Resumen de Diplomaten in Assur-Alltag oder Anzeichen für eine internationale krise?
The middle assyrian archive of Tall Huwera/Harbe in North East Syria, concerning the administration of a provincial town that served as the seat of a district governor as well as a highway station, provides rich evidence of messengers and foreign delegates passing by. In particular a group of six , "letter orders" written by the Grand Vizier and addressed to governors of different towns on the steppe route through North Syria have to be referred to. These texts prove that in the first months of the eponym year of Ninu'aju within six weeks ambassadors from Hatti, Egypt, Amurru and Sidon were travelling to the assyrian king (Tukulti-Ninurta I) in Assur. It seems reasonable to assume that is was a special occurance that led all these diplomats to the assyrian capital. One of the most prominent events of the time of Tukulti-Ninurta is without a doubt the war against Babylonia. So it seems to be an intriguing idea to connect the final assyrian victory over Babylon with the journey of the aforementioned diplomats, using chronicles and royal inscriptions as well as new eponym data from Tall Huwera and Tall Seh Hamad/Dur-Katlimmu.
