Queen Sammu-Ramat, also known as Shammuramat, Sammuramat, was a powerful queen of the Assyrian Empire born c. 850 BC.
Assyria was an ancient empire which stretched from Africa to the Persian Gulf. One of the first major Mesopotamian Kingdoms was Babylonia, which became a regional power approximately 1850 BC. Babylonian King Hammurabi's reign is roughly dated from 1792-1750 BC.
She was the wife and queen of King Shamshi-Adad V (r. 824–811 BC), a son and successor of King Shalmaneser III.
King Shamshi-Adad V was the builder of the temple of Nabu at Nineveh. Among his actions was a siege of Damascus in the time of Ben-Hadad III in 796 BC, which led to the eclipse of the Aramaean Kingdom of Damascus and allowed the recovery of Israel under Jehoash (who paid the Assyrian king tribute at this time) and Jeroboam II.
She assumed rule when Shamshi-Adad V died. Around 806 BC, her son, King Adad-Nirari III was at an age where he could take on the full responsibility of the Assyrian throne.
She participated in government and religious ceremony, court and even accompanied and perhaps led the Assyrian military on campaigns.
Queen Sammu-Ramat occupied as prominent a position in Assyria as did Queen Tiye of Egypt during the lifetime of her husband, Amenhotep III, and her son, Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV).
Indicators of Shammuramat's power and influence, are inscribed in a boundary stele erected by Adad-nirari near modern-day Pazarcık in Turkey.
Queen Sammu-Ramat was a famous figure already in her lifetime, included among a set of steles erected centrally in Ashur* where there are only three erected by women (the other two women being Libbāli-šarrat, the queen of Ashurbanipal, and an unknown wife of Sennacherib).
Her own obelisk inscribed and placed in prominence in the city of Ashur, reads:
Stele of Sammuramat, queen of Shamshi-Adad, King of the Universe, King of Assyria, Mother of Adad Nirari, King of the Universe, King of Assyria, Daughter-in-Law of Shalmaneser, King of the Four Regions of the World.
Queen Sammu-Ramat probably died around c. 798 BC.
Accomplishments during her reign helped stabilize the empire after the civil war and provided her son with a sizeable and secure nation when he came to the throne. It is known that she defeated the Medes and annexed their territory, may have conquered the Armenians and, according to Herodotus, may have built the embankments at Babylon on the Euphrates River, which were still famous in his time. Other accomplishments merged with myth in the years following.
Sammu-Ramat was raised her to godhood and distributed her legend out of Assyria and into neighboring regions.
*Ashur is son of Shem, grandson of Noah, and the was the founder of the Assyrians.
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