| Ashur-nirari III | |
|---|---|
| King of Assyria | |
| King of theMiddle Assyrian Empire | |
| Reign | 6 regnal years 1202–1197 BC (high)[1] 1192-1187 BC (low) |
| Predecessor | Ashur-nadin-apli |
| Successor | Enlil-kudurri-usur |
| Father | Ashur-nadin-apli |
Aššur-nerari III, inscribedmaš-šur-ERIM.GABA, “Aššur is my help,”[2] was king ofAssyria (1202–1197 BC or 1192–1187 BC). He was the grandson ofTukulti-Ninurta I and might have succeeded his uncle or more probably his fatherAshur-nadin-apli to the throne, who had participated in a conspiracy against Tukulti-Ninurta I which led to his murder.
According to the Nassouhi Assyrian King List,[i 1] he was the son of Aššur-nadin-apli, his predecessor in this copy and that from Khorsabad,[i 2] although the Khorsabad and SDAS[i 3] variants both give his father as Aššur-naṣir-apli, his predecessor only on the SDAS copy.[3] All three copies agree on his length of reign, an otherwise poorly attested 6 years, following the brief 3 or 4-year reign of his immediate predecessor, suggesting he may have been quite young when he assumed the throne and perhaps explaining the prominence of his grand vizier,Ilī-padâ. Traces of his name also appear on a fourth, small fragment of the kinglist.[i 4] Hiseponym year, likely to have been his first full year in office, dates a corn loan tablet[i 5] from the archive of Urad-Šerūa and his family[4] and a tablet[i 6] excavated inTell Taban, Syria, and dated to the eponym year of Adad-bān-kala, may be of his reign or that of his successor.[5]
A fragment of anextraordinarily insulting letter[i 7] is preserved in theKouyunjik Collections in theBritish Museum and is addressed byAdad-šuma-uṣur, king ofBabylon, to two rulers, Aššur-nerari III and Ilī-padâ, who are addressed as the “kings of Assyria.” The letter was copied and preserved in the Assyrian archives, possibly because of the enhanced status given to Ilī-padâ, the father ofNinurta-apal-Ekur, king of Assyria, c. 1192–1180 BC, whose descendants reigned on at least until the 8th century, and whose genealogical claim to the throne was tenuous and otherwise only based upon descent by a collateral line fromEriba-Adad I, c. 1393–1366 BC.
He was quite possibly violently swept aside by the ascendancy ofIIlil-kudurrī-uṣur, another son of Tukulti-Ninurta I and probably his uncle. The life and career of his grand vizier, mentor and fellow “king” of Assyria, Ilī-padâ, seems to have ended at this point or shortly afterwards. The evidence from an archive which might shed light on the events of this period remains unavailable, leading the historianItamar Singer to observe “regrettably, two important archives of the thirteenth century BC, each with some 400 tablets, still remain unpublished, ...(including) the Middle Assyrian texts fromTell Sabi Abyad (found in 1997–1998).”[6]
| Preceded by | King of Assyria 1202–1197 BC | Succeeded by |