose hand has conquered all lands, who has subjugated all the mountains and receives their tribute, taking hostages and establishing his power over all countries.

Standard Inscription of Ashurnasirpal II (Harrison 778)

As a young man, Ashurnasirpal inherited the throne of Assyria from his father, Tukulti-Ninurta II, c. 883 B.C., becoming Ashurnasirpal II (hereinafter he will be referred to as Ashurnasirpal). His name means, “Ashur is guardian of the heir.” He is considered to be the first of the great warrior-kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The war tactics, style of governing, and architectural contributions of Ashurnasirpal II effectively contributed to the sudden resurrection of the Assyrian Empire.

Ashurnasirpal’s father had already secured the Babylonian border and marched westward and northward to reclaim territory lost during the lull of the empire. He died during his seventh year on the throne (Paley 4). Ashurnasirpal’s inheritance included authority over northern Mesopotamia and many territories to the west of the Euphrates thanks to his father’s military campaigns. At the beginning of his reign he was able to focus on expanding his empire instead of being plagued with defending it as his predecessors were (Stiebing 215-216).

At the time Ashurnasirpal claimed the throne, Assyria was just beginning to emerge once again as a great power. The empires of old were gone and new nations began to come forth forming alliances. Assyrian religion included the worship of several deities, the main two being Ashur, god of war and Ishtar, goddess of fertility and love. Reliefs found from the period of Ashurnasirpal’s reign depict genies protecting and caring for the palace. These carvings of the demigods were repeated throughout his temple. Ashur, the primary Assyrian god, is mentioned in all inscriptions and is credited for the success of all military campaigns. As king of Assyria Ashurnasirpal would have served as high priest to the god, Ashur and participated in most temple rituals. Assyrian kings believed that they were divinely appointed to rule by Ashur and therefore, had absolute power over all (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 6).

The reliefs found in Ashurnasirpal’s palace showed many scenes of lion hunting, which was a popular sport for the king. His prowess as a hunter was legendary. He was depicted very close to his prey, which showed his remarkable bravery (Harrison 778).

Ashurnasirpal wasted no time in taking on numerous military campaigns. During his first conquests, he was able to subjugate several small city-states north of Assyria and force the nobles to become his vassals. These vassals, in turn, supplied him with soldiers (Nardo 40). These soldiers, combined with professional soldiers, captives forced to serve, draftees, and hired mercenaries formed a well oiled machine of war under his command (Schomp 60-61).

The Assyrian army was an awesome sight which consisted of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. They used hand-to- hand combat, siege, and psychological techniques to destroy their foes. Under the command of Ashurnasirpal new war tactics were employed. These new tactics combined with a massive military unit created an impressive force. For example, the use of archer-pairs was instituted. This was a two man operation in which one man would use a large shield to protect him and another soldier would fire arrows at the enemy also protected by the shield (Nardo 40-41). A similar technique was used by his elite Charioteers. Chariots contained a shield bearer, an archer, and a driver. Just before Ashurnasirpal, around 1000 B.C., the Assyrian’s introduced the world’s first cavalry units. Wearing chain mail armor, leather boots and riding bareback, they were a formidable force, trampling their foes unimpeded (Schomp 61).

Ashurnasirpal was the first to use psychological tactics in battle. First, he chose small cities on the outskirts of the targeted nation. These cities were easily taken and Ashurnasirpal would have the inhabitants tortured, horribly mutilated and impaled. The city would be totally destroyed and burned. He then would “advertise” these deeds by having the accounts inscribed on monuments for all to see (Schomp 59-60).

Over the centuries, Assyrians perfected the siege tactic. The army would ravage the countryside around the city to destroy hunting grounds, therefore cutting off the outside food supply. The iron clad battering rams were sophisticated contraptions and resistant to flame. Sappers were used to chisel away at the walls as well, which sped up the process of breaching the walls of the city. Ramps built of dirt, debris or wood were constructed which allowed the army to infiltrate the city by simply walking over the walls (Nardo 43).

