The Restoration of Ancient History – Part 9
The Restoration of Ancient History is a paper delivered in November 1994 by Gunnar Heinsohn, Professor Emeritus at the University of Bremen in Germany, at a symposium in Portland, Oregon. This paper questions the conventional chronology of ancient history and offers in its place a radical reconstruction—the so-called Short Chronology, of which Heinsohn is the principal architect. In this series of articles, we are taking a closer look at the evidence cited in this paper in favour of Heinsohn’s new chronology:
Heinsohn recognizes four periods in the history of Mesopotamia before the conquests of Alexander the Great:
| Dates BCE | Assyria | Babylonia |
|---|---|---|
| 1150-750 | Early Assyrians | Early Chaldaeans |
| 750-620 | Assyrian Empire | Assyrian Empire and Scythians |
| 620-540 | Empire of the Medes | Chaldaeans |
| 540-330 | Persian Empire | Persian Empire |
In this article we will continue our survey of Part 3 of Heinsohn’s lecture: Archaeologically-missing history and historically-unexpected archaeology in major areas of antiquity.. In this section, Heinsohn reviews a long list of cases where archaeologists have discovered major discrepancies between the archaeology of the Ancient World and its history as recorded by the Classical historians. These discrepancies fall into two broad categories:
Excavations in which the archaeologists failed to find strata that the recorded history had led them to expect.
Excavations in which the archaeologists uncovered strata that did not correspond to any cultures or civilizations in the recorded history.
Heinsohn noticed that many of these discrepancies came in matching pairs. In the two preceding articles we met two such pairs
In this article we will examine another pair: the Assyrians and the Akkadians:
[Modern archaeologists] dug in vain for mankind’s First Great Power of Ninos the Assyrian but found a mysterious and much older first Great Power of Naram Sin the Old-Akkadian.
Qutheans/Gutaeans help to bring down Old-Akkadians
Scythians help to bring down Ninos-Assyrians
AKKAD, the mysteriously missing capital of Naramsin’s Old-Akkadians, is identical with NINEVEH of the Assyrians of Ninos. The enigmatic and most massive city walls of Old-Akkadian Nineveh confirm Herodotus’ record on the magnificent city of Ninos.
Naramsin’s Old-Akkadians become Asia’s first masters (-2350 to -2200, then gap)
Ninos-Assyrians become Asia’s first masters ca. -750
The Assyrians were one of the dominant nations in the Ancient World. From their homeland in Upper Mesopotamia they controlled vast swathes of the Near East, incorporating Egypt, the Levant, Babylonia and parts of Anatolia into their empire. Perhaps we should say their empires, for modern archaeologists and historians recognize no less than three Assyrian Empires: the Old, Middle and Neo-Assyrian Empires:
| Assyrian Empire | Conventional Chronology |
|---|---|
| Old | 2025-1522 |
| Middle | 1392-1056 |
| Neo- | 911-609 |
Classical historians have much to say about the Assyrians, but, curiously, they knew of only one Assyrian Empire. This, in fact, is one of the few points on which there is any consensus among them. When we come down to details—such as the duration of this Empire, or the succession of its rulers—there is little agreement even among the Classical historians. But there is no point in going over this subject again. In the third and fourth articles of this series we looked in detail at what various Classical historians had to say about the Assyrians, the Medes and the Persians, and we concluded that there were two main schools of thought: the Ctesian and the Herodotean. In the fifth article we saw how little of either view was corroborated by the archaeology of Upper Mesopotamia as far as the Medes and the Persians were concerned. But what about the Assyrian Empire?
When archaeologists dug in Upper Mesopotamia in search of the Medes and the Persians, they failed to find them. But they did find the Assyrian Empire—or so they thought. In the Assyrian heartland they discovered several ancient cities—eg Nineveh, Calah (Nimrud) and Ashur—and tens of thousands of clay tablets inscribed with written records that corroborated the existence of a mighty empire in this region. Today this empire is dated conventionally to 911-609 BCE and is called the Neo-Assyrian Empire, to distinguish it from two earlier empires that were subsequently postulated by the archaeologists: the Old and Middle Assyrian Empires. It was assumed that this Neo-Assyrian Empire was the Assyrian Empire, the one referred to by the Classical historians.
