Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom centered on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia (present day northern Iraq), that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur (Akkadian: 𒀸𒋗𒁺 𐎹 Aššūrāyu; Arabic: أشور Aššûr; Hebrew: אַשּׁוּר Aššûr, Aramaic: ܐܬ݂ܘܿܪ Aṯur). Assyria was also sometimes known as Subartu. The term Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where these empires were centered. Their descendants still live in the region today, and they form the Christian minority in Iraq.^[1][2]

After the fall of the Akkadian Empire circa 2080 BC, it eventually coalesced into two separate nations; Assyria in the north, and later Babylonia in the south.

Assyria was originally a minor Akkadian kingdom which evolved in the 23rd to 21st Centuries BC. Originally, the early Assyrian kings would certainly have been regional leaders only, and subject to Sargon of Akkad who united all the Akkadian speaking peoples of Mesopotamia under the Akkadian Empire which lasted from 2334 BC to 2154 BC. The Akkadian nation of Assyria (and later on also Babylonia) evolved from the dissolution of the Akkadian Empire. In the Old Assyrian period of the Early Bronze Age, Assyria had been a kingdom of northern Mesopotamia (modern-day northern Iraq), competing for dominance with its fellow Akkadian speaking southern Mesopotamian rival, Babylonia which was often under Kassite rule. During this period it established colonies in Asia Minor. It had experienced fluctuating fortunes in the Middle Assyrian period. Assyria had a period of empire under Shamshi-Adad I in the 18th and 17th Centuries BC, following this it found itself under short periods of Babylonian and Mitanni-Hurrian domination in the 17th and 15th Centuries BC respectively, and another period of great power and empire from 1365 BC to 1076 BC, that included the reigns of great kings such as Ashur-uballit I, Tukulti-Ninurta I and Tiglath-Pileser I. Beginning with the campaigns of Adad-nirari II from 911 BC, it again became a great power, overthrowing the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt and conquering Egypt, Babylonia, Elam, Urartu/Armenia, Media, Persia, Mannea, Gutium, Phoenicia/Canaan, Aramea (Syria), Arabia, Israel, Judah, Palestine, Edom, Moab, Samarra, Cilicia, Cyprus, Chaldea, Nabatea, Commagene, Dilmun and the Hurrians, Sutu and neo Hittites, driving the Nubians, Kushites and Ethiopians from Egypt, defeating the Cimmerians and Scythians and exacting tribute from Phrygia, Magan and Punt among others.

[edit] Early history

In prehistoric times the region was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at Shanidar. The earliest neolithic site in Assyria is at Tell Hassuna, the center of the Hassuna culture, circa 6000 BC. The city of Assur (Ashur) seems to have existed since at least the middle of the third millenium BC, although it appears to have been an administrative center at this time rather than an independent state. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is positively known. The earliest king named Tudiya who was a contemporary of Ibrium of Ebla, appears to have lived in the 23rd century BC, according to the Assyrian King List. Ibrium concluded a treaty with Tudiya of Assyria for the use of a trading post officially controlled by Ebla. He was succeeded by Adamu and then a further thirteen rulers, all of whom nothing is known. These early kings from the 23rd to late 21st centuries BC, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents were likely to have been semi nomadic pasturalist rulers who dominated the region and at some unknown point during this period became urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur. According to some Judaeo-Christian traditions, the city of Ashur (also spelled Assur or Aššur) was founded by Ashur the son of Shem, who was deified by later generations as the city's patron god, however there is absolutely no historical basis whatsoever for this tradition in Mesopotamian annals; Assyrian tradition itself lists an early Assyrian king named Ushpia as having dedicated the first temple to the god Ashur in the city in the 21st century BC, it is not known if he was the first fully independent ruler of Assyria as a city state however, as no records have yet been discovered regarding earlier kings. It is likely that the city was named in honour of the god of the same name. The upper Tigris River valley seems to have been ruled by Sumerians and later Akkad in early antiquity. The Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding "four quarters"; the regions north of the Akkadian homeland had been known as Subartu. The name Azuhinum in Akkadian records also seems to refer to Assyria proper. The Akkadian Empire was destroyed by barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC, then rebuilt, and ended up being governed as part of the Empire of the Sumerian 3rd dynasty of Ur founded in 2112 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between 2154 BC and 2112 BC may have been fully independent as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia, however there is no information from Assyria bar the king list for this period. Prior to Ushpia, the city of Ashur was a regional administrative center of Akkadian rulers, implicated by Nuzi tablets^[3], subject to their fellow Akkadian Sargon and his successors.

