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Nabopolassar

Nabopolassar (, meaning "Nabu, protect the son") was the founder and first king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from his coronation as king of Babylon in 626 BC to his death in 605 BC. Though initially only aimed at restoring and securing the independence of Babylonia, Nabopolassar's uprising against the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which had ruled Babylonia for more than a century, eventually led to the complete destruction of the Assyrian Empire and the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in its place.

Of unclear, possibly Chaldean, origin and potentially connected to a powerful political family in the southern city of Uruk, Nabopolassar revolted against the Neo-Assyrian king Sinsharishkun at an opportune moment when Babylonia was already plagued by political instability. Though the advantage shifted back and forth dramatically several times, Nabopolassar managed to decisively push the Assyrians out of Babylonia after nearly ten years of fighting. Subsequent campaigns were intended to hinder the possibility of an Assyrian campaign directed at Babylonia through securing the border, but the intervention of the eastern Median Empire under Cyaxares in Nabopolassar's favor shifted the goals and the possibilities of the war.

In 614 BC, the Medes brutally sacked the city of Assur, the religious and ceremonial heart of Assyria, and in 612 BC the Medes and Babylonians assaulted Nineveh, Assyria's capital. As with Assur before it, Nineveh was brutally sacked, with its inhabitants, including children, slaughtered en masse and the entire city being burned to the ground. Sinsharishkun probably died in its defense. Other Assyrian cities, such as Nimrud, were also assaulted and sacked much in the same way. The brutality of the Medes, including their habit of sacking even the religious temples, was so excessive that it shocked the Babylonians; contemporary Babylonian chronicles, otherwise hostile to the Assyrians, lament the sackings with sorrow and remorse. Nabopolassar's own attitude towards Assyria is unclear; in some inscriptions he is careful to ascribe his victory and its aftermath to divine intervention to rid himself of the blame and in others he openly boasts of the destruction.

The Neo-Babylonian Empire's claim to succeed the Neo-Assyrian Empire was immediately challenged by Egypt under Pharaoh Necho II, who fought for several years to restore the Assyrians, whom he was allied to, until he was defeated at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC. Upon his death that same year, Nabopolassar was succeeded by his son Nebuchadnezzar II. As the founder of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Nabopolassar was long remembered by the Babylonians after his death, even beyond the fall of his empire less than a century later. In the Hellenistic period, several centuries later, Nabopolassar's legend was still remembered, with Babylonian authors casting him as a champion ordered by Marduk, Babylon's chief deity, to avenge their homeland, and as a symbol against the domination of foreign empires over Babylon.

Origin and ancestry
Nabopolassar's origins are unclear. In his own inscriptions, he refers to himself as a mâr lā mammâna ("son of a nobody"), a striking descriptor that is not known from any other Mesopotamian king. The two other Neo-Babylonian kings who had no blood connection to previous royalty; Neriglissar ((r. undefined – undefined)560–556 BC) and Nabonidus ((r. undefined – undefined)556–539 BC), nevertheless mentioned the names of their fathers and wrote about them with pride in their inscriptions. On account of a lack of sources in regards to his true origins, subsequent historians have variously identified Nabopolassar as a Chaldean, an Assyrian or a Babylonian. Although no evidence conclusively confirms him as being of Chaldean origin, the term "Chaldean dynasty" is frequently used by modern historians for the royal family he founded, and the term "Chaldean Empire" remains in use as an alternate historiographical name for the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Several near-contemporary texts, such as the Uruk prophecy, describe Nabopolassar as a "king of the sea", i.e. of southernmost Babylonia, suggesting that his origin was south of Babylon itself. The Assyrians also ascribed him a southern origin; a letter from the Neo-Assyrian king Sinsharishkun ((r. undefined – undefined)627–612 BC) describes Nabopolassar as "of the lower sea", i.e. southernmost Mesopotamia.

Connection to Uruk
Regardless of his ethnic origin, Nabopolassar appears to have been strongly connected to the city of Uruk, located south of Babylon, possibly having been a member of its ruling elite prior to becoming Babylon's king. In a 1998 paper, the Assyriologist Paul-Alain Beaulieu mentioned that there was a growing body of evidence that Nabopolassar's family originated in Uruk, and also presented evidence that several of Nebuchadnezzar II's (Nabopolassar's son and successor) daughters lived in the city. In 2007, the Assyriologist Michael Jursa advanced the theory that Nabopolassar was a member of a prominent political family in Uruk, whose members are attested since the reign of Esarhaddon ((r. undefined – undefined)681–669 BC). To support his theory, Jursa points to a letter from the time of Sinsharishkun, ABL 469, which discusses how the grave and body of Kudurru, a deceased governor of Uruk, was desecrated due to the anti-Assyrian activities of Kudurru's two sons, Nabu-shumu-ukin and a son whose name is mostly missing. The desecration went so far as to drag Kudurru's body through the streets of Uruk. Kudurru can be identified with Nebuchadnezzar (Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, "Kudurru" simply being a common and shortened nickname), a prominent official in Uruk who served as its governor under Ashurbanipal ((r. undefined – undefined)669–631 BC) in the 640s BC.

In Assyrian tradition, the desecration of a dead body showed that the deceased individual and their surviving family were traitors and enemies of the state, and that they had to be completely eradicated. The desecration of the body itself functioned as a means to punish an enemy even after their death. The name of the son whose name is unpreserved in the letter ended with either ahi, nâsir or uṣur, and the remaining traces can fit with the name Nabû-apla-uṣur, meaning that Nabopolassar could be the other son mentioned in the letter and thus a son of Kudurru. Strengthening the case that Kudurru was Nabopolassar's father is the name of Nabopolassar's son, also Nebuchadnezzar. At this time, Nebuchadnezzar was a very rare name in Babylonia. Since the Babylonians employed patronymics, it is possible that Nabopolassar would have named his son after his father. Before becoming king after Nabopolassar's death, Nebuchadnezzar II served as the high priest of the Eanna temple in Uruk, often attested there under the nickname Kudurru, further linking Nabopolassar's dynasty both to Uruk and to Kudurru. Additionally, the name of Kudurru's second son, Nabu-shumu-ukin, is also the name of a prominent general under Nabopolassar (a role not unlikely to be filled by a family member) and the name of one of Nebuchadnezzar II's sons (possibly another example of a name honoring a relative).

The ancient author Berossus, a native Babylonian historian active in Hellenistic times, centuries after Nabopolassar, described Nabopolassar as a general of Sinsharishkun, who betrayed the Assyrian king. Berossus is not typically considered reliable, but there was ample Assyrian influence within the Neo-Babylonian Empire, with there being considerable continuity within military and court administration. Jursa does not consider this surprising; Nabopolassar's ancestors, such as Kudurru, had been pro-Assyrian in their policies (Kudurru even having been appointed by Ashurbanipal himself); Kudurru even fought in Ashurbanipal's civil war against his brother Shamash-shum-ukin (designated by their father Esarhaddon as king of Babylon), aiding in the defeat of the latter. Kudurru's support for Assyria could explain Nabopolassar's unwillingness to mention his father in his inscriptions, and the desecration of his father's body additionally meant that Nabopolassar in a literal sense no longer had a father.

The Babylonian problem
In the middle of the seventh century BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire ruled the entire Near East. Due to their powerful standing army and their sophisticated administration, the Assyrians had managed to create the best organized and largest empire that the world had yet seen. Though Babylonia in the south had also once been a large kingdom, it had typically been weaker than its northern neighbor due to internal divisions and the lack of a well-organized army. The population of Babylonia was divided into various ethnic groups with different priorities and ideals. Though old native Babylonians ruled most of the cities, such as Kish, Ur, Uruk, Borsippa, Nippur, and Babylon itself, the Chaldean tribes, led by chieftains who often squabbled with each other, dominated most of the southernmost land. The Arameans lived on the fringes of settled land and were notorious for plundering surrounding territories. Because of the infighting of these three major groups, Babylonia often represented an appealing target for Assyrian campaigns. The two kingdoms had competed since the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BC, and in the 8th century BC, the Assyrians consistently gained the upper hand. Babylon's internal and external weakness led to its conquest by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III in 729 BC.

During the expansion of Assyria into a major empire, the Assyrians had conquered various neighboring kingdoms, either annexing them as Assyrian provinces or turning them into vassal states. Because the Assyrians venerated the long history and culture of Babylon, it was preserved as a full kingdom, either ruled by an appointed client king, or by the Assyrian king in a personal union. The relationship between Assyria and Babylonia was similar to the relationship between Greece and Rome in later centuries; much of Assyria's culture, texts and traditions had been imported from the south. Assyria and Babylonia also shared the same language (Akkadian). The relationship between Assyria and Babylon was emotional in a sense; Neo-Assyrian inscriptions implicitly gender the two countries, calling Assyria the metaphorical "husband" and Babylon its "wife". In the words of the Assyriologist Eckart Frahm, "the Assyrians were in love with Babylon, but also wished to dominate her". Though Babylon was respected as the well-spring of civilization, it was expected to remain passive in political matters, something that Assyria's "Babylonian bride" repeatedly refused to be.