But if the Neo-Assyrian Empire was the Assyrian Empire of the Classical historians, should not its archaeological strata be overlaid by those of the Medes and Persians? True to the dictum that stratigraphy trumps all, Heinsohn and his followers have identified this Neo-Assyrian Empire with the Medes and the Persians. According to the reconstruction by Emmet Sweeney, one of Heinsohn’s chief disciples, the so-called Old Assyrian Empire is the Assyrian Empire of the Classical historians, while the Neo-Assyrian Emperors are really just the Assyrian names of the rulers of Media and Persia from Deioces to Darius II. The last three Persian Emperors— Artaxerxes II, Artaxerxes III and Darius III—bore so-called Neo-Babylonian names, as these three reigned after the fall of Nineveh.
As for the Middle Assyrian Emperors, Sweeney believes that these are mainly duplicates of the early Neo-Assyrians. His model, however, is still a work in progress and far from convincing.
Sweeney identifies Tiglath-Pileser III with Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire. It is interesting, to say the least, that there were precisely nine Neo-Assyrian Emperors before Tiglath-Pileser III. In Ctesias’s account of Assyria, there were precisely nine Emperors of the Medes before Cyrus. Could these be the same:
| Neo-Assyrians | Medes (Ctesias) | |
|---|---|---|
| Adad-nirari II | Arbaces | |
| Tukulti-Ninurta II | Maudakes | |
| Ashurnasirpal II | Sosarmus | |
| Shalmaneser III | Artykas | |
| Shamshi-Adad V | Arbianes | |
| Adad-nirari III | Artaios | Deioces |
| Shalmaneser IV | Artines | |
| Ashur-dan III | Astibaros | |
| Ashur-nirari V | Astyages |
Several of these hypothetical identities, however, contradict those of Sweeney. Furthermore, the Herodotean model—which is largely endorsed by today’s historians—recognizes just four Median emperors.
After the Medes, Cyrus the Great and his son Cambyses II ruled in succession, before Darius the Great established a new dynasty. We find the very same pattern in the list of Neo-Assyrian Emperors, where Tiglath-Pileser III and his son Shalmaneser V ruled in succession before Sargon II established a new dynasty. Sweeney proposes the following identities:
| Neo-Assyrian | Persian |
|---|---|
| Tiglath-Pileser III | Cyrus II |
| Shalmaneser V | Cambyses II |
| Sargon II | Darius I |
| Sennacherib | Xerxes I |
| Esarhaddon | Artaxerxes I |
| ? | Xerxes II |
| Ashurbanipal | Darius II |
| Ashur-etil-ilani | Cyrus the Younger |
| Sin-shar-ishkun | Cyrus the Younger |
| Sin-shumu-lishir | ? |
| Ashur-uballit II | ? |
| Persian | Neo-Babylonian |
|---|---|
| Artaxerxes II | Nabopolasser |
| Artaxerxes III | Nebuchadnezzar II |
| Darius III | Nabonidus |
Much more research is required before I would be prepared to accept any of Sweeney’s numerous identities and alter-egos.
The discovery of the Akkadian Empire was one of the triumphs of 19th-century archaeology. Initially, it was thought that the Akkadians spoke a non-Semitic language, but when the written records of their civilization were deciphered and read, they were found to be in an East Semitic language. This language is now called Akkadian, with Assyrian and Babylonian as its two principal dialects.
The conventional chronology of the Akkadian Empire is still a work in progress. A century ago, the rise of Akkad was dated to 2900 BCE (Luckenbill 4), but today’s Orientalists place it about six hundred years later, 2334 BCE and 2270 BCE being the two dates of choice. Following the Middle Chronology, the accepted timeline of the Akkadian Empire is as follows:
| Ruler | Middle Chronology |
|---|---|
| Sargon of Akkad | 2334-2279 |
| Rimush | 2278-2270 |
| Manishtushu | 2269-2255 |
| Naram-Sin | 2254-2218 |
| Shar-Kalli-Sharri | 2217-2193 |
| Dudu | 2189-2169 |
| Shu-turul | 2168-2154 |
Like the Sumerians and the Mitannians, the Akkadians are never mentioned by any of the Classical historians. Neither Herodotus nor Ctesias ever heard of such a people, and their name does not appear in the works of the ancient historians who followed in their footsteps. The capital city of Akkad, or Agade, was likewise unknown to the Classical historians, and has yet to be discovered by today’s archaeologists.