[edit] Old Assyrian Period

The Assyrian King List mentions rulers going back to the 23rd and 22nd century BC, however little is known of these kings. They were more than likely local Akkadian rulers subject to the Akkadian Empire and later Sumerian domination. The first inscriptions of Assyrian rulers appear in the late 21st Century BC. Assyria then consisted of a number of city states and small Semitic Akkadian kingdoms. The foundation of the first true urbanised Assyrian monarchy was traditionally ascribed to Ushpia a contemporary of Ishbi-Erra of Larsa^[4] circa 2025 BC. He was succeeded in succession by Apiashal, Sulili, Kikkiya and Akiya of whom nothing is known.

In around 2000 BC Puzur-Ashur I founded a new dynasty, and his successors such as Shalim-ahum, Ilushuma, Erishum I and Sargon I left inscriptions regarding the building of temples to Ashur, Adad and Ishtar in Assyria. Ilushuma in particular appears to have been a powerful king who made many raids into southern Mesopotamia between 1953 BC and 1935 BC, attacking the independent city states of the region and founding colonies in Asia Minor. This was to become a pattern throughout the history of ancient Mesopotamia with the future rivalry between Assyria and Babylonia. However, Babylonia did not exist at this time, but was founded 1n 1894 BC by an Amorite prince named Sumuabum during the reign of Erishum I. The Amorites had overrun southern Mesopotamia from the mid 20th century BC, deposing native Sumero-Akkadian dynasties and setting up their own kingdoms, but were repelled by the Assyrian kings of the 20th and 19th centuries BC.

The city-state of Ashur had extensive contact with cities on the Anatolian plateau in Asia Minor. The Assyrians established colonies in Cappadocia, (e.g., at Kanesh (modern Kültepe) from 1920 BC to 1740 BC. These colonies, called karum, the Akkadian word for 'port', were attached to Anatolian cities, but physically separate, and had special tax status. They must have arisen from a long tradition of trade between Assyria and the Anatolian cities, but no archaeological or written records show this. The trade consisted of metal (perhaps lead or tin; the terminology here is not entirely clear) and textiles from Assyria, that were traded for precious metals in Anatolia.

Like many city-states in Mesopotamian history, Assur was, to a great extent, an oligarchy rather than a monarchy. Authority was considered to lie with "the City", and the polity had three main centres of power — an assembly of elders, a hereditary ruler, and an eponym. The ruler presided over the assembly and carried out its decisions. He was not referred to with the usual Akkadian term for "king", šarrum; that was instead reserved for the city's patron deity Assur, of whom the ruler was the high priest. The ruler himself was only designated as "the steward of Assur" (iššiak Assur), where the term for steward is a borrowing from Sumerian ensi(k). The third centre of power was the eponym (limmum), who gave the year his name, similarly to the archons and consuls of Classical Antiquity. He was annually elected by lot and was responsible for the economic administration of the city, which included the power to detain people and confiscate property. The institution of the eponym as well as the formula iššiak Assur lingered on as ceremonial vestiges of this early system throughout the history of the Assyrian monarchy.^[5]

[edit] Empire of Shamshi-Adad I

In 1813 BC the native Akkadian king of Assyria Erishum II was deposed, and the throne of Assyria was usurped by Shamshi-Adad I (1813 BC – 1791 BC) in the expansion of Amorite tribes from the Khabur River delta. He put his son Ishme-Dagan on the throne of a nearby Assyrian city, Ekallatum, and maintained Assyria's Anatolian colonies. Shamshi-Adad I then went on to conquer the kingdom of Mari on the Euphrates putting another of his sons, Yasmah-Adad on the throne there. Shamshi-Adad's Assyria now encompassed the whole of northern Mesopotamia and included territory in Asia Minor and northern Syria. He himself resided in a new capital city founded in the Khabur valley, called Shubat-Enlil.

