THE EGYPTIAN EASTERN BORDER REGION IN ASSYRIAN SOURCES.

• Author: Verreth, Herbert

The Assyrian accounts of the Egyptian expeditions of Esarhaddon in 673 and 671 B.C. and of those of Assurbanipal in 667 and 663 mention some toponyms that can be located in the Egyptian eastern border region.(1) The Assyrian army passed by or waged war near these localities, or the new authorities installed their own officials or confirmed the local kings in their function.

In the early spring of 673 the Assyrian king Esarhaddon attacked Egypt, but his army was beaten.(2) No geographical details are known about this expedition. In the spring of 671 the invasion succeeded. Esarhaddon crossed the Brook of Egypt and marched from Raphia across the northern Sinai into Egypt, but his exact itinerary is not clear.(3) He apparently crossed the Egyptian border, bypassed a town called Magdali and then reached Ishupri, somewhere in the eastern Delta, where he won a first battle. A second battle was fought somewhere between Ishupri and Memphis. He defeated the Egyptian army for a third time probably near Memphis and finally captured the city itself. Before leaving the country Esarhaddon appointed officials in several cities and confirmed local kinglets in their position, including Necho of Memphis and Sais, Sarruludari of Si nu (Tanis), Pisanhuru of Nathu (Natho), Pakruru of Pisaptu (Pr-Spdw), []au of Hathiribi (Athribis), and Nahke of Hininsi (Herakleous Polis magna), so controlling the Delta and the northern part of Middle Egypt. This list of Egyptian kinglets is preserved in Prism C, while the elaborate list of Prism A is probably a combination of the list of kings appointed by Esarhaddon in 671 and another list of kings appointed by Assurbanipal after the revolt of 667. At least twelve cities acquired new Assyrian names, but only Kar-belmatati and Limir-isak-Assur can be identified, respectively, as Sais and Athribis; of the other ten places only Kar-Baniti is known from other sources.

Possibly because of problems with Necho and Sarruludari, Esarhaddon was forced to return to Egypt in 669, but he fell ill on the journey and died in the autumn of that year.(4) Esarhaddon was succeeded by Assurbanipal and the Ethiopian king Taharqa took advantage of the situation to invade Lower Egypt. Probably in 667 Assurbanipal's troops marched as far as the town of Kar-Baniti.(5) Taharqa sent out his troops from Memphis, but they were defeated in an open battle. He was pursued south by the Assyrian army and by some Egyptian allies, including apparently Pisanhuru of Natho. In the meantime Necho of Sais, Sarruludari of Tanis, Pakruru of Pr-Spdw, and perhaps some other kinglets, plotted with Taharqa against the Assyrians. The conspiracy was discovered and the Assyrian army slaughtered the inhabitants of Sais, Bintiti (Mendes), and Tanis. Sarruludari and Necho were arrested and brought to Nineveh. In at least nineteen cities, ranging from the Delta to Thebes, Assurbanipal installed local kings as his governors. Necho was forgiven and reinstated in Sais, while his son Nabushezibanni (Psammetichos I) was installed in Athribis. In 664 the Ethiopian king Tanoutamon, who had succeeded Taharqa, invaded Egypt and overcame the Delta kinglets in a battle. Necho was probably slain there and, according to the Egyptian stele of Tanoutamon, it was P -qrr (Pakruru) of Pr-Spdw who was the spokesman of the kinglets at their surrender. The Assyrians invaded Egypt again, drove the Ethiopians from Memphis and Thebes and sacked this city about 663.6

Of the many Egyptian toponyms mentioned in the Assyrian sources of this period only Tanis and Pr-Spdw, perhaps Magdali, and probably also the unidentified Ishupri and Kar-Baniti are situated in the eastern Delta. Despite several attempts at identification, Tcharou (Sile) or Pelousion are not mentioned in the Assyrian documents and no urban occupation is known in the northern Sinai in the early seventh century.

SA-AMILE

The Esarhaddon Chronicle mentions an expedition to Sa-amie (uruSa-[amile.sup-mes], "the city of men"(7)) in the seventh year of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, i.e., in 674/673: "The seventh year: On the eighth day of the month Adar (XII) the army of Assyria [marched] to Sa-amile."(8) The Babylonian Chronicle, on the other hand, mentions an expedition to Egypt for the same year and month: "The seventh year: On the fifth day of the month Adar (XII) the army of Assyria was defeated in Egypt."(9)