The Assyrians attempted various strategies to appease their Babylonian subjects throughout the eighth and seventh centuries BC; ranging from violent subjugation through war to direct rule either by the Assyrian king or by a representative (sometimes a relative such as a son or brother). Though there was some success in pacifying the urban population of Babylonians, the Arameans and Chaldeans remained unconvinced and repeatedly rebelled whenever they saw an opportunity. Despite the enormous effort spent in keeping the region, Babylonia was seen as too important economically and strategically to allow to secede, but no matter what the Assyrians attempted, rebellion and civil war was the inevitable result each time. Prolonged Assyrian control of Babylonia proved so impossible that modern researchers have dubbed it the "Babylonian problem".

In 631 BC, the long-ruling Assyrian king Ashurbanipal died and in 627 BC, he was followed in death by his appointed vassal ruler of Babylonia, Kandalanu. Their deaths ended an about 20-year long period of relative peace and stability. Ashurbanipal was first succeeded by his son Ashur-etil-ilani, but he died in 627 BC at around the same time as Kandalanu, leading to Ashurbanipal's other son, Sinsharishkun, assuming the kingship of Assyria. Although it has been suggested by several historians, there is no evidence to prove the idea that Ashur-etil-ilani was deposed in a coup by his brother. Sinsharishkun's inscriptions state that he was selected for the kingship from among several of "his equals" (i.e., his brothers) by the gods. Almost immediately after Sinsharishkun's rise to the throne, the general Sin-shumu-lishir rebelled. Sin-shumu-lishir took some cities in northern Babylonia, including Nippur and Babylon and ruled there for three months before Sinsharishkun defeated him. Though both of them exercised control there, it is unclear if Sinsharishkun and Sin-shumu-lishir actually claimed the title "king of Babylon" (or only used "king of Assyria"), meaning that Babylonia could have experienced an interregnum of sorts. Modern historians typically include both Sin-shumu-lishir and Sinsharishkun in lists of Babylonian kings, as did some ancient Babylonian king lists.

War for Babylonia
It is probable that Nabopolassar held some high office in Uruk before his rebellion against Assyria, possibly following the family tradition and serving as the city's governor. In early 626 BC, he rose in rebellion against Sinsharishkun. Fighting for the control of Babylonia would drag on for about ten years, and which side had the advantage shifted dramatically back and forth several times.

The timing of the revolt was opportune. Nabopolassar might have used the political instability caused by the revolt of Sin-shumu-lishir a few months prior, as well as the unrest caused by the potentially ongoing interregnum in the south, to his advantage. He began by assaulting both Babylon and Nippur, taking the cities from the garrisons left there by Sinsharishkun. The Assyrian response was swift and in October 626 BC, the Assyrian army recaptured Nippur and laid siege to both Nabopolassar at Uruk and to Babylon itself. Both sieges were repulsed by Nabopolassar's forces; the siege of Babylon would be the last time an Assyrian army attempted to take the city.

In the aftermath of the failed Assyrian counterattack, Nabopolassar was formally crowned king of Babylon on 22/23 November 626 BC, restoring Babylonia as an independent kingdom. In 625–623 BC, Sinsharishkun's forces again attempted to defeat Nabopolassar, campaigning in northern Babylonia. Initially, these campaigns were successful; in 625 BC the Assyrians took the city of Sippar and Nabopolassar's attempted reconquest of Nippur failed. Another of Assyria's vassals, Elam, also stopped paying tribute to Assyria during this time and several Babylonian cities, such as Der, revolted and joined Nabopolassar. Realizing the threat this posed, Sinsharishkun led a massive counterattack himself which saw the successful recapture of Uruk in 623 BC.

Sinsharishkun might have ultimately been victorious had it not been for another revolt, led by an Assyrian general in the empire's western provinces in 622 BC. This general, whose name remains unknown, took advantage of the absence of Sinsharishkun and the Assyrian army to march on Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, where he met a hastily organized army which surrendered without fighting. The usurper then successfully seized the Assyrian throne. The surrender of the army indicates that the usurper was an Assyrian and possibly even a member of the royal family, or at least a person that would be acceptable as king. Understandably alarmed by this development, Sinsharishkun abandoned his Babylonian campaign and though he successfully defeated the usurper after a hundred days of civil war, the absence of the Assyrian army saw the Babylonians conquer the last remaining Assyrian outposts in Babylonia in 622–620 BC. The Babylonian siege of Uruk had begun by October 622 BC and though control of the ancient city would shift between Assyria and Babylon, it was firmly in Nabopolassar's hands by 620 BC. Nippur was also conquered in 620 BC and Nabopolassar pushed the Assyrians out of Babylonia. Though he had successfully driven out the Assyrian army, pro-Assyrian factions still existed in some Babylonian cities, for instance Ur and Nippur, by 617 BC, making Nabopolassar's full consolidation of control in the south slow. The fighting in Babylonia in the last stages of the localized conflict turned conditions so desperate in some places that parents sold their children into slavery to avoid them starving to death.

Early campaigns into Assyria
While unlikely to have been received positively, the end of Assyrian rule in Babylonia would probably not have been regarded as significant to the Assyrians at the time. All fighting had happened in Babylonia and the outcome was not yet decisive, characteristic of previous Assyro-Babylonian conflicts in the Neo-Assyrian period. In previous uprisings, the Babylonians had sometimes temporarily gained the upper hand as well and there was no reason to believe that Nabopolassar's success would be anything but a temporary inconvenience.

In 616 BC, Nabopolassar entered Assyrian territory for the first time, leading his armies along the Euphrates river into lands in present-day Syria. As he marched on, he took the Assyrian city Hindanu and reached the Balikh River, where he defeated an Assyrian force near the city Gablinu. Nabpolassar then pushed north, reaching as far as the Khabur River. The Assyrians swiftly regrouped in order to deal with the threat. Realizing that the situation was dire, Assyria's ally, Pharaoh Psamtik I of Egypt, marched his troops to aid Sinsharishkun. Psamtik had over the last few years campaigned to establish dominance over the small city-states of the Levant and it was in his interests that Assyria survived as a buffer state between his own empire and those of the Babylonians and Medes in the east. A joint Egyptian-Assyrian campaign to capture the city of Gablinu was undertaken in October of 616 BC, but ended in failure after which the Egyptian allies kept to the west of the Euphrates, only offering limited support. Both the Assyrians and the Babylonians then withdrew, though the Babylonians retained Hindanu and now controlled the middle Euphrates, a major strategical victory and probably the first step in Nabopolassar's plan to counteract the possibility of an Assyrian invasion of Babylonia. That Nabopolassar withdrew at the same time as the Assyrians did suggests that the Babylonians were not yet ready to conduct a full invasion of Assyria and that their plans were at this time just to secure Babylonian independence, not to conquer and destroy Assyria.

In March 615 BC, Nabopolassar inflicted a crushing defeat on the Assyrian army at the banks of the Tigris, pushing them back to the Little Zab. This victory weakened Assyrian control of the buffer zone that had been established around the middle of the Tigris river between the two kingdoms, meaning that the Babylonians now controlled lands directly bordering the Assyrian heartland itself.

Fall of Assyria
In May 615 BC, Nabopolassar and the Babylonians assaulted Assur, the ceremonial and religious center of Assyria and the Assyrian Empire's southernmost remaining city. Sinsharishkun swiftly rallied his army and counterattacked, lifting the siege of Assur and forcing Nabopolassar to retreat to the city of Takrit. There, Sinsharishkun besieged Nabopolassar, but he was eventually forced to abandon the siege. Though the conflict had shifted to Assyria becoming the defender, the war was at this point still being fought according to standard Mesopotamian practice, with attacks, counterattacks and retreats and neither side having the confidence or means to force a decisive confrontation. Despite constant defeats and setbacks, the Assyrian army remained powerful and capable of being deployed rapidly.

In late 615 BC or in 614 BC, the Medes under their king Cyaxares entered Assyria and conquered the region around the city of Arrapha in preparation for a campaign against Sinsharishkun. Although there are plenty of earlier sources discussing Assyro-Median relations, none are preserved from the period leading up to Cyaxares's invasion and as such, the political context and reasons for the sudden attack are not known. Perhaps, the war between Babylonia and Assyria had disrupted the economy of the Medes and inspired a direct intervention.

