Assyrian Sack of Susa (647 BC): Ashurbanipal Destroys Elam

The Assyrian sack of Susa, around 647 BC, was the destruction of the chief city of Elam by the army of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. Assyrian troops looted its treasuries, wrecked its temples and opened the tombs of its kings. The campaign ended Elam’s role as a major power in the ancient Near East and helped open the way for the later rise of Persia.

Background

Elam, in what is now south-western Iran, had fought and traded with Mesopotamia for more than two thousand years. In 653 BC Ashurbanipal had defeated the Elamite king Teumman at the Battle of Til-Tuba and placed his own candidates on the Elamite throne.

That settlement collapsed when Ashurbanipal’s elder brother Shamash-shum-ukin, king of Babylon, revolted in 652 BC. Successive Elamite rulers sent troops to help Babylon. After a long siege Babylon fell in 648 BC, and Ashurbanipal turned on Elam, which also sheltered Babylonian rebels such as Nabu-bel-shumati, a grandson of the Chaldean leader Merodach-baladan.

Elam itself was weakened by repeated coups. Kings including Tammaritu II, Indabibi and Humban-haltash III rose and fell in quick succession, while rival factions sought Assyrian support.

The campaigns against Elam

Assyrian armies invaded Elam in at least two campaigns between about 647 and 646 BC. Humban-haltash III abandoned his royal city of Madaktu and fled into the mountains. The Assyrians captured many towns and fortresses and then reached Susa, the old religious and political heart of the kingdom.

The details come mainly from Ashurbanipal’s annals, written on clay prisms, and from palace reliefs at Nineveh. These are royal propaganda and exaggerate in places, but they are unusually specific about what was done at Susa.

The destruction of Susa

Ashurbanipal’s inscriptions say that his troops opened the treasuries and carried off silver, gold, precious objects and royal furniture. They claim the ziggurat of Susa, faced with glazed bricks, was destroyed and its horns of shining copper broken off.

The statue of the city god Inshushinak and many other divine images were taken to Assyria, along with statues of Elamite kings. The sacred groves, which outsiders were forbidden to enter, were cut down and burned. Most strikingly, the annals say that the tombs of earlier Elamite kings were opened and their bones carried to Assyria, so that their spirits would find no rest.

The inscriptions also claim that salt and a plant called sahlu were scattered over the land, a symbolic act of making it barren, and that the region was emptied of people and animals. Large numbers of Elamites were deported. Ashurbanipal claimed to have recovered a statue of the goddess Nanaya taken from Uruk long before, presenting the campaign as divine revenge for earlier Elamite raids such as the Elamite sack of Babylon in 1158 BC.

Key people

• Ashurbanipal (reigned 669–c. 631 BC): king of Assyria, whose annals are the main source for the campaign.
• Shamash-shum-ukin: Ashurbanipal’s elder brother and king of Babylon, whose revolt of 652–648 BC drew Elam into the war.
• Tammaritu II: Elamite king who was overthrown, fled to Assyria and returned with the Assyrian army as a client ruler.
• Humban-haltash III: the last significant independent king of Elam, who fled before the Assyrian advance.
• Nabu-bel-shumati: Babylonian rebel leader who took refuge in Elam; according to the annals he died there before he could be handed over.

What archaeology shows

French teams excavated Susa for much of the period from the 1880s to 1979, and the castle built for the archaeologists from the late 1890s still dominates the site. Excavators found that the city was reoccupied after the Assyrian attack, which warns against reading Ashurbanipal’s claims of total destruction literally.

At the same time, the Neo-Elamite levels of the 7th century BC are poorly preserved, and many earlier Elamite monuments are known mainly from later reuse or from objects carried off as loot. Assyrian reliefs from Nineveh also show the capture of Elamite cities such as Hamanu, with soldiers demolishing walls and carrying away booty.

Aftermath

Elamite rulers continued to appear for a few years. Humban-haltash III was eventually handed over to the Assyrians. Ashurbanipal later recorded that several captive kings, including Elamite rulers, were made to pull his chariot during a festival at Nineveh.

Neighbouring peoples took note. The Assyrian annals report that Cyrus, king of Parsumash, sent his son Arukku to Nineveh with tribute, probably the grandfather of Cyrus the Great, although this identification is debated. Susa was rebuilt, and smaller Neo-Elamite kingdoms survived until the Persians absorbed the region in the 6th century BC.

Legacy

The sack of Susa is one of the most thoroughly described acts of deliberate destruction in ancient records. It shows how Assyrian kings used the plunder of gods, statues and royal tombs as political weapons, not only to punish enemies but to erase their identity.

The victory brought Assyria little lasting benefit. Within about 35 years the empire itself collapsed, and Susa later became a royal capital of the Persian Achaemenid kings, who used Elamite as one of their administrative languages.

Timeline

• 653 BC: Battle of Til-Tuba; Teumman is killed.
• 652 BC: Shamash-shum-ukin of Babylon rebels with Elamite support.
• 648 BC: Babylon falls to Ashurbanipal after a long siege.
• c. 647 BC: Assyrian forces invade Elam; Susa is captured and sacked.
• c. 646 BC: Further Assyrian campaigning in Elam; Humban-haltash III flees.
• c. 640s BC: Captured Elamite rulers are paraded at Nineveh.
• c. 520 BC: Darius I makes Susa a royal capital of the Persian Empire.

Why it matters

The sack of Susa marked the end of Elam as an independent great power after more than two millennia of history. By removing Assyria’s oldest eastern rival it reshaped Iran, making room for the Medes and Persians who would soon dominate the region.