Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur

Ninurta-tukulti-Aššur, inscribed mdNinurta2-tukul-ti-Aš-šur, was briefly king of Assyria c. 1132 BC, the 84th to appear on the Assyrian Kinglist, marked as holding the throne for his ṭuppišu, "his tablet," a period thought to correspond just to the inauguration year.

He succeeded his father, the long-reigning Aššur-dān I, but the throne was very quickly usurped by his brother, Mutakkil-Nusku, and he was driven from Assur and sought refuge in the city of Sišil, on the Babylonian border, the scene of the final dénouement.

There is some conjecture that he may have ruled jointly with Aššur-dan I during Aššur-dan's declining years or perhaps shared some regnal duties as there is a significant archive of administrative texts[i 1] concerning agricultural products, (from cities such as Arrapha), food distribution, and ritual offerings in the royal palace referencing him and his wife Rimeni on seals, one of which provides an early Assyrian chariot scene, but only three of these texts call him king.

[6] Into this milieu comes fragments[i 6] of one, or perhaps two letters, from a Babylonian king, tentatively identified as Ninurta-nādin-šumi, although his predecessor Itti-Marduk-balāṭu or his successor Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur I could also conceivably be the author, addressed to and lambasting Mutakkil-Nusku and threatening to reinstate Ninurta-tukulti-Aššur.

The text of the letter(s) is poorly preserved, and difficult to interpret, but the Babylonian quotes the Assyrian in his description of his brother as ku-lu-'-ú la zi-ka-ru šu-ú, "a kulu'u, not a man," where the term may mean a 'feminized castrato cultic performer'.