In July or August of 614 BC, the Medes mounted attacks on the cities of Nimrud and Nineveh and successfully conquered the city of Tarbisu. They then besieged Assur. This siege was successful and the Medes captured the ancient heart of Assyria, plundering it and killing many of its inhabitants. The brutal sack of Assur came as a shock to people throughout the Near East. Even the Babylonian chronicles, hostile to Assyria, speak of the Medes as unnecessarily brutal, stating that they "inflicted a terrible defeat on a great people, pillaged and looted them and robbed them". Nabopolassar only arrived at Assur after the plunder had already begun and met with Cyaxares, allying with him and signing an anti-Assyrian pact. The treaty between the Babylonians and Medes was sealed through the marriage of Nabopolassar's son and heir, Nebuchadnezzar, and Cyaxares's daughter, Amytis. The onset of winter after the fall of Assur meant that both the Medes and Babylonians then returned to their homelands, preparing for further campaigns in the next year. The Assyrians appear to have not recognized the severity of their situation as they did not use the pause in the fighting to fall back into, and prepare, defensive positions. Instead of repairing the damage in Nimrud, the populace there dismantled the walls further to prepare for future renovation work (which would never happen). In an attempt to keep the enemies out of Assyria, Sinsharishkun went on the offensive in 613 BC, attacking Nabopolassar's forces in the middle Euphrates, occupied at the time with suppressing an Assyrian-supported rebellion of a local tribe. Sinshariskun successfully rescued the tribe's besieged city of Rahilu, but Nabopolassar's army retreated before a battle could take place. Around this time, Sinsharishkun, apparently finally recognizing the disaster that was about to befall his kingdom, sent a letter to Nabopolassar, attempting to broker peace. Sinsharishkun pleaded with Nabopolassar to avoid any more bloodshed and wrote that he should "quiet his fiery heart". Nabopolassar was not interested; Sinsharishkun had waited too long and there was no longer anything he could offer that the Babylonians and Medes would not be able to take for themselves in battle. A harsh response was sent, in which Nabopolassar declared that "[Nineveh's] roots I shall pluck out and the foundations of the land I shall obliterate". The original tablets containing these letters have not been preserved, with the known text instead having been derived from tablets made during Seleucid times, centuries later. Whether the letters are copies of authentic, more ancient, originals, or fabrications entirely is a matter of debate.

In April or May 612 BC, at the start of Nabopolassar's fourteenth year as king of Babylon, the combined Medo-Babylonian army marched on Nineveh. Sinsharishkun rallied his forces to make a final stand at the capital but stood little chance at defending it on account of the city's massive size. From June to August 612 BC, the Medo-Babylonian army besieged the Assyrian capital and in August the walls were breached, leading to a lengthy and brutal sack. The city was looted, depictions of the Assyrian kings were mutilated and inhabitants as young as the age of ten were slaughtered en masse before the entire city was razed and burned to the ground. Sinsharishkun's fate is not entirely certain but it is commonly accepted that he died in the defense of Nineveh.

The brutal sack of Nineveh was only the beginning; in the aftermath of their victory, the Medes swept through the Assyrian heartland. Cities such as Nimrud, Dur-Sharrukin, Tarbisu, Imgur-Enlil and Khirbet Khatuniyeh were completely destroyed, with only a handful of sites, such as Assur and Arbela, continuing to be populated under later Babylonian and Median rule. The level of the destruction, including the destruction and desecration of Assyria's temples, shocked the Babylonians and Nabopolassar. In some inscriptions, Nabopolassar was careful to attribute his victory and its aftermath to divine intervention in attempt to absolve himself of the blame, though other inscriptions were less remorseful, with one reading "I slaughtered the land of Assyria, I turned the hostile land into heaps and ruins". Later Neo-Babylonian rulers, such as Nabonidus ((r. undefined – undefined)556–539 BC), blamed the destruction solely on the Medes and Cyaxares, maintaining that Nabopolassar had not destroyed any temples and described him as remorseful of the fate that befell Assyria. Though ultimately victorious, the Babylonians and Medes had violated the normal practices of warfare in the Near East. The destruction of the Assyrian heartland had been so extensive that the region did not even begin to recover until a century later, when it came under the rule of the Achaemenid Empire. Although Nabopolassar did not take the title "king of Assyria", he first extracted tribute while encamped at the ruins of Nineveh. In 2003, Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley wrote that two of the modern interpretations in regards to the reason for briefly "ruling" from Nineveh are that Nabopolassar either might have wanted to cement himself as the successor of the Assyrian kings, or that taking residence there was an attempt to save what remained of the city from further sacking by the Medes.

Ashur-uballit II and the Egyptians
The survivors of Nineveh's fall followed a new Assyrian ruler, Ashur-uballit II, possibly Sinsharishkun's son, to the city of Harran, where they continued to hold out. Although Babylonian sources refer to him as Assyria's new king, Ashur-uballit ruled with the title of crown prince (mar šarri, literally meaning "son of the king"). In Assyrian tradition, the king was appointed to his position by the Assyrian national deity, Ashur, during the New Year festivals in Assur. The last king to be crowned at the temple of Ashur at Assur had been Sinsharishkun and with the city's destruction in 614 BC, the traditional Assyrian coronation ritual was now impossible. Ashur-uballit did have a coronation ceremony in late 612 BC, but instead of conducting it in Assur, it was conducted in the temple of the moon god Sin, another important deity in the empire, at Harran. That he was not formally king does not mean that his claim was challenged by his subjects; like the coronation of a king, the appointment of a crown prince required the formal recognition of all subjects and of the gods. Should the king be unable to exercise his duties, the crown prince was a competent substitute, exercising similar legal and political power. Ashur-uballit was the recognized legitimate ruler, and his title was only a provisional arrangement until he could undergo the proper coronation.

In 611 BC, Nabopolassar's army consolidated his rule throughout northern Mesopotamia, going as far as to the border of Harran itself. After Nabopolassar himself had travelled the recently conquered Assyrian heartland in 610 BC in order to ensure stability, the Medo-Babylonian army embarked on a campaign against Harran in November of 610 BC. Intimidated by the approach of the Medo-Babylonian army, Ashur-uballit and a contingent of Egyptian reinforcements fled the city into the deserts of Syria. The siege of Harran lasted from the winter of 610 BC to the beginning of 609 BC and the city eventually capitulated. Ashur-uballit's failure at Harran marks the end for the ancient Assyrian monarchy, which would never be restored. After the Babylonians had ruled Harran for three months, Ashur-uballit and a large force of Egyptian soldiers attempted to retake the city, but this campaign failed disastrously. Beginning in July or June 609 BC, Ashur-uballit's siege lasted for two months, until August or September, but he and the Egyptians retreated when Nabopolassar again led his army against them. It is possible that they had retreated even earlier. The failed retaking of Harran is the last time Ashur-uballit is mentioned in Babylonian records; his ultimate fate is unknown.

After his victory at Harran, Nabopolassar resumed his campaign against the remainder of the Assyrian army in the beginning of the year 608 or 607 BC. In 608 BC the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II, Psamtik I's successor, personally led a large Egyptian army into former Assyrian territory to rescue what remained of the Assyrians and turn the tide of the war. Though Necho would spend the better part of three years attempting to defeat the Babylonians, the Assyrian Empire had already collapsed and he was fighting for a lost cause.

At Megiddo, Necho easily defeated the king of Judah, Josiah, who had attempted to block his advance into Syria and Mesopotamia. The reason for Josiah deciding to attempt to halt the Egyptian campaign is not known, but he might have been inspired by the Egyptian failure to aid the Assyrians in holding and then recapturing Harran for the Assyrians. According to the Biblical Books of Chronicles, Necho had not intended to do battle with the Judeans and was confused by Josiah's decision to attack him, supposedly sending a letter to him which included the passage "what have we done to each other, king of Judah? I am not coming against you this day."

For much of the period between 609 and 607 BC, Nabopolassar was occupied by a war against the northern Kingdom of Urartu, and in the meantime, the Egyptians took the city of Carchemish in Syria, which Necho established as his base of operations for the course of the campaign. In 606 BC, the Egyptians won several victories at various sites in Syria, such as at the city of Kimuhu, located near Carchemish. The Egyptian war continued until Necho suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC. According to the Babylonian records of the battle and its aftermath, "not a single man escaped to his country"; Necho's forces were completely annihilated. The Babylonian forces at the battle were led by Nabopolassar's son and crown prince, Nebuchadnezzar, as Nabopolassar had chosen to stay in Babylon, possibly on account of illness.