The Bible, however, does speak of Akkad:
And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city. (Genesis 10:8-12)
This passage makes clear certain things:
Akkad and Nineveh were not one and the same city, as Heinsohn claims.
Akkad was located in the land of Shinar alongside Babylon (Babel), Uruk (Erech) and Calneh. The first two of these cities were located in Lower Mesopotamia (Babylonia), whereas Nineveh was in Upper Mesopotamia (Assyria). Calneh is unknown, and now thought to be the result of textual corruption.
Nimrod was the world’s first empire-builder. Was Nimrod the same as Ninos the Assyrian of the Classical historians? Was he Naram-Sin the Akkadian of modern archaeologists? Was he Sargon of Akkad, the founder of the Akkadian Empire?
Nimrod’s empire arose in Lower Mesopotamia (Babylonia) before spreading to Upper Mesopotamia (Assyria) under Asshur. In Genesis 10:22, we are told that Asshur was a son of Shem, whereas Nimrod’s father Cush was a son of Ham (Genesis 10:6). Asshur is the name of one of the capital cities of the Assyrian Empire, the city from which the country and people take their name.
It was previously thought that Akkad sat on the banks of the Euphrates, but recent scholarship has tended to favour a location somewhere on the Tigris. This is in line with Heinsohn’s hypothesis that Akkad and Nineveh were one and the same: Nineveh was situated on the eastern bank of the Tigris. Modern archaeologists, however, believe that Akkad lay somewhere in the vicinity of the modern city of Baghdad. The passage in Genesis 10 which was quoted above favours a location somewhere in Babylonia rather than Assyria.
The name Akkad is not of Semitic etymology, so it is possible that the Akkadians had another, native name for the city. This leaves open the possibility that Akkad is one of the known cities of Mesopotamia.
Another discrepancy in the stratigraphic records of numerous sites to which Heinsohn draws attention is the existence of a settlement gap of over 500 years between the Akkadian strata and the overlying Mitannian strata. According to the conventional chronology, the Akkadian Empire collapsed around 2154 BCE, while Mitanni only rose to prominence around 1600 BCE. In the previous article in this series, we saw that the excavators of Tell Munbāqa postulated a settlement gap or hiatus of about 600 years, but the evidence on the ground allowed for a hiatus of no more than 50-75 years.
In another of his papers, Ancient Near Eastern Chronology Revised, Heinsohn claims that this pattern is repeated at numerous sites where Akkadian and Mitannian strata have been discovered: Tell Brak, Tell Munbāqa, Tell Hamadiyah, Nuzi and Chagar Bazar. As an example, let us take a look at the stratigraphy of Tell Brak, or Nagar, an ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia. Following the destruction of the original city, Nagar was rebuilt and became a provincial capital of the Akkadian Empire (2300-2100). It also flourished as an important trading settlement in Mitanni (1500-1275). But what of the intervening 600 years?
Some scholars have argued for the complete abandonment of the settlement after the fall of Akkad, while others claim that there is archaeological evidence for the continued occupation of the site, albeit on a greatly reduced level. Two periods, N (2100-1850) and P (1850-1500), are recognized for the intervening centuries:
Whether the site was occupied or abandoned, the conventional chronology requires a stratum of 600 years of deposits between the Akkadian and Mitannian strata. According to Heinsohn’s model, however, the Akkadian and Mitannian strata represent the Assyrian and Median Empires, and there should be no break between them. Which of these scenarios is supported by the stratigraphy?
