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Ashur-uballit II


Ashur-uballit II (Aššur-uballiṭ II) was the last king of the Neo Assyrian Empire, succeeding Sin-shar-ishkun (623–612 BC). He took his name from Ashur-uballit I, the Assyrian king who had overthrown Mitanni Empire and defeated the Hittite Empire, and started the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365 BC – 1020 BC). While it is clear that he was a member of the Assyrian royal family, and that he was a tartan (General) of the Assyrian army before declaring himself king, there is some disagreement as to whether or not he was the brother of Sin-shar-ishkun.

Ashur-uballit II refused to submit in vassalage to Cyaxares and Nabopolassar, and fought his way out of Nineveh during the siege and capture of that city by the Babylonian-Chaldean-Mede-Persian-Scythian-Cimmerian alliance in mid 612 BC. Thereafter, he reigned from the last capital city of Harran from 612 BC to circa 609 BC.

In alliance with Egypt, whose 26th dynasty had been installed by the Assyrians, Ashur-uballit's depleted army was somehow able to defend Harran and the remainder of the Assyrian kingdom from combined Babylonian-Mede-Scythian-Cimmerian attacks for four years following the destruction of Nineveh; however, after the Egyptian army was defeated and had to return to its homeland in 610 BC, the Babylonians, Medes and Scythians eventually took Harran and sacked it in 609 BC.

Limmu new-year officials were appointed down to the very end of Ashur-uballit's recorded reign; his final known year (= 609 BC), known eponymously for the limmu as Gargamishayu ("the Carchemishite"), was the last year ever in history so to receive an official Assyrian name.


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