Nabopolassar victorious
With the war against Egypt over, and twenty years of near-constant warfare concluded, Nabopolassar stood victorious, having achieved all of his objectives. Nineveh no longer existed and Assyria would never rise again. The Egyptians no longer represented a threat and the only other major power in the Near East, the Medes, were Nabopolassar's allies. Through the defeat of all of Nabopolassar's rivals, his Neo-Babylonian Empire had become the uncontested successor of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. For the first time since the Assyrian conquest more than a century prior, tribute flowed into Babylonia rather than being drained from it.

Because Nabopolassar had spent virtually his entire reign at war, pressing affairs in his capital, Babylon, had been more or less neglected. The city had been destroyed by the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib in 689 BC, and though it was rebuilt by Sennacherib's successor Esarhaddon, it was not rebuilt as the capital of an empire, lacking the necessary headquarters for efficient imperial administration and with religious institutions not as elaborate of those that existed in Assyria. Though early work had been begun by Nabopolassar, much work still lay ahead; a new wall had to be built around the city and the great temples of Babylon, most importantly the Esagila, had to be restored.

It was with this work still ahead of him, on the eve of his final victory, that Nabopolassar died. As he had managed to secure universal recognition for his rule, Nabopolassar was succeeded without any issues by his son and crown prince Nebuchadnezzar, who would finish the building projects left at the time of Nabopolassar's death and, in time, surpass his father. At the time of Nabopolassar's death, Nebuchadnezzar was still away on campaign and upon hearing the news, he quickly arranged affairs with the Egyptians and rushed back to Babylon. The speed in which Nebuchadnezzar returned to Babylon might be because of the threat of one of his brothers (two are known by name: Nabu-shum-lishir and Nabu-zer-ushabshi) potentially attempting to claim the throne. Though Nebuchadnezzar had been recognized as the eldest son and heir by Nabopolassar, Nabu-shum-lishir had been recognized as "his equal brother", a dangerously vague title. No attempts at usurpation were made. One of Nebuchadnezzar's first acts as king was to bury his father. Nabopolassar was laid in a huge coffin, adorned with ornamented gold plates and fine dresses with golden beads, which was then placed within a small palace he had constructed in Babylon.

Legacy
With the rise of Nabopolassar and the foundation of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Babylonia entered into a new age of political stability and economic prosperity. In terms of his legacy, archaeologist and historian Rocío Da Riva wrote in 2017 that Nabopolassar's exploits and figure are "inextricably linked to the overthrow of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and to the formation and configuration of the Chaldean kingdom".

Nabopolassar's legend survived for centuries and he was long remembered by the Babylonians as the "avenger of Akkad" (i. e. Babylonia) and as a symbol of resistance to domination of foreign empires. Several later texts hold that Nabopolassar was even divinely ordered by Marduk, Babylon's chief deity, to avenge Babylonia. During the Hellenistic period, centuries after Nabopolassar's death and the eventual collapse of his empire, Babylonian authors used historical royal figures as the subjects of epics and stories to avoid explicit commentary on their contemporary politics. Typically, these historical figures were ancient, and more recent, Assyrian and Babylonian kings, including those of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Nabopolassar, called Belesys or Bupolasaros by the Hellenistic-era authors, is used in some and is generally cast in a very positive light, described as a pious and just king who, partly through reverence of Marduk, managed to liberate his homeland from the rule of the Assyrian Empire. The antagonist of the Nabopolassar epics is typically Sinsharishkun or Sin-shumu-lishir (who was actually defeated by Sinsharishkun, not Nabopolassar). Texts and chronicles describing Nabopolassar's military career were being spread throughout Babylonia in the 5th, and probably also 4th, century BC.

A rare negative portrayal of Nabopolassar has been recovered in a Seleucid-era colophon, which erroneously identifies Nabopolassar as a "king of the Sealand" (the Sealand being the southernmost part of Babylonia, often politically independent or autonomous) and accuses the king of having stolen wooden tablets from temples in Uruk. The contemporary priest of Uruk, Kidin-Ani, alleged that he had seen these tablets on a visit to Elam in the reign of either Seleucus I ((r. undefined – undefined)305–281 BC) or Antiochus I ((r. undefined – undefined)281–261 BC). Though the entire story has to be seen as unreliable, it is possible that this particular tale can be related to a passage in the Babylonian chronicles that mention Nabopolassar returning statues of gods to that the Assyrians had stolen from Elam and put in Uruk.

Titles
Some aspects of Nabopolassar's royal titulature suggest that he wished to distance himself from the Neo-Assyrian kings, while others suggest the opposite and a wish to establish clear continuity with them. Some prominent Assyrian titles, such as "king of the Four Corners of the World", were dropped, whereas Nabopolassar assumed others, such as šarru dannu ("mighty king") and the much older Sumerian "king of Sumer and Akkad". The title of "mighty king" in particular was strongly associated with Assyria, previously only ever having been used by Assyrian rulers. Though the title was not used in any royal inscriptions, i. e. not "officially", both Nabopolassar and his heir Nebuchadnezzar used the ancient title "king of the Universe" in economical documents.

Nabopolassar not fully being disconnected from his Assyrian predecessors in his titulature is also reflected in his empire's administrative structure, which essentially was the same as that of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. That titulature and administration did not change much from Sinsharishkun to Nabopolassar is hardly surprising as virtually the entirety of Nabopolassar's reign was spent fighting wars, with little time to devote to other matters. With Nabopolassar's use of titles in mind, and the fact that little changed administratively from the Neo-Assyrians to the Neo-Babylonians, it is possible that Nabopolassar represented himself as the legitimate heir to the throne of the Assyrians. Later Babylonian king lists do not clearly separate the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian dynasties in the same way that modern scholars do.

In one of his clay cylinders, Nabopolassar used the titulature presented below. The use of "governor of Babylon" (šakkanakki Bābili) rather than "king of Babylon" (šar Bābili) was an ancient practice of the Babylonian monarchs and an act of reverence to Marduk, who was formally considered the true king of Babylon. In Nabopolassar's inscriptions the usage varied and there are examples where he used "king of Babylon" instead.

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title: Nabopolassar


text:
Harlem Globetrotters

The Harlem Globetrotters are an American exhibition basketball team. They combine athleticism, theater, entertainment, and comedy in their style of play. Over the years, they have played more than 26,000 exhibition games in 124 countries and territories, mostly against deliberately ineffective opponents, such as the Washington Generals (1953–1995, since 2015) and the New York Nationals (1995–2015). The team's signature song is Brother Bones' whistled version of "Sweet Georgia Brown", and their mascot is an anthropomorphized globe named "Globie". The team is owned by Herschend Family Entertainment.

History
The Globetrotters originated in 1926, on the South Side of Chicago, where all the original players were raised. They began as the Savoy Big Five, one of the premier attractions of the Savoy Ballroom, opened in January 1928, a basketball team of Black American players that played exhibitions before dances due to declining dance attendance. In 1928, several players left the team in a dispute. That autumn, those players formed a team called the "Globe Trotters" and toured southern Illinois that spring. Abe Saperstein became involved with the team as its manager and promoter. By 1929, Saperstein was touring Illinois and Iowa with his basketball team called the "New York Harlem Globe Trotters". Saperstein selected the name Harlem because it was then considered the center of Black American culture and the name Globetrotter to mythologize the team's international venues.

The Globetrotters were perennial participants in the World Professional Basketball Tournament, winning it in 1940. In a heavily attended matchup a few years later, the 1948 Globetrotters–Lakers game, the Globetrotters made headlines when they beat one of the best white basketball teams in the country, the Minneapolis Lakers. The Globetrotters continued to easily win games due to Harlem monopolizing the entire talent pool of the best black basketball players in the country. Once one of the most famous teams in the country, the Globetrotters were eventually eclipsed by the rise of the National Basketball Association, particularly when NBA teams began recruiting black players in the 1950s. In 1950, Harlem Globetrotter Chuck Cooper became the first black player to be drafted in the NBA by Boston and teammate Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton became the first black player to sign an NBA contract when the New York Knicks purchased his contract from the Globetrotters for $12,500, with Saperstein getting $10,000 and Clifton getting $2,500.

The Globetrotters gradually worked comic routines into their act—a direction the team has credited to Reece "Goose" Tatum, who joined in 1941—and eventually became known more for entertainment than sports. The Globetrotters' acts often feature incredible coordination and skillful handling of one or more basketballs, such as passing or juggling balls between players, balancing or spinning balls on their fingertips, and making unusually difficult shots.

In 1952, the Globetrotters invited Louis "Red" Klotz to create a team to accompany them on their tours. This team, the Washington Generals (who also played under various other names), became the Globetrotters' primary opponents. The Generals are effectively stooges for the Globetrotters, with the Globetrotters handily defeating them in thousands of games.