Ashurnasirpal first major campaign was to subdue the rebellions in the north. A tribe chieftain had united all of the tribes in the region within two years time. Facing a threat to the region, the allied tribes began to fortify the pass of Babite against Assyrian invasion. Ashurnasirpal regarded the action as rebellion. Although it took the Assyrians two years to defeat the entire region, Ashurnasirpal was obstinate in his battle to dominate and destroy the rebels (Goodspeed 189-190). Ashurnasirpal’s army relentlessly tracked his enemies, scaling the mountain terrain and taking prisoners. At his command, his army mutilated the captive’s bodies and, “their corpses were strewn like autumn leaves all over the mountains” (Harrison 774).

Ashurnasirpal’s brutality was becoming well known in the region. He took pleasure in maiming, burning, impaling, and flaying alive his victims, sometimes stretching the torture for days. His army would form pillars of heads at the city gates. An Assyrian soldier’s war prowess was determined by how many heads he collected (Goodspeed 201). Rebels were treated with extreme cruelty, more so than the average conquered victim. Men, women, and children were slaughtered without mercy. Every building was demolished down to its foundation, and all valuables were confiscated and used to further his military campaign. The rebellious nobles would often be flayed alive, their skin and heads posted on the walls of the captured city as a warning. For example, an account of his treatment of one rebellious city, in Ashurnasirpal’s own words reads,

"I captured the city; 600 of their warriors I put to the sword; 3,000 captives I burned with fire; I did not leave a single one among them alive to serve as a hostage. Hulai, their governor, I captured alive. Their corpses I formed into pillars; their young men and maidens I burned in the fire. Hulai…I flayed his skin I spread upon the wall of the city and the city, I destroyed" (Nardo 39).

Due to this blatant terrorism, many cities simply met him at their gates with gifts and bent to kiss the feet of the mighty king. Over the next six years of campaigning, Ashurnasirpal was able to expand the Assyrian Empire to control the upper Mesopotamian region, lands in middle and lower Mesopotamia, Lebanon, Tyre and even Cyprus is mentioned proving large bodies of water were not an issue for his army. Most of the coastal cities of the Mediterranean he seized as well, demanding tribute and devouring those cities who dared to refuse him (Goodspeed 192).

It was common practice for Assyrian kings to accept tribute from their enemies, thus allowing Assyria to further the empire with both land and riches. This tribute would be in silver, gold, precious jewels, herds of cattle, sheep, grain, and virtually anything of value that Assyria would accept as payment. Before Ashurnasirpal’s reign, many nations and city-states had withheld tribute payments until Assyria was forced to raise their army against them. There are many accounts of kings and nobles lying prostrate at the Assyrian king’s feet while paying tribute to avoid invasion. However, unlike his predecessors, Ashurnasirpal desired to replace the old system of tribute with more permanent Assyrian control over the conquered nations. He began occupying the lands that he conquered and through assimilation and deportation, his empire quickly expanded (Harrison 773). Ashurnasirpal was the first Assyrian king to use massive deportation, previously only a Hittite practice. He allowed some captives to relocate and settle in other Assyrian controlled areas and some he kept as slaves to serve his empire (Stiebing 224).

Thanks to the findings of Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1845, we are able to imagine the grand lifestyle of the Assyrian kings. Layard was a British subject who had left his job in London in 1839 and while traveling on horseback towards Ceylon, modern day Sri Lanka, he met a British ambassador who offered him a job excavating mounds of earth found near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. From 1845 – 1851 he excavated Calah and found statues and the remains of the Assyrian palace built by Ashurnasirpal centuries before (Calliope 3).

Using slave labor, Ashurnasirpal constructed two fortresses earlier in his reign along the Euphrates River, Kar Ashurnasirpal and Nibarti Ashur (Goodspeed 193). However, his greatest architectural achievement was the restoration of Calah and the construction of his grand palace. The ruins of Calah are located just south of Nineveh along the Tigris and Zab Rivers, known today as Nimrud, Iraq. Calah’s population mainly consisted of deported, conquered slaves. He moved the Assyrian capital from Nineveh to Calah and using his spoils of war as resources and his prisoners of war as laborers he built his palace (Smith 72).

