Streit, K. 2021. “After the storm: Political, economic and socio-demographic aspects of the Assyrian defeat of the southern Levant.” In Culture of Defeat – Submission in Written Sources and the Archaeological Record., edited by K. Streit, and M. Grohmann, 261-286. GSANE 16. Gorgias Press. (original) (raw)
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This series publishes scholarly research focusing on the societies, material cultures, technologies, religions, and languages that emerged from Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant.
The history of the Middle-Assyrian Empire
This article aims to re-evaluate the history of the Middle Assyrian Empire by looking at new archaeological data and by critically re-examining the textual evidence. Special attention will be given to concepts like ‘Empire’, the ‘rise’ and ‘fall’, and related models of social organisation. It argues that while the territory controlled by the Assyrian kings remained more constant than normally argued, its internal organisation was more flexible.
During the second half of the 3rd millennium BC the whole Levant was involved in deep historical and cultural transformations. Yet, Syria and Palestine underwent different historical trajectories, and gave different responses to changes, achieving different socio-economic and political systems during this time-span. In north-western Syria, in fact, the floruit of the EB IVA period was followed by a crisis of the local political system, after the Akkadian military campaigns, then succeeded by a period of reorganisation rather than proper collapse, and by cultural continuity rather than break, despite some changes and innovations. On the other hand, during the Early Bronze IV period the Southern Levant witnessed deeper changes in the socio-political and socio-economic organisation, the settlement pattern, and the material culture. In fact, the region reverted to village life, and developed a markedly regionalised cultural horizon. A general “Syrian connection” has always been recognised in the Southern Levant within those centuries, when material culture shows both cultural autonomy and as complex as important phenomena of interaction with and emulation of the northern neighbours. The article seeks to investigate connections and interactions between the two areas at the end of the Early Bronze Age, analysing specific markers within the material culture, aiming at a possible definition of the nature of these relations in a socio-economic and cultural perspective.
The policy of the Neo-Assyrian empire in the Levant has been extensively debated, and at least three different views have been suggested. Some scholars have argued that the empire invested in the Levant after it was annexed and that most of it prospered due to the imperial policy. However, others have claimed the opposite, suggesting that the Assyrians neglected the area and did not have any real interest in its economic rehabilitation. A third view holds that Assyrian investment was partial and that prosperity due to deliberate imperial policy can be seen mostly in the north. In the current paper I will present each of these views, which will then be challenged based on the degrees of prosperity evident from archaeological excavations in different provinces. Finally, an updated interpretation for Assyrian imperial policy in the Levant will be suggested.