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17. BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE 259
Fig. 17.07. The city of Ukku: A.H. Layard’s original drawing (British Museum, WAA, Or. Dr. IV, 3)
of Slabs 1-2 in Room I (the Throne Room) of Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh
(reproduced from Barnett, Bleibtreu & Turner 1998: vol. II pl. 31).
vines, a plant that thrives in these south-facing mountain flanks. The next relief slab in this sequence 129 shows
the Assyrian soldiers in a mountain landscape with a great many trees, rounding up the fleeing Ukkeans who
are shown in various stages of collapse; the captives are led down to the Assyrian fort, depicted in the usual
style of that period. Neither reliefs nor inscriptions reveal anything about the fate of Maniye, king of Ukku;
did he manage to escape to Urartu as would seem likely? Did he eventually return to Ukku?
It is quite probable that king Maniye ruled Ukku already during the reign of Sargon when Sennacherib, as
the crown prince of Assyria, was closely involved in the affairs with the small northern states. Two of
Sennacherib’s letters 130 to his king and father deal directly with the ruler of Ukku, who, as in all other texts
from that period, is not identified by name: in one letter he acts as a loyal ally should, to the Assyrian mind at
least, and reports on Urartu’s crushing defeat at the hands of the Cimmerians but in the other letter, he is said
to pass on sensitive information to Urartu and to encroach on the rights of the ruler of nearby Arzabia, a policy
Sennacherib wants him to stop, volunteering himself as a negotiator. In other letters from Sargon’s reign, Ukku
is seen to be in cahoots with Urartu, sending regular messengers 131 – and even the very same ones sent to
Assyria 132 , clearly a security risk – to the enemy state, withholding information from Assyrian agents 133 and
trying to sway also Kumme’s loyalty in Urartu’s favour. 134 Sennacherib’s experiences with Ukku in his time as
a crown prince may well have influenced his decision to invade the country in 679 but ultimately, this must be
seen in the context of Assyria’s relationship with Urartu: by attacking Ukku, Sennacherib moved directly onto
129 Throne room = Room I, slabs 3. For Layard’s original drawing (Or. Dr. IV, 4) see Russell 1991: 249 fig. 128 and Barnett, Bleibtreu
& Turner 1998: I 51, II pl. 32-33 no. 20-20b.
130 SAA 1 29; SAA 1 31.
131 SAA 1 29, 41; SAA 5 96.
132 SAA 5 96.
133 SAA 5 91.
134 SAA 1 41.