The palace was adorned in silver, gold, lead, copper and iron. He had, “beasts of the mountains and of the seas of white limestone and alabaster.” Wood was scarce in the region yet, he was able to build his palace using many exotic woods. This was clearly noted on an inscription found in Nimrud. It read, “a palace of cedar, cypress, juniper, boxwood, mulberry, pistachio-wood, and tamarisk, for my royal dwelling and for my lordly pleasure for all time I founded therein” (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 6-7).

His predecessors were fond of using brick and painted plaster surfaces but, Ashurnasirpal erected costly walls of stone with color enhancements. He introduced large-scale stone carving, a method developed by North Syrians and Hittites. These carvings can tell us approximately what time in his reign they were created. For example, the earliest carvings of the king tend to portray him as a slim muscular figure. Later carvings depict the king with a stockier build and even later carvings show the king as having a sort of pot belly. The exquisite detail of the reliefs show emotion in the face of the figure and the muscular structure is prominent in the neck, arms, and legs (Paley 6,13,14). One has to wonder if the intricate detail and correct muscle depiction of the calf muscles prevalent in Ashurnasirpal’s art is due to personal experience on the battlefield. Ashurnasirpal flayed many of his captives and would have seen how the muscle tissue was formed beneath the skin.

Great beasts, called Lamassu, stood guard by the two gates one must pass through in order to enter Ashurnasirpal’s throne room. These colossal statues were winged, human-headed animals and were terrifying to look upon. Their primary purpose was to ward off evil spirits although; they also welcomed the king upon his return to the palace (Harrison 777).

Although Ashurnasirpal was not the first king of Assyria to use irrigation canals, he increased production on an immense scale and constructed some canals reaching over 100 kilometers long. His royal inscriptions state that Nimrud had a water canal called Patti-Hegalli, which carried water from the upper Greater Zab River to the banks of the Tigris River. This is one of the largest known Assyrian canals ever recorded. It was so well built that it was in use two centuries later during the reign of Esarhaddon (Wilkinson, et al. 27).

At the end of his reign, Ashurnasirpal II was rightfully proud of his accomplishments. It is evident that he favored the practices of the North Syrians and Hittites, often employing the same practices in regards to the building of his palace and war techniques. Although his policies were extremely brutal, he accomplished much in his twenty-four year reign. He set an example for his successors and many of his war tactics were used by many nations throughout the centuries following his reign. He was succeeded by his son, Shalmaneser, III in 859 B.C. The Assyrian Empire eventually met its demise with the fall of Nineveh in 612 B.C.

Works Cited

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Goodspeed, George Stephen, Ph.D. A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909.

Harrison, Richard. "Ashurnasirpal II and Ninth-Century Assyria." History Today 27.12 (1977): 772-778.

Nardo, Don. Ancient Mesopotamia. Farmington Hills: The Gale Group, Inc., 2004.

Paley, Samuel M. King of the World: Ashur-nasir-pal II of Assyria 883 - 859 B.C. Brooklyn, N.Y.: The Brooklyn Museum , 1976.

Schomp, Virginia. Ancient Mesopotamia: The Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 2004.

Smith, George. Assyrian Discoveries: An Account of Explorations and Discoveries on the Site of Nineveh, During 1873 and 1874. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Company, 1875.

Stiebing, William H, Jr. Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 2003.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Standard Inscription of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC)." Art, The Metropolitan Museum of. The Great King, King of Assyria. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1946. 6-7.

Wilkinson, T. J., et al. "Landscape and Settlement in the Neo-Assyrian Empire." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (Nov. 2005): 23-56. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Ohio University, Athens, OH. 18 Feb. 2009 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=19926647&site=ehost-live>.