In 1959, the Globetrotters played nine games in Moscow after Saperstein received an invitation from Vasily Grigoryevich, the director of Lenin Central Stadium. The team, which included Wilt Chamberlain, was welcomed enthusiastically by spectators and authorities, and they met Premier Nikita Khrushchev and collectively received the Athletic Order of Lenin medal.

According to one report titled "Russians Baffled by Harlem Fun", however, spectators were initially confused: "A Soviet audience of 14,000 sat almost silently, as if in awe, through the first half of the game. It warmed up slightly in the second half when it realized the Trotters are more show than competition." The Globetrotters brought their own opponent—not the Washington Generals, but the San Francisco Chinese Basketeers. A review in state-run Pravda stated, "This is not basketball; it is too full of tricks" but praised the Globetrotters' skills and suggested that "they have some techniques to show us".

The American press—particularly Drew Pearson—made note of the fact that the Globetrotters were paid (per game) the equivalent of $4,000 by the Soviet government, which could be spent only in Moscow. The games were used as evidence that U.S.–Russian relations were improving, that Moscow was backing off its propaganda campaign aimed at American race relations, and that the Russian society was becoming more capitalist (Pearson suggested that the games were held because Lenin Stadium needed money).

In May 1967, New York City–based Metromedia announced that it would acquire the Globetrotters for $1 million, but the deal was never completed and the team was later sold to George N. Gillett Jr., who soon formed a new company called Globetrotter Communications in 1968.

Nine years after the company's attempted acquisition in 1976, Metromedia announced that it would re-acquire the Globetrotters for $11 million from Globetrotter Communications.

Many famous basketball players have played for the Globetrotters. Greats such as "Wee" Willie Gardner, Connie "the Hawk" Hawkins, Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain, and Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton later joined the NBA. The Globetrotters signed their first female player, Olympic gold medalist Lynette Woodard, in 1985.

Because nearly all of the team's players have been black, and as a result of the buffoonery involved in many of the Globetrotters' skits, they drew some criticism during the Civil Rights era. The players were accused by some civil-rights advocates of "Tomming for Abe," a reference to Uncle Tom and owner Abe Saperstein. However, prominent civil rights activist Jesse Jackson (who would later be named an honorary Globetrotter) came to their defense by stating, "I think they've been a positive influence... They did not show blacks as stupid. On the contrary, they were shown as superior."

In 1986, as part of the spin-off of Metromedia's television stations to News Corporation and the 20th Century Fox film studio, the company sold the Globetrotters and the Ice Capades to the Minneapolis-based International Broadcasting Corporation (owners of KTAB-TV in Abilene, Texas and controlled by Thomas Scallen) for $30 million.

In 1993, former Globetrotters player Mannie Jackson purchased the team from the International Broadcasting Corporation, which was on the verge of bankruptcy.

In 1995, Orlando Antigua became the first Hispanic player on the team. He was the first non-black player on the Globetrotters' roster since Bob Karstens played with the squad in 1942–43.

While parts of a modern exhibition game are pre-planned, the games themselves are not fixed. While their opponents do not interfere with the Globetrotters' hijinks while on defense, they play a serious game when in possession of the ball and about 20 to 30 percent of a game is "real." This once led to an infamous defeat at the hands of the Washington Generals in 1971, to the distress of the watching crowd, after the Globetrotters lost track of a big lead with their tricks and the Generals hit a game-winning buzzer-beater.

In September 2005, Shamrock Holdings purchased 80% stake in the Globetrotters.

In October 2013, Herschend Family Entertainment announced that it would acquire the Globetrotters from Shamrock Holdings.

In June 2021, the Globetrotters filed a petition to join the National Basketball Association (NBA) as an expansion franchise.

Draft
Starting in 2007, the Globetrotters have conducted an annual "draft" a few days before the NBA draft, in which they select players they feel fit the mold of a Globetrotter. Being drafted by the Globetrotters does not guarantee a spot on the team, although several drafted players have gone on to become Globetrotters: Anthony "Ant" Atkinson (2007), Brent Petway (2007), William "Bull" Bullard (2008), Tay "Firefly" Fisher (2008), Charlie Coley III (2009), Paul "Tiny" Sturgess (2011), Jacob "Hops" Tucker (2011), Darnell "Spider" Wilks (2011), Bryan "B-Nice" Narcisse (2012), Tyrone Davis (2013), Corey "Thunder" Law (2013), Tyler "Iceman" Inman (2014) Devan "Beast" Douglas (2016), and AJ "Money" Merriweather.

Other notable draft picks by the Globetrotters include: Sun Mingming (2007), Patrick Ewing Jr. (2008), Sonny Weems (2008), Taylor Griffin (2009), Tim Howard (2009), Mark Titus (2010), Lionel Messi (2011), Jordan McCabe, then 12 years old (2011), Andrew Goudelock (2011), Usain Bolt (2012), Mariano Rivera (2013), Brittney Griner (2013), Johnny Manziel (2014), Landon Donovan (2014), Mo'ne Davis (2015), Dude Perfect (2015), Kevin Hart (2016), Neymar (2016), Missy Franklin (2016), Jordan Spieth (2016), Craig Sager (2016), Gal Gadot (2017), Aaron Judge (2017), Tim Tebow (2017), Paul Pogba (2018), Joseph Kilgore (2018), Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (2018), Mahershala Ali (2019), Mookie Betts (2020), and Chadwick Boseman (2020).

Retired numbers
The Globetrotters have honored eight players by retiring their numbers:

Featured

 * The Harlem Globetrotters, a 1951 feature film starring Marques Haynes and other Globetrotters, also featured Thomas Gomez, Dorothy Dandridge, Bill Walker, and Angela Clarke. Young Bill Townsend drops out of college to join the famous independent Trotter team. He also finds romance along the way. "Goose" Tatum and fancy dribbler Haynes were the star players of the Globetrotters at the time and Saperstein was the owner. Tatum, Haynes, Babe Pressley, Ermer Robinson, Duke Cumberland, Clarence Wilson, Pop Gates, Frank Washington, Ted Strong, and other team members appeared in the film as themselves. Also featured is copious actual game footage (three times against the Celtics with Tony Lavelli and Big Bob Hahn), including the "Sweet Georgia Brown" warm-up routine. (Along with making the film, the team toured Major League Baseball stadiums that year and went on their first tour of South America.)
 * Go, Man, Go! a 1954 prequel starring Dane Clark as Abe Saperstein and Sidney Poitier as Inman Jackson.
 * Harlem Globetrotters: The Team that Changed the World, a 2005 documentary featuring interviews with the Globetrotters, NBA coaches, and fans such as Samuel L. Jackson, Barack Obama, Phil Jackson, and Henry Kissinger—himself an honorary Globetrotter —and including photos of the Globetrotters with Pope John Paul II, who is also an honorary Globetrotter.

Cameo

 * The Globetrotters appeared in the 2000 comedy Little Nicky with Adam Sandler, wherein they are shown losing to the Washington Generals, which is caused by one of Nicky's demonic brothers.

Featured

 * Harlem Globetrotters, a Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon, broadcast from September 12, 1970 to May 1973. Originally broadcast on CBS and later rerun on NBC as The Go-Go Globetrotters. The cartoon Globetrotters also guest-starred three times on The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Scatman Crothers provided the voice for Meadowlark Lemon's character on the show.
 * The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine, a 1974 live-action Saturday morning variety show starring the Globetrotters that featured comedy skits, blackout gags, and educational segments. The show was produced by Funhouse Productions and Yongestreet Productions for CBS. The show also starred Rodney Allen Rippy and Avery Schreiber.
 * The Super Globetrotters, a second animated series created by Hanna-Barbera for NBC in 1979. It featured the Globetrotters (now including new squad members James "Twiggy" Sanders, Nate Branch, and Louis "Sweet Lou" Dunbar) as undercover superheroes who would transform themselves by entering magic portable lockers carried in "Sweet Lou" Dunbar's afro or in a basketball-shaped medallion. Although the Super Globetrotters would first attempt to take on the villain with standard comical heroics, things would almost always be settled with a basketball game.
 * The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island, a 1981 made-for-TV film featured the Globetrotters alongside Bob Denver and the rest of the cast of Gilligan's Island. The film's plot follows the first animated series' formula to a degree with a conflict that ends with an unusual basketball game against an opposing team made up of robots. The Globetrotters decide to play with standard moves in the first half, which the robots are able to counter until Gilligan unwittingly comments that they have not done any fancy tricks. This makes the Professor advise the team to use their comedic style of play to win, which hopelessly confuses the machines. However, a couple of Globetrotters suffer injuries, and the team needs the help of Gilligan and Skipper to substitute.
 * Harlem Globetrotters: Play it Forward, a 2022 live action E/I Saturday morning program for NBC, hosted by Craig Robinson, showcasing off-court visits as "ambassadors of goodwill" on their world tour as well as on-court antics
 * Globetrotter games appear annually on ABC or ESPN. On December 5, 2010, in a game televised on ESPN2 against the Washington Generals from HP Field House at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, the game saw several landmark events occur. A four-point shot may be scored from the four-point circle 35 ft away from the basket, with three minutes or less to go in any quarter. A penalty box was introduced as the price to be paid for any 'funny business' by a player. The Globetrotters made the first, and most, of the four-point shots in the game. All of the penalties in this game were assessed to the Globetrotters. The visiting Globetrotters went on to beat the Generals 104–98 in this historical game of firsts.