Scholars have often thought that the two Chronicles spoke about the same events. They have situated Sa-amile in Egypt, identifying it with Pelousion or Tcharou (Sile) on the eastern border or - because of the etymology of the name - with Andron Polis in the western Delta.(10) In that case, a defeat of the Assyrian army somewhere in Egypt in the early spring of 673 would have been followed three days later by a march of that same army to the city of Sa-amile. This scenario raises more questions than it answers. If Sa-amile is an Egyptian border town, the first battle must have taken place somewhere in the northern Sinai, three days east of the city, but this would be an odd spot for the Egyptians to put up a defense line.(11) Also if Sa-amile was somewhere in the Delta, it is hard to imagine why the defeated army should have gone there, and even harder to figure out what was so important about it that the Assyrian scribes took special notice of it. B. Landsberger rightly pointed out that it is rather the city of Sa-amile, in southern Babylonia, known from other sources, that is meant.(12) As the Esarhaddon Chronicle had a definite bias in favor of Esarhaddon, one can readily understand that this Assyrian defeat in Egypt has been left out and replaced by another military expedition.(13)

As there are no indications at all about the place where the Egyptians beat the Assyrians in 674/673, the suggestion that the expedition was stopped at one of the border fortresses in the eastern Delta, possibly at Pelousion, has nothing to recommend it.(14)

THE NORTHERN SINAI, MAGDALI AND ISHUPRI

In the spring of 671 the Assyrian king Esarhaddon went from Tyre to Raphia, beyond the border of the Brook of Egypt, and gathered water for his troops from wells.(15) The damaged text describes the march to Egypt through the Sinai in detail:(16)

In accordance with the command of my lord Assur, my mind was set and my heart was pondering: I requested camels from all the kings of Arabia and had them carry water bags(?). I marched 30(7) double-hours (ca. 320 kin?(17)) of ground, a journey of 15 days, through huge sand hills. I went 4 double-hours (ca. 43 km) of ground with alum stone . . . 4 double-hours (ca. 43 kin) of ground, a journey of 2 days. I trampled on two-headed serpents, . . . whose sight/touch/breath meant death, and I marched on. 4 double-hours (ca. 43 km) of ground, a journey of [2 days, with] yellow [serpents] whose wings were batting(?). I marched 4 double-hours (ca. 43 km) of ground, a journey of 2 days, . . . 15 double-hours (ca. 160 km) of ground, a journey of 8 days, . . . Then the great lord Marduk came to my assistance . . . he kept my troops alive. 20 days, 7 . . .(18) on the border of Musur . . .(19) nubattu . . . From Magdali to . . . a distance of 40 double-hours (ca. 427 km) I marched . . . This area like . . . -stone . . . like the point of an arrow . . . Dark and clear blood . . . a wicked(?) enemy . . . to Ishupri (sic) . . .

The events on the march are not clear. It is only certain that the army left from Raphia and that it finally arrived in Egypt. It apparently crossed the border of Egypt, by-passed the city of Magdali and went to the city of Ishupri - but it is impossible to locate these places on the basis of this text, except by rough estimation somewhere on the eastern border of Egypt between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. To cross the desert Esarhaddon commandeered from the kings of Arabia camels for carrying water-bags.(20) According to the figures in the text (11.310), it was a march of sixty-one "double-hours" (or a distance of about 652 km) in possibly thirty-one days before reaching the Egyptian border.(21) While this daily average of about two "double-hours" (21 km or somewhat less) is an acceptable figure, the distance of 652 km is more than three times the 200 km needed to get from Rafah to el-Qantara at the northern edge of the eastern Delta. To cover the whole distance, one would almost have to imagine a route from Rafah via Eilat to the most southern point of the Sinai peninsula and then via the coast of the Red Sea to Suez. Moreover, the description of the route leaves us in a maze: fifteen days through huge sand hills, two days through an alum stone landscape, two days among deadly two-headed snakes, another two days among yellow snakes that make noise with their wings, two days about which the information is missing, and finally eight days after which the army was really in despair.(22) It is not clear from the text whether it took another twenty days to get to the Egyptian border or if the passage has to be interpreted otherwise.(23) The remainder of the text remains obscure, as well, because of the fragmentary state of the tablet: Magdali; an extremely long distance of forty "double-hours"; the description of a region (?); finally, the indication "to Ishupri." Obviously the distances - perhaps the whole account? - are not to be trusted.(24)

Magdali (uruMa-ag-[da-l]i(?), "Tower") does not occur elsewhere in Assyrian sources.(25) It has been suggested that Esarhaddon proceeded along the northern Sinai to the Egyptian Delta and reached the border garrison of Migdol in the eastern Delta, known from biblical and Greek sources.(26) This identification, however, is a mere hypothesis since the Assyrian text does not permit any geographical location and one can further wonder why this fortress was apparently not guarded, as not even a skirmish is implied. E. D. Oren wanted to locate the place at Tell Kedua (T. 21), but the occupation date of this site is controversial and...