In their Stratigraphic Summary of the site, Joan and David Oates recognize more than a dozen occupation levels at twelve different locations, numbered latest to earliest. Many of these levels are pre-Akkadian. They summarize their results thus:
As can be seen, some archaeological remains are dated to the period between 2100 and the Mitanni occupation around 1550:
1900: Cappadocian and Isin-Larsa material found on the surface in the excavated areas FS and SS and on the north ridge.
1800: Old Babylonian material found in Levels 8-10 of HH and in the fortifications at AL and TW.
1600: Late Old Babylonian material found in Level 8 of HH.
The southern half of the site appears to have been abandoned some time before 1900 B.C. (Oates 174), and no material later than about 1900 BC has been excavated from FS in the northeast of the tell (Oates 171).
There is, therefore, an undoubted paucity of material for a period of 550 years, but not the complete settlement gap claimed by Heinsohn.
Charles Ginenthal, however, believes that the quality of the material uncovered in the Mitannian strata of Tell Brak undermines the conventional chronology, with or without a settlement gap:
Nevertheless, iron objects were uncovered at Tell Brak in Mitanni/Mede level strata. Graham Philip cites Colin Shell that various iron objects were found there. A Mitanni layer contained “a small rod of completely corroded iron” (Philip 120). In addition there were also copper objects containing iron:
“The majority of these pieces studied are copper as cast from the smelting furnace, where the reducing conditions and high temperatures reduced both copper and iron from the roasted matte charge … the iron content of these raw coppers is often higher than 25 per cent, which indicates temperatures close to or in excess of 1400 degrees C achieved in the smelting” (Philip 120).
... As was pointed out with respect to the Old Babylonians at Mari, cited above, Bronze Age furnaces cannot generate temperatures high enough to smelt iron. Because of this, Philip reached this astonishing conclusion about the iron mixed into copper at Tell Brak:
“The range of material analyzed provides clear evidence for the co-smelting of copper and iron at Tell Brak and at least as early as the fifteenth century [B.C.]. The material itself was not found directly associated with a metal workshop, but from the range of metallurgical activities, the working area was probably situated close by the find locations.
“The smelting conditions necessary to produce the high-iron content present in Tell Brak raw coppers are unequivocal evidence that the smelting technology necessary for producing raw iron was achieved at Tell Brak at a time prior to the large scale production of iron in the region.” (Philip 120)
That is to say, iron was smelted/melted to produce raw iron and then mixed with copper and heated until both alloyed together. All this was supposedly done in the pre-Iron Age before any of this technology had come into being. It is a fundamental contradiction to the established chronology. However, when we move the Mitanni into the first millennium the entire problem vanishes. (Ginenthal 336-337)
Ginenthal goes on to discuss the cutting of hard stone by the Mitannians at Tell Brak, something that would have required carburized iron—ie steel (Ginenthal 338). Glassware was also found in the Mitannian strata at Tell Brak, in such quantities and of such a standard as to warrant the use of the term “glass industry”:
The stunning facts regarding glass production existing before fully developed iron technology are somehow never addressed. Since glass technology comes out of that for iron production we have the same contradiction we had for iron.
The reason for this is explained by Kurinsky. “Even more sophisticated furnaces were required for the production of true glass than the smelting of iron.”38 Hundreds of years before the Hittites supposedly smelted iron the Mitanni had even more sophisticated furnaces than those necessary for iron, and could smelt glass, and then for some obscure reason this immensely important advancement in furnace technology was lost in a Dark Age until revived by the Hittites. (Ginenthal 339)
For mainstream archaeologists, it would appear that the presence or absence of material between the Akkadian and the Mitannian strata is the least of their problems.
Heinsohn’s equation of the Akkadian and Assyrian Empires is, I believe, justified, but it is not without its difficulties. Identifying Akkad with Nineveh does not seem to be warranted by the current evidence. What’s more, the Biblical account of Nimrod suggests that the Assyrians actually originated in Lower Mesopotamia, and only subsequently conquered and colonized Upper Mesopotamia—known then as Subartu. They then built cities like Ashur and Nineveh, and made them their new capitals. Assyria in time became their new heartland.
But this is a good place to stop.
To be continued ...