Guest

 * On December 19, 1956, twelve members of the Globetrotters appeared as guest challengers on the TV panel show What's My Line? Clarence Wilson acted as the spokesman and was accompanied by members George "Meadowlark" Lemon, Charlie Hoxie, Roman Turmon, Andy Johnson, Woodrow "Woody" Sauldsberry, Carl Green, Leon Hillard, Willie Gardner, and others.
 * In a 1979 episode of The White Shadow, the Globetrotters appear wherein Coach Reeves convinces the team to help him send his basketball team a reality check about overconfidence and underestimating their opponents as a result of a winning streak that got to his players' heads. The Globetrotters returned in season three (1980) when star player Warren Coolidge convinced that his basketball ability would preclude his need to finish high school, considers dropping out of school and trying out for the Globetrotters. After failing miserably in his tryout, Coolidge is persuaded to finish his education before giving any thought to a basketball career.
 * In "Hoopla" (1984), an episode of the television series The Love Boat, the Globetrotters are on a cruise and challenged the crew to a game in the dining room.
 * In the 6th episode of Hell’s Kitchen season 5, the Globetrotters made a special guest appearance teaching a young boy a few basketball tricks during his bar mitzvah party.
 * In The Amazing Race: season 15 (2009), Herbert "Flight Time" Lang and Nathaniel "Big Easy" Lofton participated, finishing fourth place. They returned for season 18 (2011), which is subtitled "Unfinished Business," featuring fan-favorite teams who lost the competition because of various circumstances. The pair finished second overall. They also returned for season 24 (2014), dubbed an "All Star" season, featuring some of the shows fan favorites, this time finishing sixth.
 * As part of the cross-promotion of The Amazing Race, Lang and Lofton also appeared on CBS Daytime's game show The Price Is Right to model prizes (a Sport Court basketball court) and present a showcase.
 * In 2009 and 2010, members of the Harlem Globetrotters appeared on the nationally televised McDonald's Thanksgiving Day Parade in Chicago.
 * In 2010, five members of the Globetrotters appeared on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, raising money for charity.
 * Three members of the Globetrotters appear in the "Harlem NY" episode (2011) of Man v. Food Nation, in which they have to defeat a spicy two-pound barbecue sandwich in 15 minutes.
 * Special K Daley, Ant Atkinson, and Blenda Rodriguez of the Globetrotters made a guest appearance in the October 18, 2011 episode of Sesame Street, in which they talk with the Muppet Elmo about the number 3.
 * In 2012, the Globetrotters made a special guest appearance on Disney XD 's Kickin' It, in the episode "Eddie Cries Uncle."
 * Globetrotter Bull Bullard competed on seasons four, five and six on American Ninja Warrior. In season four, he advanced to the finals but timed out on the first stage of the finals. Bullard competed on two additional seasons.
 * Three members of the Harlem Globetrotters visited North Korea alongside Dennis Rodman in 2013, as seen in the HBO series Vice, becoming some of the first Americans to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
 * On May 26, 2015, the Globetrotters appeared in the series premiere of I Can Do That.
 * Three members of the Harlem Globetrotters appeared in the Dog with a Blog episode "Cat with a Blog."
 * On December 7, 2016, the Globetrotters appeared on The Goldbergs.

Animation

 * In "Homie the Clown", an episode of the animated series The Simpsons, Krusty the Clown bets all the money he earned franchising his name against the Globetrotters in a game, saying that he "thought the Generals were due!" He then shouts "That game was fixed! They used a freakin' ladder for God's sake!"
 * The animated series Futurama features several episodes in which the Harlem Globetrotters appear as a civilization of brilliant scientists as well as basketball players hailing from the Globetrotter Homeworld, and are regarded as preeminent in the known universe in both fields. While just as theatrical in their play style as their real-life counterparts, these Globetrotters react harshly to anyone who "laughs at their antics" and treat games as serious contests, evidenced in the 2001 episode "Time Keeps On Slippin'".
 * Five of the Globetrotters appeared as guest stars in the Mutt & Stuff episode "Basketball Dogs vs. The Harlem Globetrotters" on August 19, 2016.
 * On March 19, 2018, Seth MacFarlane featured the Harlem Globetrotters in the American Dad! episode "Klaustastrophe.tv".

Video games

 * In 1979, the Bally Manufacturing Corporation produced a coin operated, commercial pinball machine titled the Harlem Globetrotters on Tour. The pinball machine used solid-state electronics and 14,550 units were produced.
 * Harlem Globetrotters, a video game published in 1990 for MS-DOS systems, and in 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
 * Harlem Globetrotters: World Tour, a 2006 video game for the Game Boy Advance and the Nintendo DS

Honorary members
Ten people have been officially named as honorary members of the team:
 * Henry Kissinger (1976)
 * Bob Hope (1977)
 * Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1989)
 * Whoopi Goldberg (1990)
 * Nelson Mandela (1996)
 * Jackie Joyner-Kersee (1999)
 * Pope John Paul II (2000) – Press agent Lee Solters arranged a ceremony orchestrated in front of a crowd of 50,000 in Saint Peter's Square in which the Pope was recognized as an honorary Globetrotter.
 * Jesse Jackson (2001)
 * Pope Francis (2015)

In addition, Bill Cosby (1972) and Magic Johnson (2003) were each signed to honorary $1-a-year lifetime contracts with the Globetrotters. When Cosby's nominal association with the team was the subject of criticism following sexual assault allegations, the Globetrotters stated that they have had no association with him for decades.
 * Robin Roberts (2015)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Harlem Globetrotters


text:
Herb Curtis

Herb Curtis (born 1949) is a Canadian novelist and humorist who writes about and has long lived in New Brunswick. He is best known for writing the Brennen Siding Trilogy, three connected novels set in the fictional community of Brennen Siding, New Brunswick (loosely based on Kennan Siding, New Brunswick). The trilogy consists of the novels The Americans are Coming, The Last Tasmanian and The Lone Angler. The most critically acclaimed of the series is The Last Tasmanian which won the 1992 Thomas Head Raddall Award and was nominated for the Commonwealth Prize. In 1999, Curtis was nominated for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for his collection of humorous stories, Luther Corhern's Salmon Camp Chronicles and in January 2018 he was presented with the prestigious Sesquicentennial Medal in recognition of his valuable service to the nation.

Curtis grew up near Blackville, New Brunswick, and currently resides in Fredericton. His novels The Americans are Coming and The Last Tasmanian have both been adapted for the stage, and the former has also become and a standard text in schools throughout Atlantic Canada and Quebec. In 2006, Curtis was a contributing author to The Penguin Anthology of Canadian Humour.

Works

 * The Americans are Coming - 1989
 * The Last Tasmanian - 1991
 * Look What the Cat Drug In - 1991
 * Slow Men Working In Trees - 1991
 * Hoofprints on the Sheets - 1993
 * The Lone Angler - 1993
 * The Silent Partner - 1996
 * The Scholten Story - 1996
 * Gifts to Last: Christmas Stories from the Maritimes and Newfoundland (Contributing Author) 1996
 * Luther Corhern's Salmon Camp Chronicles (1999)
 * Atlantica: Stories from the Maritimes and Newfoundland (Contributing Author) 2001
 * The Penguin Anthology of Canadian Humour (Contributing Author) 2006
 * Bruno Bobak (Contributing Author) 2006

title: Herb Curtis


text:
Autodidacticism

Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning, self-study and self-teaching) is the practice of education without the guidance of schoolmasters (i.e., teachers, professors, institutions).

Overview
Autodidacts are self-taught humans who learn a subject-of-study's aboutness through self-study. This educative praxis (process) may involve or complement formal education. Formal education itself may have a hidden curriculum that requires self-study for the uninitiated.

