Bazaya

Bazaya, Bāzāia or Bāzāiu, inscribed ^mba-za-a-a and of uncertain meaning, was the ruler of Assyria rather speculatively ca. 1649-1622 BC, the 52nd listed on the Assyrian King List, succeeding Iptar-Sin, to whom he was supposedly a great-uncle. He reigned for twenty-eight years and has left no known inscriptions.^[1]

Biography

The Assyrian king lists^{[i 1][i 2][i 3]} give Bazaya’s five predecessors as father-son successors, although all reigned during a fifty-two period, stretching genealogical credibility. All three extant copies give his father as Bel-bani, the second in the sequence, whose reign had ended forty-one years earlier and who had been the great-grandfather of his immediate predecessor.^[2] The literal reading of the list was challenged by Landsberger who suggested that the three preceding kings, Libaya, Sharma-Adad I and Iptar-Sin may have been Bel-bani's brothers.^[3]

The Synchronistic Kinglist^{[i 4]} gives his Babylonian counterpart as Peshgaldaramesh of the Sealand Dynasty. He was succeeded by Lullaya, a usurper, whose brief reign was followed by that of Bāzāiu’s own son, Shu-Ninua.^[4]

Inscriptions

1. Khorsabad List, IM 60017 (excavation nos.: DS 828, DS 32-54), ii 20.
2. SDAS List, IM 60484, ii 18.
3. Nassouhi List, Istanbul A. 116 (Assur 8836), ii 15.
4. Synchronistic Kinglist, Ass 14616c (KAV 216), I 6’.

References

1. A. K. Grayson (1972). Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, Volume 1. Otto Harrassowitz. pp. 30–31.
2. B. Newgrosh (1999). "The Chronology of Ancient Assyria Re-assessed". JACF. 8: 79–80.
3. J. A. Brinkman (1998). "Bēl-bāni". In K. Radner. The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Volume 1, Part 2: B–G. The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. p. 288.
4. K. Radner (1998). "Bāzāiu". The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Volume 1, Part 2: B–G. The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. p. 278.