Is El Amarna’s Aziru Biblically Identifiable? Part Three: Aziru as Assuruballit

by

 

Damien F. Mackey



When an early King of Assyria subdued the land of Musru [Egypt]

 

The names Aziru and Assuruballit, whilst being phonetically much alike (Aziru – Assuru), do not have the same meaning at all. Aziru, as explained in Part Two: https://www.academia.edu/19601864/Is_El_Amarna_s_Aziru_Biblically_Identifiable_Part_Two_Aziru_of_Papyrus_Harris is compatible with Hazael: “The name Asa-el (‘El has made’) does occur in 2 Chronicles 17:8 …. The name Asa combined with the theophoric element El is attested at this time …. Asa, like the king of Damascus Hazael (Aramaean Haza-ilu) …”. The name Assuruballit (Ashuruballit), on the other hand, pertains to the Assyrian god, Ashur.

 

About the incursion of King Assuruballit into Egypt, I wrote in my university thesis:

 

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

and its Background

 

AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf

 

(Volume One, p. 226):

 

 

 

Syria (Assyria) Comes to Egypt ….

 

According to the relevant Egyptian documents, at least as I shall be interpreting them, the revolution against the Amarna régime came from outside Egypt (“from without”). It was led by Ay and Horemheb. The northern ‘Syrians’ had come to Egypt in full force. There are several historical documents that I think may recall this momentous event, wherein Ay (Hazael) is referred to by various of his many names:

 

(i) One is the ‘Great Papyrus Harris’ which tells of an ‘Aziru’ (var. Irsu, Arsa), thought to have been a Syrian, or perhaps a Hurrian. …. I have already followed Velikovsky in identifying Hazael with EA’s Aziru; though Velikovsky, owing to the quirks of his revision, could not himself make the somewhat obvious (to my mind) connection between EA’s Aziru and Aziru of the Great Papyrus Harris. ….

 

(ii) Another is the reference by Adad-nirari of Assyria to his ancestor Ashuruballit’s [Assuruballit’s] having subdued Egypt. I have already argued, too, that Ashuruballit was the ‘Assyrian’ face of our composite king, Hazael/Aziru.

 

These two cases (i) & (ii) are, according to my revision, references to the same ‘Syrian’ (Assyrian) subduer of Egypt, Ay/Hazael, who held power there as Chancellor and king maker, and finally, for a brief period, as pharaoh.

 

Continuing now on p. 228, I wrote:

 

LeFlem, borrowing a phrase from Gardiner, has asked this question with reference to Aziru: …. “Who was this so-called ‘Syrian condottiere’?” LeFlem’s question by now I think emphatically answers itself: he was EA’s Aziru! This was the foreign takeover of Egypt, an action of the Sinai commission, to depose the irresponsible Akhnaton and his régime and to re-establish ma'at (order, status quo). Though Aziru’s involvement was not necessarily so highly regarded by later Ramessides. Velikovsky has discussed the change of situation and its aftermath as follows, again with reference to ‘the Oedipus cycle’: ….

 

Whereas Akhnaton when on the throne assumed the appellation ‘Who liveth in truth’, Ay, upon becoming king, applied to himself the cognomen, ‘Who is doing right’. Such titles were rather unusual among the kings of Egypt. Yet one can understand Ay’s selecting this motto. Like Creon of the Oedipus cycle, Ay professed to be doing his duty to the crown and the nation by deposing Akhnaton, installing Akhnaton’s sons, and then siding with the younger son in the brothers’ conflict.

 

In Assyrian history, this appears to have been the situation of which Adad-nirari I (c. 1305-1274 BC, conventional dates) had cause to boast, namely that his great-grandfather, Ashuruballit, had subdued Egypt. Harrak gives the relevant text as follows:

 

Adad-narari [Adad-nirari] I had summarized in an inscription the achievements of his royal predecessors. He said the following about Ashur-uballit:

 

(31) mušekniš mât Musri museppih ellât (32) mât Šubârê rapalti murappiš misrî u kudurrî

 

Subduer of the land Musru, disperser of the hordes of the extensive land of the Shubaru, extender of borders and boundaries.

 

My revision necessitates of course that Ashuruballit’s great-grandson, Adad-nirari I, be the same as Adad-nirari III, great-grandson of Ashuruballit - due to the latter’s marrying his daughter, Muballitat-Šerua, to Burnaburiash’s (i.e. Shalmaneser III’s) son, Karaindaš; Shalmaneser III being the grandfather of this same Adad-nirari [III].