Generally, autodidacts are individuals who choose the subject they will study, their studying material, and the studying rhythm and time. Autodidacts may or may not have formal education, and their study may be either a complement or an alternative to formal education. Many notable contributions have been made by autodidacts.

The self-learning curriculum is infinite. One may seek out alternative pathways in education and use these to gain competency; self-study may meet some prerequisite-curricula criteria for experiential education or apprenticeship.

Self-education techniques used in self-study can include reading educational textbooks, watching educational videos and listening to educational audio recordings, or by visiting infoshops. One uses some space as a learning space, where one uses critical thinking to develop study skills within the broader learning environment until they've reached an academic comfort zone.

Etymology
The term has its roots in the Ancient Greek words αὐτός (autós, lit. 'self') and διδακτικός (didaktikos, lit. 'teaching'). The related term didacticism defines an artistic philosophy of education.

Terminology
Various terms are used to describe self-education. One such is heutagogy, coined in 2000 by Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon of Southern Cross University in Australia; others are self-directed learning and self-determined learning. In the heutagogy paradigm, a learner should be at the centre of their own learning. A truly self-determined learning approach also sees the heutagogic learner exploring different approaches to knowledge in order to learn; there is an element of experimentation underpinned by a personal curiosity.

Andragogy "strive[s] for autonomy and self-direction in learning", while Heutagogy "identif[ies] the potential to learn from novel experiences as a matter of course [...] manage their own learning". Ubuntugogy is a type of cosmopolitanism that has a collectivist ethics of awareness concerning the African diaspora.

Modern era
Autodidacticism is sometimes a complement of modern formal education. As a complement to formal education, students would be encouraged to do more independent work. The Industrial Revolution created a new situation for self-directed learners.

Before the twentieth century, only a small minority of people received an advanced academic education. As stated by Joseph Whitworth in his influential report on industry dated from 1853, literacy rates were higher in the United States. However, even in the U.S., most children were not completing high school. High school education was necessary to become a teacher. In modern times, a larger percentage of those completing high school also attended college, usually to pursue a professional degree, such as law or medicine, or a divinity degree.

Collegiate teaching was based on the classics (Latin, philosophy, ancient history, theology) until the early nineteenth century. There were few if any institutions of higher learning offering studies in engineering or science before 1800. Institutions such as the Royal Society did much to promote scientific learning, including public lectures. In England, there were also itinerant lecturers offering their service, typically for a fee.

Prior to the nineteenth century, there were many important inventors working as millwrights or mechanics who, typically, had received an elementary education and served an apprenticeship. Mechanics, instrument makers and surveyors had various mathematics training. James Watt was a surveyor and instrument maker and is described as being "largely self-educated". Watt, like some other autodidacts of the time, became a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Lunar Society. In the eighteenth century these societies often gave public lectures and were instrumental in teaching chemistry and other sciences with industrial applications which were neglected by traditional universities. Academies also arose to provide scientific and technical training.

Years of schooling in the United States began to increase sharply in the early twentieth century. This phenomenon was seemingly related to increasing mechanization displacing child labor. The automated glass bottle-making machine is said to have done more for education than child labor laws because boys were no longer needed to assist. However, the number of boys employed in this particular industry was not that large; it was mechanization in several sectors of industry that displaced child labor toward education. For males in the U.S. born 1886–90, years of school averaged 7.86, while for those born in 1926–30, years of school averaged 11.46.

One of the most recent trends in education is that the classroom environment should cater towards students' individual needs, goals, and interests. This model adopts the idea of inquiry-based learning where students are presented with scenarios to identify their own research, questions and knowledge regarding the area. As a form of discovery learning, students in today's classrooms are being provided with more opportunity to "experience and interact" with knowledge, which has its roots in autodidacticism.

Successful self-teaching can require self-discipline and reflective capability. Some research suggests that the ability to regulate one's own learning may need to be modeled to some students so that they become active learners, while others learn dynamically via a process outside conscious control. To interact with the environment, a framework has been identified to determine the components of any learning system: a reward function, incremental action value functions and action selection methods. Rewards work best in motivating learning when they are specifically chosen on an individual student basis. New knowledge must be incorporated into previously existing information as its value is to be assessed. Ultimately, these scaffolding techniques, as described by Vygotsky (1978) and problem solving methods are a result of dynamic decision making.

In his book Deschooling Society, philosopher Ivan Illich strongly criticized 20th-century educational culture and the institutionalization of knowledge and learning - arguing that institutional schooling as such is an irretrievably flawed model of education - advocating instead ad-hoc co-operative networks through which autodidacts could find others interested in teaching themselves a given skill or about a given topic, supporting one another by pooling resources, materials, and knowledge.

Secular and modern societies have given foundations for new systems of education and new kinds of autodidacts. As Internet access has become more widespread the World Wide Web (explored using search engines such as Google) in general, and websites such as Wikipedia (including parts of it that were included in a book or referenced in a reading list), YouTube, Udemy, Udacity and Khan Academy in particular, have developed as learning centers for many people to actively and freely learn together. Organizations like The Alliance for Self-Directed Education (ASDE) have been formed to publicize and provide guidance for self-directed education. Entrepreneurs like Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates are considered influential self-teachers.

History
The first philosophical claim supporting an autodidactic program to the study of nature and God was in the philosophical novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Alive son of the Vigilant), whose titular hero is considered the archetypal autodidact. The story is a medieval autodidactic utopia, a philosophical treatise in a literary form, which was written by the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Tufail in the 1160s in Marrakesh. It is a story about a feral boy, an autodidact prodigy who masters nature through instruments and reason, discovers laws of nature by practical exploration and experiments, and gains summum bonum through a mystical mediation and communion with God. The hero rises from his initial state of tabula rasa to a mystical or direct experience of God after passing through the necessary natural experiences. The focal point of the story is that human reason, unaided by society and its conventions or by religion, can achieve scientific knowledge, preparing the way to the mystical or highest form of human knowledge.

Commonly translated as "The Self-Taught Philosopher" or "The Improvement of Human Reason", Ibn-Tufayl's story Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan inspired debates about autodidacticism in a range of historical fields from classical Islamic philosophy through Renaissance humanism and the European Enlightenment. In his book Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan: a Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism, Avner Ben-Zaken showed how the text traveled from late medieval Andalusia to early modern Europe and demonstrated the intricate ways in which autodidacticism was contested in and adapted to diverse cultural settings.

Autodidacticism apparently intertwined with struggles over Sufism in twelfth-century Marrakesh; controversies about the role of philosophy in pedagogy in fourteenth-century Barcelona; quarrels concerning astrology in Renaissance Florence in which Pico della Mirandola pleads for autodidacticism against the strong authority of intellectual establishment notions of predestination; and debates pertaining to experimentalism in seventeenth-century Oxford. Pleas for autodidacticism echoed not only within close philosophical discussions; they surfaced in struggles for control between individuals and establishments.

In the story of Black American self-education, Heather Andrea Williams presents a historical account to examine Black American's relationship to literacy during slavery, the Civil War and the first decades of freedom. Many of the personal accounts tell of individuals who have had to teach themselves due to racial discrimination in education.

In architecture

Many successful and influential architects, such as Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Violet-Le-Duc, Tadao Ando were self-taught.

There are very few countries allowing autodidacticism in architecture today. The practice of architecture or the use of the title "architect", are now protected in most countries.

Self-taught architects have generally studied and qualified in other fields such as engineering or arts and crafts. Jean Prouvé was first a structural engineer. Le Corbusier had an academic qualification in decorative arts. Tadao Ando started his career as a draftsman, and Eileen Gray studied fine arts.

When a political state starts to implement restrictions on the profession, there are issues related to the rights of established self-taught architects. In most countries the legislation includes a grandfather clause, authorising established self-taught architects to continue practicing. In the UK, the legislation allowed self-trained architects with two years of experience to register. In France, it allowed self-trained architects with five years of experience to register. In Belgium, the law allowed experienced self-trained architects in practice to register. In Italy, it allowed self-trained architects with 10 years of experience to register. In The Netherlands, the "wet op de architectentitel van 7 juli 1987" along with additional procedures, allowed architects with 10 years of experience and architects aged 40 years old or over, with 5 years of experience, to access the register.

However, other sovereign states chose to omit such a clause, and many established and competent practitioners were stripped of their professional rights. In the Republic of Ireland, a group named "Architects' Alliance of Ireland" is defending the interests of long-established self-trained architects who were deprived of their rights to practice as per Part 3 of the Irish Building Control Act 2007.

Theoretical research such as Architecture of Change, Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment or older studies such as Vers une Architecture from Le Corbusier describe the practice of architecture as an environment changing with new technologies, sciences, and legislation. All architects must be autodidacts to keep up to date with new standards, regulations, or methods.