Ishme-Dagan inherited Assyria, but Yasmah-Adad was overthrown by a new king called Zimrilim in Mari. The new king of Mari allied himself with king Hammurabi, who had made the recently created state of Babylon a major power. Hammurabi was also an Amorite. Assyria now faced the rising power of Babylon in the south. Ishme-Dagan responded by making an alliance with the enemies of Babylon, and the power struggle continued without resolution for decades. Ishme-Dagan, like his father was a great warrior, and in addition to repelling Babylonian attacks, campaigned successfully against the Turukku in Ekallatum (successors of the Gutians and Lullubi), and against Dadusha, king of Eshnunna and Iamhad (modern Aleppo)

[edit] Assyria under Babylonian domination

Hammurabi after first conquering Mari, Larsa and Eshnunna eventually prevailed over Ishme-Dagan's successors, and conquered Assyria for Babylon in 1756 BC. With Hammurabi, the various karum colonies in Anatolia ceased trade activity — probably because the goods of Assyria were now being traded with the Babylonians. The Assyrian monarchy survived, however the three Amorite kings succeeding Ishme-Dagan; Mut-Ashkur (who was the son of Ishme-Dagan and married to a Hurrian queen), Rimush and Asinum were vassals, dependent on the Babylonians for a few decades.

[edit] Assyrian independence

Babylonia seems to have lost control over Assyria during the reign of Hammurabi's successor Samsu-iluna. A period of civil war ensued after the deposition of the Amorite vassal king of Assyria Asinum, who was a grandson of Shamshi-Adad I, by a native Akkadian vice regent named Puzur-Sin. A native Akkadian king Ashur-dugul seized the throne, and a period of civil war ensued with five further kings (Ashur-apla-idi, Nasir-Sin, Sin-namir, Ipqi-Ishtar and Adad-salulu) all reigning in quick succession. Babylonia seems to have been too powerless to intervene. Finally, a native Akkadian king named Adasi came to the fore circa 1720 BC and completely freed Assyria from the pretence of Babylonian dominance. This also brought to an end the Amorite presence in Assyria, although they were to remain in power in Babylon until 1595 BC. Adasi drove the Babylonians and Amorites from northern Mesopotamia during the late 18th century BC and Babylonian power began to quickly wane in Mesopotamia as a whole.

Adasi was succeeded by Bel-bani (1700-1691 BC). Little is known of many of the kings that followed such as; Libaya (1690-1674 BC), Sharma-Adad I (1673-1662 BC), Iptar-Sin (1661-1650 BC), Bazaya (1649-1622 BC), Lullaya (1621-1618 BC), Shu-Ninua (1615-1602 BC), Sharma-Adad II (1601-1599 BC), Erishum III (1598-1586 BC), and Shamshi-Adad II (1585-1580 BC). However Assyria seems to have been a relatively strong and stable nation, existing undisturbed by its neighbours such as the Hittites, Hurrians, Amorites, Babylonians or Mitanni for well over 200 years. When Babylon fell to the Kassites in 1595 BC, they were unable to make inroads into Assyria and there seems to have been no trouble between the first Kassite ruler of Babylon, Agum II and Erishum III of Assyria. Similarly, Adad-nirari I (1547-1522 BC) seems not to have been troubled by the newly founded Mitanni kingdom, the Hittite empire or Babylon. Puzur-Ashur III (1521-1498 BC) of Assyria and Burna-Buriash I the Kassite king of Babylon, signed a treaty defining the borders of the two nations in the late 16th nation century BC. Puzur-Ashur III, undertook much rebuilding work in Assur, the city was refortified and the southern quarters incorporated into the main city defenses. Temples to the moon god Sin (Nanna) and the sun god Shamash were erected in the 15th century BC.

[edit] Assyria under Mitanni domination

The emergence of the Mitanni Empire in the 16th century BC eventually led to a period of Mitanni-Hurrian domination in the 15th Century. Some time after the death of Puzur-Ashur III in 1498 BC, Saushtatar, king of Hanilgalbat (Hurrians of Mitanni), sacked Ashur and made Assyria a largely vassal state. This event is most likely to have happened during the reign of Enlil-nasir I or his successor Nur-ili. The Mitanni appear not to have interfered in Assyrian internal affairs, for example the son of Nur-ili, Ashur-shaduni was deposed by his uncle Ashur-rabi I and Ashur-nadin-ahhe I was deposed by his own brother Enlil-nasir II in 1420 BC. Assyrian kings seemed to have been free of this dominance regarding international affairs at times also, as evidenced by the treaty between Ashur-bel-nisheshu and Kariandash of Babylon in the late 15th century. By the reign of Eriba-Adad I (1392 BC - 1366 BC) Mitanni influence was on the wane.

There are dozens of Mesopotamian cuneiform texts from this period, with precise observations of solar and lunar eclipses, that have been used as 'anchors' in the various attempts to define the chronology of Babylonia and Assyria for the early second millennium (i.e., the "high", "middle", and "low" chronologies.)

