"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [ظ‎‎١‎٥‎٤] (٨٦٢/٣١٣)

political institutions; its language was a Semitic tongue akin to the
Akkadian. Later in the third millennium the power of Ashur
extended into the plain of Nineveh (Mosul), but these regions, and
also the communities of the Erbil and Kirkuk plains, were controlled
politically by the Sargonid dynasty of Akkad and the Third Dynasty
of Ur. The general civilization of Assyria was thus steeped in
Babylonian influences and the Subareans were gradually Semitized.
The First Kingdom, 1800-1100 b.c.
The kingdom of Ashur was enlarged to include the plain of Erbil
by Shamsi-Adad I (c. 1800), whose influence also reached across the
Jazira to the Euphrates near Deir ez Zor and across the Little Zab
into the Kirkuk plain. But the suzerainty of Babylonia was reasserted
by Hammurabi, and in the following centuries expansion was
limited by the strong Mitanni kingdom in the Jazira, and the Kassite
dynasty in Babylonia. Farther afield the incursions of Egyptians and
Hittites into Syria were also repressive factors. But this external
pressure produced a great reaction. Ashur-Uballit (1380-1350) made
Assyria an independent power by establishing an armed national
militia, which had annual exercises when not at war. This gained
from Egypt the recognition of Assyria as the equal of Babylon.
Ashur-Uballit intervened in Mitanni and carried his power eastward
into the Zagros. Henceforth all Assyrian kings endeavoured to keep
the hill tribes of the Zagros under their control, though the exact
extent of their realms in Kurdistan and beyond cannot at present be
fixed. Outside the borders of his kingdom Ashur-Uballit was strong
enough to set his own nominee Kurigalzu II (i 355 _I 3 I 5 ) on ^ ,
throne of Babylon. But Kurigalzu was no puppet, and the Kassite
dynasty maintained its independence successfully for another
century.
The successors of Ashur-Uballit struck directly at the Hittite
power in Mitanni while the Hittites were immersed in war with
Egypt, and took most of the country westward to Nisibis and
Carchemish. Thus the kingdom reached from the Zagros to the
Euphrates. Its northern limit was the Judi Dagh, and the southern
border lay in Babylonia, well south of the Jabal Mak-hul, between
Rapiqu on the Euphrates and the neighbourhood of Akshak and
Opis on the Tigris; east of the Tigris the Little Zab was the southern
limit of Assyria proper, the Kirkuk (Arrapha) region being a depen
dency which was gradually Assyrianized. The conquest of Mitanni
alarmed and allied the Hittites and Babylonians. But this alliance