The son of
Ashur-resh-ishi I, he ascended to the throne in 1115 BC, and became one of the greatest of Assyrian conquerors. Tiglath-Pileser I referred to himself as "unrivalled king of the universe, king of the four quarters, king of all princes, lord of lords… whose weapons the god Assur has sharpened and whose name he has pronounced eternally for control of the four quarters… splendid flame which covers the hostile land like a rain storm". Alongside this view of himself, he emphasized the brutality of his takeover of numerous lands, and was the first Assyrian king to claim hostages, occasionally children, as a political instrument against conquered peoples. The
Arameans emerged in a region which was largely under the domination of the
Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC) and established a string of small states in the region. In order to nullify this threat, Tiglath-Pileser I performed many campaigns in the Levant against the Arameans and other tribal peoples. The control of the high road to the Mediterranean was secured by the possession of the Hittite town of
Pitru at the junction between the Euphrates and
Sajur; thence he proceeded to 'Gubal (
Byblos),
Sidon,
Berytus and finally to
Arvad where he embarked onto a ship to sail the Mediterranean, on which he killed a
nahiru or "sea-horse" (which
A. Leo Oppenheim translates as a
narwhal) in the sea. The general view is that the restoration of the temple of the gods
Ashur and
Adad at Assyrian capital of
Assur was one of his initiatives. It is also believed he was one of the first kings to commission
parks and
botanical gardens with foreign trees and plants brought from around the empire. The latter part of his reign seems to have been a period of retrenchment, as Aramaean tribesmen put pressure on his realm. He died in 1076 BC and was succeeded by his son
Asharid-apal-Ekur. The later kings
Ashur-bel-kala and
Shamshi-Adad IV were also his sons.
Annals and texts Tiglath-Pileser's I inscriptions from his "fifth year annals" varied in form, from inscriptions on prisms to cuneiform inscriptions on tablets. A.0.87.i (or
RIMA 2) was inscribed on multiple 8-sided prisms and included 6 military campaigns that Marco De Odorico affirms as easily identifiable given that "the subdivision of paragraphs by horizontal lines... as well as the introduction begin with 'in my succession year'". These statues were mainly used to decorate the "royal entrance", a practice that was taken up by Tiglath-Pileser I's son Aššur-bel-kala after his father's death. In addition to erecting statues of animals his people had never seen, Tiglath-Pileser I returned from some war campaigns with the living animals themselves, including calves of wild bulls as well as elephants. ==See also==