Self-taught architects such as Eileen Gray, Luis Barragán, and many others, created a system where working is also learning, where self-education is associated with creativity and productivity within a working environment.

While he was primarily interested in naval architecture, William Francis Gibbs learned his profession through his own study of battleships and ocean liners. Through his life he could be seen examining and changing the designs of ships that were already built, that is, until he started his firm Gibbs and Cox.

Predictors
Openness is the largest predictory of self-directed learning out of the Big Five personality traits though in a study personality only explained 10% of the variance in self-directed learning.

Future role
The role of self-directed learning continues to be investigated in learning approaches, along with other important goals of education, such as content knowledge, epistemic practices and collaboration. As colleges and universities offer distance learning degree programs and secondary schools provide cyber school options for K–12 students, technology provides numerous resources that enable individuals to have a self-directed learning experience. Several studies show these programs function most effectively when the "teacher" or facilitator is a full owner of virtual space to encourage a broad range of experiences to come together in an online format. This allows self-directed learning to encompass both a chosen path of information inquiry, self-regulation methods and reflective discussion among experts as well as novices in a given area. Furthermore, massive open online courses (MOOCs) make autodidacticism easier and thus more common.

A 2016 Stack Overflow poll reported that due to the rise of autodidacticism, 69.1% of software developers appear to be self-taught.

Notable individuals
Some notable autodidacts can be broadly grouped in the following interdisciplinary areas:
 * Artists and authors
 * Actors, musicians, and other artists
 * Architects
 * Engineers and inventors
 * Scientists, historians, and educators

Educational materials availability
Most governments have compulsory education that may deny the right to education on the basis of discrimination; state school teachers may unwittingly indoctrinate students into the ideology of the oppressive community and government via a hidden curriculum.

title: Autodidacticism


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Reconstruction conjecture

Informally, the reconstruction conjecture in graph theory says that graphs are determined uniquely by their subgraphs. It is due to Kelly and Ulam.

Formal statements

Given a graph $$G = (V,E)$$, a vertex-deleted subgraph of $$G$$ is a subgraph formed by deleting exactly one vertex from $$G$$. By definition, it is an induced subgraph of $$G$$.

For a graph $$G$$, the deck of G, denoted $$D(G)$$, is the multiset of isomorphism classes of all vertex-deleted subgraphs of $$G$$. Each graph in $$D(G)$$ is called a card. Two graphs that have the same deck are said to be hypomorphic.

With these definitions, the conjecture can be stated as:

 * Reconstruction Conjecture: Any two hypomorphic graphs on at least three vertices are isomorphic.

 * (The requirement that the graphs have at least three vertices is necessary because both graphs on two vertices have the same decks.)

Harary suggested a stronger version of the conjecture:

 * Set Reconstruction Conjecture: Any two graphs on at least four vertices with the same sets of vertex-deleted subgraphs are isomorphic.

Given a graph $$G = (V,E)$$, an edge-deleted subgraph of $$G$$ is a subgraph formed by deleting exactly one edge from $$G$$.

For a graph $$G$$, the edge-deck of G, denoted $$ED(G)$$, is the multiset of all isomorphism classes of edge-deleted subgraphs of $$G$$. Each graph in $$ED(G)$$ is called an edge-card.

 * Edge Reconstruction Conjecture: (Harary, 1964) Any two graphs with at least four edges and having the same edge-decks are isomorphic.

Recognizable properties
In context of the reconstruction conjecture, a graph property is called recognizable if one can determine the property from the deck of a graph. The following properties of graphs are recognizable:

 * Order of the graph – The order of a graph $$G$$, $$|V(G)|$$ is recognizable from $$D(G)$$ as the multiset $$D(G)$$ contains each subgraph of $$G$$ created by deleting one vertex of $$G$$. Hence $$|V(G)| = |D(G)|$$
 * Number of edges of the graph – The number of edges in a graph $$G$$ with $$n$$ vertices, $$|E(G)|$$ is recognizable. First note that each edge of $$G$$ occurs in $$n-2$$ members of $$D(G)$$.  This is true by the definition of $$D(G)$$ which ensures that each edge is included every time that each of the vertices it is incident with is included in a member of $$D(G)$$, so an edge will occur in every member of $$D(G)$$ except for the two in which its endpoints are deleted.  Hence, $$|E(G)| = \sum \frac{q_i}{n-2}$$ where $$q_i$$ is the number of edges in the ith member of $$D(G)$$.
 * Degree sequence – The degree sequence of a graph $$G$$ is recognizable because the degree of every vertex is recognizable. To find the degree of a vertex $$v_i$$—the vertex absent from the ith member of $$D(G)$$—, we will examine the graph created by deleting it, $$G_i$$.  This graph contains all of the edges not incident with $$v_i$$, so if $$q_i$$ is the number of edges in $$G_i$$, then $$|E(G)| - q_i = \deg(v_i)$$.  If we can tell the degree of every vertex in the graph, we can tell the degree sequence of the graph.
 * (Vertex-)Connectivity – By definition, a graph is $$n$$-vertex-connected when deleting any vertex creates a $$n-1$$-vertex-connected graph; thus, if every card is a $$n-1$$-vertex-connected graph, we know the original graph was $$n$$-vertex-connected. We can also determine if the original graph was connected, as this is equivalent to having any two of the $$G_i$$ being connected.
 * Tutte polynomial
 * Characteristic polynomial
 * Planarity
 * The types of spanning trees in a graph
 * Chromatic polynomial
 * Being a perfect graph or an interval graph, or certain other subclasses of perfect graphs

Verification
Both the reconstruction and set reconstruction conjectures have been verified for all graphs with at most 13 vertices by Brendan McKay.

In a probabilistic sense, it has been shown by Béla Bollobás that almost all graphs are reconstructible. This means that the probability that a randomly chosen graph on $$n$$ vertices is not reconstructible goes to 0 as $$n$$ goes to infinity. In fact, it was shown that not only are almost all graphs reconstructible, but in fact that the entire deck is not necessary to reconstruct them — almost all graphs have the property that there exist three cards in their deck that uniquely determine the graph.

Reconstructible graph families
The conjecture has been verified for a number of infinite classes of graphs (and, trivially, their complements).

 * Regular graphs - Regular Graphs are reconstructible by direct application of some of the facts that can be recognized from the deck of a graph. Given an $$n$$-regular graph $$G$$ and its deck $$D(G)$$, we can recognize that the deck is of a regular graph by recognizing its degree sequence.  Let us now examine one member of the deck $$D(G)$$, $$G_i$$.  This graph contains some number of vertices with a degree of $$n$$ and $$n$$ vertices with a degree of $$n-1$$.  We can add a vertex to this graph and then connect it to the $$n$$ vertices of degree $$n-1$$ to create an $$n$$-regular graph which is isomorphic to the graph which we started with.  Therefore, all regular graphs are reconstructible from their decks.  A particular type of regular graph which is interesting is the complete graph.
 * Trees
 * Disconnected graphs
 * Unit interval graphs
 * Separable graphs without end vertices
 * Maximal planar graphs
 * Maximal outerplanar graphs
 * Outerplanar graphs
 * Critical blocks

Reduction
The reconstruction conjecture is true if all 2-connected graphs are reconstructible.

Duality
The vertex reconstruction conjecture obeys the duality that if $$G$$ can be reconstructed from its vertex deck $$D(G)$$, then its complement $$G'$$ can be reconstructed from $$D(G')$$ as follows: Start with $$D(G')$$, take the complement of every card in it to get $$D(G)$$, use this to reconstruct $$G$$, then take the complement again to get $$G'$$.

Edge reconstruction does not obey any such duality: Indeed, for some classes of edge-reconstructible graphs it is not known if their complements are edge reconstructible.

Other structures
It has been shown that the following are not in general reconstructible:

 * Digraphs: Infinite families of non-reconstructible digraphs are known, including tournaments (Stockmeyer ) and non-tournaments (Stockmeyer ). A tournament is reconstructible if it is not strongly connected. A weaker version of the reconstruction conjecture has been conjectured for digraphs, see new digraph reconstruction conjecture.
 * Hypergraphs (Kocay ).
 * Infinite graphs. If T is the tree where every vertex has countably infinite degree, then the union of two disjoint copies of T is hypomorphic, but not isomorphic, to T.
 * Locally finite graphs, which are graphs where every vertex has finite degree. The question of reconstructibility for locally finite infinite trees (the Harary-Schwenk-Scott conjecture from 1972) was a longstanding open problem until 2017, when a non-reconstructible tree of maximum degree 3 was found by Bowler et al.

title: Reconstruction conjecture