The chief of the Chaldean Amukanu tribe in southern Babylonia, he took advantage of the instability which attended the revolt against Nabû-nādin-zēri and deposed its leader, Nabû-šuma-ukîn II.

The fortuitous discovery in 1952 of a cache of diplomatic correspondence in the chancery offices of the Northwest Palace in a room designated as ZT 4 at Kalhu, modern Nimrud, by archaeologists led by Max Mallowan, has shed much light on events of the Mukin-zēri rebellion.

Of the more than three hundred tablets uncovered, a group of more than twenty letters and fragments concerned the events in Babylonia which led to Assyrian intervention and subsequent annexation of the region around 730 BC.

Others remained more recalcitrant: Zakiru of the Bīt-Ša’alli was ultimately overthrown, his capital Dur-Illayatu demolished and he was hauled off to Assyria in chains, and Nabû-ušabši of the Bīt-Šilani was impaled.

[i 6] The Chronicle on the Reigns from Nabû-Nasir to Šamaš-šuma-ukin describes the final outcome, “In the third year, the Assyrian king having come down to Akkad, ravaged Bīt-Amukanu and captured Nabû-mukin-zeri.