Despite restoring power to the hands of the royal family, which could trace its origins back over a thousand years to its founder Bēl-bāni (the son of Adāsi),[216] and bringing civil order to Assyria, Sîn-šarra-iškun (626–612) was unable to prevent the collapse and disappearance of the Assyrian Empire.[217] Nevertheless, he was able to keep it alive for another fifteen years. During that time, at least until his 11th regnal year (616), he was able to keep his principal rival, the Babylonian king Nabopolassar, at bay (that is, out of the Assyrian heartland) and, thus, he could sponsor several largescale building activities in the Aššur–Nineveh–Arbela triangle.
[216] Seven inscriptions of Esarhaddon and one text of Ashurbanipal trace the royal family's origins back to the Old Assyrian king Bēl-bāni, son of Adāsi (Brinkman, PNA 1/2 p. 288 sub Bēl-bāni no. 1). See, for example, Leichty, RINAP 4 p. 262 Esarhaddon 128 (Nippur A) line 14; and Novotny and Jeffers, RINAP 5/1 p. 220 Asb. 10 (Prism T) v 40–41.
[217] For his reign, see, for example, J. Oates, CAH2 3/2 pp. 175–182; Frame, RIMB 2 p. 270 B.6.37; Novotny, PNA 3/1 pp. 1143–1145 sub Sīn-šarru-iškun; Schaudig, RLA 12/7–8 (2011) pp. 522–524; and Frahm, Companion to Assyria pp. 191–192. Because his reign was contemporaneous with that of Kandalānu and Nabopolassar, this Assyrian king is usually not included in the various lists of rulers of Babylonia; see Novotny and Jeffers, RINAP 5/1 pp. 29–30. He is mentioned, however, in the Uruk King List (ibid. p. 29) as ruling over southern Mesopotamia for one year together with Sîn-šuma-līšir. His name might have also appeared in King List A, but the relevant section of that text is now missing. Sîn-šarra-iškun (and Sîn-šuma-līšir) are probably included in the Uruk King List because the length of Kandalānu's reign is given as twenty-one, instead of twenty-two, years.
Jamie Novotny
Jamie Novotny, 'Sîn-šarra-iškun, Aššur-uballiṭ II, and the End of the Assyrian Empire', RINAP 5: The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal, Aššur-etel-ilāni, and Sîn-šarra-iškun, The RINAP/RINAP 5 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2023 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap5/RINAP53Introduction/Sin-sharra-ishkun,Ashur-uballitII/]