Battle of Nairi

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Battle of Nairi

Date	Approximately 1230 aC
Location	Nairi
Result	Assyrian victory

Combatants

Commanders

The Battle of Nairi was the culminating point of the hostilities between Hittites and Assyrians by the control of which it had been the empire of Mitanni.

When Shubiluliuma I (century XIII aC) conquered Mitanni, it created two virrenaitos (Alepo and Carkemish, and distributed great part of territories of this kingdom between his allies. The rest of which long ago it had been the empire of Mitanni conserved its independence like state vasallo of the hititas. This great expansion of the hitita power was the last cause of the war between Egyptian hititas and, which took advantage of Asiria to be occupying the hollow progressively left by Mitanni; thus, already in the days of their king Urhi-Teshub (principles of century XII aC), the hititas had to resign themselves to see like their state vasallo, Mitanni, was conquered by the asirios.

The expansion Assyria continued, until arriving at an attack, in a date nondetermined with exactitude, on the different kingdoms from Nihriya, under the command of king Tukulti-Ninurta I (although for some historians, the king at issue could have been Salmanasar I or Ashur-nadin-Apli). The hititas consider this attack on a bordering zone to their empire like intolerable, and, guided by Tudhalia IV, they took to its army to the zone.

The shock between both powers took place in the neighborhoods of Nairi, and the Assyria gained a decisive victory, that allowed Assyria to annex the kingdoms of the zone, and placed to the hititas in a quite difficult situation, until the point of which one of the causes of documented coup d'etat against Tudhalia IV not very well could have been the loss of prestige of this last one because of its defeat before Tukulti-Ninurta I.

Although the hostilities continued both between empires (the sources Assyria affirm that, after the battle, they captured 28,000 hititas prisoners in diverse attacks), were no greater consequences for the long term Hittites, since Assyria fixed its attention to the conquest of Babylonia, projected in which invested too many resources like trying an expansion in their western border. The hitita empire could, therefore, peacefully live its last years, until its disappearance under the big wave of the towns of the sea (approx 1200 aC).