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The Land of Kirruri1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

H. W. F. Saggs
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Extract

The land of Kirruri, frequently mentioned by the Assyrians, is a key area for the understanding of Assyrian political geography, and has been the subject of a number of attempted identifications. Billerbeck placed it in the region centred on the pass of Kalishin, whilst Streck identified it with the plain west and southwest of lake Urmia, bounded by Ushnu, Urmia and Solduz. Consideration of the references to Kirruri in the light of more recent knowledge shows the impossibility of these areas for an identification, inasmuch as Kirruri was within (albeit only just within) the area of customary Assyrian control from the early ninth century, whereas the areas mentioned by Billerbeck and Streck were still not firmly in Assyrian control when Sargon II came to the throne in the late eighth century. Forrer placed Kirruri much nearer to metropolitan Assyria, siting it in the Harir plain (often known as the Dasht-i-Harir) north of Shaqlawa, although he did not give his arguments in detail. The question was re-examined by L. D. Levine, who accepted Forrer's siting as in the right area, but too limited in extent. More recently J. E. Reade, in a useful article, has returned inter alia to the question of the position of Kirruri, placing it in the area between Koi Sanjaq and Rania near to the Lesser Zab, adducing as the main specific evidence for this siting Tukulti-Ninurta II's campaign of 886 B.C.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , Spring 1980 , pp. 79 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1980

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Footnotes

1

I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Muayad Sa'id, now President of the Iraqi State Organization of Antiquities, who made it possible for me to travel extensively in north Iraq in spring 1979, and to my wife who accompanied me and took extensive notes on geographical features relevant to Assyrian political geography.

References

2 The name also occurs as Kirriuri. For the main references in Assyrian texts, see Parpola, S., Neo-Assyrian Toponyms (1970), 208 fGoogle Scholar. As to proposed identifications, I have eschewed the modern passion for complete documentation for its own sake and referred only to those which offer a significant revision of earlier views.

3 Billerbeck, A., Das Sandschak Suleimania (1898), 20Google Scholar.

4 Streck, M., “Das Gebiet der heutigen Landschaften Armenien, Kurdistân und Westpersien nach den babylonisch-assyrischen Keilinschriften” (Fortsetzung), ZA 14 (1899), 158 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Forrer, E., Die Provinzeinteilung des assyrischen Reiches (1920), 38Google Scholar. Forrer refers to “der Ort Herir, assyrisch alKirruri”, without making it clear whether not he is assuming an ultimate connection between two names (which the present writer does not think likely).

6 Levine, L. D., “Geographical Studies in the Neo-Assyrian Zagros”, Iran 11 (1973), 14–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with additional documentation on p. 14, n. 45. See also n. 20, below.

7 Reade, J. E., “Kassites and Assyrians in Iran”, Iran 16 (1978), 141CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 See translation in Grayson, A. K., Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, 2 (1976), § 468Google Scholar. For details of publication and edition see op. cit., § 463, and Schramm, W., Einleitung in die Assyrischen Königsinschriften, zweiter Teil (1973), 9Google Scholar.

9 A. K. Grayson, op. cit., § 468, renders “Mount Kirriuru”, presumably by deduction from the mention of passes, but all the other indications are that Kirr(i)uri was an easily traversable plain, not a mountain or a range, the passes referred to being those by which one entered or left the land Kirr(i)uri.

10 Grayson's restoration (op. cit., § 468) of “Arameans” as present in Ladanu seems improbable, on the grounds of what is otherwise known of Aramean migrations.

11 Iran 16 (1978), 141Google ScholarPubMed.

12 III R, plates 7–8.

13 See especially Melikishvili, G. A., Nairi-Urartu (in Russian, 1954), 17 ffGoogle Scholar. Hulin, P., Iraq 25 (1963), 59Google Scholar, places Hubushkia on the upper reaches of the Lesser Zab, without giving detailed arguments in support of his view.

14 III R, plate 8, lines 64–66.

15 III R, plate 8, line 42.

16 See AHw, 884 f., pūtu(m) C.

17 The route in question is approximately route 43a of Admiralty Intelligence Division, Handbook of Mesopotamia (1916–1917), IIIGoogle Scholar. This source also gives a more northerly route, 43b, which goes from Erbil to the Spilik pass avoiding Shaqlawa. This latter route is referred to in Hamilton, A. M., Road through Kurdistan (1937), p. 59Google Scholar. However, the point where this route hits the hills is hardly prominent enough from Erbil to have been described as “opposite Erbil”.

18 See Safar, Fuad, Sumer 3 (1947), 23–25Google Scholar.

19 See Atlas of the Archaeological Sites of Iraq (Directorate General of Antiquities, Iraq, 1976), map 7 (in Arabic)Google Scholar.

20 Levine, L. D., “Geographical Studies in the Neo-Assyrian Zagros, II”, Iran 12 (1974), 120Google Scholar, sees the area north and northeast of Rowanduz (not more precisely identified) as Muṣaṣir, and then comments “The only disquieting issue is the silence of the sources on any contact between Musasir and Kirruri. This is, at present, inexplicable.” If Kirruri was the Hariri plain and Muṣaṣir an area north of Rowanduz, the supposedly inexplicable is easily explained, since there have always been serious geographical obstacles to communications between these two areas. Handbook of Mesopotamia, III, p. 268Google Scholar, states “The track between Bātās [the village at the northern end of the Harir plain] and Rowanduz is difficult”, a bald statement which is clothed in detail by A. M. Hamilton in his description of the difficulties of the track in Road through Kurdistan, 78–83. Thus even that proposed site for Muṣaṣir which is nearest to the Harir plain, i.e. the Mujesir-Sidekan region north of Diyana (see Boehmer, R. M., “Zur Lage von Muṣaṣir”, Baghdader Mitteilungen 6 (1973), 31–40Google Scholar) would in ancient times have had virtually no effective link with Harir. But it would be at least equally consistent with the evidence of the Kalishin and Topzawa steles (steles erected by Urartian kings mentioning approach to Muṣaṣir (Ardini in Urartian) which was therefore presumably not far away from the sites of those steles) to site Muṣaṣir further north, in the Baradost plain (in the latitude of Kalishin and about 15 miles north-west of Topzawa); between this area and the Harir plain it would be contacts in Assyrian times, not lack of contacts, which would be matter for wonder.

21 Naval Intelligence Division, Iraq and the Persian Gulf (1944), 105Google ScholarPubMed.

22 This correlation of the physical geography and the account of Tukulti-Ninurta II's 886 B.C. campaign agrees closely with that proposed by Forrer, op. cit., 38 f.