Shalmaneser I: Assyria finishes Mitanni and builds Kalhu
The Assyrian king takes the lands of Mitanni up to the Euphrates, deports captives and founds Kalhu—the future Nimrud.
Shalmaneser I rules Assyria around 1274–1245 BCE—the same decades in which Ramesses II fights the Hittites at Kadesh. He defeats Hanigalbat, the remnant of Mitanni, and, by his own inscription, blinds thousands of captives; the lands up to the Euphrates become Assyrian, and their inhabitants are resettled deep inside the country—a practice that will later make the name of Assyria feared. The king builds a new city on the Tigris, Kalhu; five hundred years later Ashurnasirpal II will make it his capital, and in excavation it is known as Nimrud. His son Tukulti-Ninurta I will take Babylon around 1225 and carry off the statue of Marduk.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the inscriptions of Shalmaneser I — the defeat of Hanigalbat, the captives and the founding of Kalhu
Scholarship
- history of the ancient Near East — the dating to about 1274–1245 BCE and deportation as a practice
Basis: documents and evidence.