Kishsassu or Kishassu ( akk, Kiššaššu) was a city in ancient
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
. It is mentioned tablets found in
Nineveh
Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ban ...
, dating from the 7th-century BCE.
[: " ..All come from Nineveh (Kouyundjik) and belong to the category of 'oracle requests' addressed to the Mesopotamian sun god, Shamash.]
The city was subject to invasion by the Median chieftain,
Kashtariti Kashtariti (Akkadian: ; Median: ; fl. 670s BCE) was a Median chieftain. He is mentioned as "King of the Medes" in an inscription dated 678 BCE.: "In an inscription dated in 678 B.C., Kash-tariti, according to Boscawen, is called "King of the Medes ...
.
[: "Will within this period, Kashtariti, together with his soldiery, will the army of the Gimirrites, the army of the Medes, will the army of the Man-neans, or will any enemy whatsoever succeed in carrying out their plan, whether by strategy (?) or by main force, whether by the force of weapons of war and fight or by the ax, whether by a breach made with machines of war and battering rams or by hunger, whether by the power residing in the name of a god or goddess, whether in a friendly way or by friendly grace, or by any strategic device, will these aforementioned, as many as are required to take a city, actually capture the city Kishsassu, penetrate into the interior of that same city Kishsassu, will their hands lay hold of that same duty Kishsassu, so that it falls into their power? Thy great divine power knows it."]
Some scholars suggest Kishsassu can be identified as the city of Kishisim (or Kishisu).
Sargon II
Sargon II (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is general ...
subdued this town, calling it ''Kar-Nergal'' or ''Kar-Ninib''.
[: "Kishshashshu is very probably the same as Kishisim or Kishisu, the town which Sargon subdued, and which he called Kar-nergal or Kar-ninib (''Inscription des Fastes'' 11. 59, 60, ''Inscription of the Pavement of the Gates'', iv. 1. 16, ''Stele of Larnaka'', col. i. 1. 30, cf. Winckler, ''Die Keilschrifttexte Sargons'', vol. i. pp. 108, 109, 146, 147, 176, 177), and which is mentioned in the neighbourhood of Farsuasb, Karalla, Kharkhar, Media, and Ellipi (cf. the illustration above p. 241 of the present work)]
Gaston Maspero
Sir Gaston Camille Charles Maspero (23 June 1846 – 30 June 1916) was a French Egyptologist known for popularizing the term "Sea Peoples" in an 1881 paper.
Maspero's son, Henri Maspero, became a notable sinologist and scholar of East Asia.
...
believes the city was located in the Gavê-Rud basin, while Adolf Billerbeck identifies Kishsassu as the ruins of
Siama in the "upper valley of
Lesser Zab
The Little Zab or Lower Zab (, ''al-Zāb al-Asfal''; or '; , ''Zâb-e Kuchak''; , ''Zāba Taḥtāya'') is a river that originates in Iran and joins the Tigris just south of Al Zab in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. It is approximately long and dr ...
".
[: "I think that it would be in the basin of the Gavê-Rud; Billerbeck places it at the ruins of Siama in the upper valley of the Lesser Zab (''Das Sandschak Suleimania'', pp. 97, 98).]
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Ancient Assyrian cities