[edit] Middle Assyrian period - Assyrian resurgence

Map of the Ancient Near East during the Amarna Period, showing the great powers of the day: Egypt (green), Hatti (yellow), the Kassite kingdom of Babylon (purple), Assyria (grey), and Mitanni (red). Lighter areas show direct control, darker areas represent spheres of influence. The extent of the Achaean/Mycenaean civilization is shown in orange.

Scholars variously date the beginning of the "Middle Assyrian period" to either the fall of the Old Assyrian kingdom of Shamshi-Adad I, or to the ascension of Ashur-uballit I to the throne of Assyria.

[edit] Assyrian expansion and empire

Assyria paid tribute to Hanilgalbat until Mitanni power collapsed from Assyrian pressure from the east and Hittite pressure from the north-west, enabling Ashur-uballit I (1365 BC – 1330 BC) to completely throw off Mitanni domination and again make Assyria a fully independent and imperial power at the expense of Kassite Babylonia, the Mitanni, Hurrians and the Hittites; and a time came when the Kassite king in Babylon was glad to marry the daughter of Ashur-uballit, whose letters to Akhenaten of Egypt form part of the Amarna letters. This marriage led to disastrous results, as the Kassite faction at court murdered the Babylonian king and placed a pretender on the throne. Assur-uballit promptly marched into Babylonia and avenged his son-in-law, deposing the king and installing Kurigalzu of the royal line king there. Ashur-uballit I defeated Mattiwaza the Mitanni king despite attempts by the Hittite king Suppiluliumas attempting to preserve his throne with military support. The lands of the Mitanni were duly appropriated by Assyria, making it a large and powerful state.

Enlil-nirari succeeded Ashur-uballit I. He described himself as a "Great-King" (Sharru rabû) in letters to the Hittite kings. He was immediately attacked by Kurigalzu of Babylon, but succeeded in defeating him and repelling Babylonian attempts to invade Assyria, appropriating Babylonian territory in the process. The successor of Enlil-nirari, Arik-den-ili (c. 1307-1296 BC), consolidated Assyrian power, and successfully campaigned in the Zagros Mountains against the Lullubi and Gutians. He was followed by Adad-nirari I who made Kalhu (Biblical Calah) his capital, and continued expansion to the northwest, mainly at the expense of the Hittites and Hurrians, conquering Hittite territories such as Carchemish and beyond. Adad-nirari I made gains to the south, forcing the Kassite rulers of Babylon into accepting a new frontier agreement in Assyria's favour.

In 1274 BC Shalmaneser I ascended the throne. He proved to be a great warrior king. During his reign he conquered the powerful kingdom of Urartu in the Caucasus Mountains and the fierce Gutians of the Zagros Mountains. He then attacked the Hurrians, defeating both King Shattuara and his Hittite and Aramean allies, and finally destroying the Hurrian kingdom in the process. Assyria was now a major threat to Egyptian and Hittite interests in the region, and was perhaps the reason that these two powers made peace with one another.

Shalmaneser's son and successor, Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244 BC -1208 BC), conquered Babylonia, deposing Kashtiliash IV and ruled there himself as king for seven years, taking on the old title "King of Sumer and Akkad" first used by Sargon of Akkad. In the process he defeated the Elamites, who had themselves coveted Babylon. However, Tukulti-Ninurta I was murdered by his own sons in a palace revolt and was succeeded by Ashur-nadin-apli. Another unstable period for Assyria followed, it was riven by periods of internal strife and the new king only made token and unsuccessful attempts to recapture Babylon, whose Kassite kings had taken advantage of this and freed themselves from Assyrian rule. However, Assyria appears to have stabilised by the reign of Ashur-Dan I who ruled for an unusually long period of 46 years, from 1179 BC to 1133 BC.

As the Hittite empire collapsed from the onslaught of the Phrygians (called Mushki in Assyrian annals), Babylon and Assyria began to vie for Amorite regions (in modern Syria), formerly under firm Hittite control. When their forces encountered one another in this region, the Assyrian king Ashur-resh-ishi I met and defeated Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon. Assyria then invaded and annexed Hittite controlled lands.

Tiglath-Pileser I, vies with Shamshi-Adad I and Ashur-uballit I among historians as being regarded as the founder of the first Assyrian empire. The son of Ashur-resh-ishi I, he ascended to the throne in 1115 BC, and became one of the greatest of Assyrian conquerors.^[6]

His first campaign in 1112 BC was against the Phrygians who had occupied certain Assyrian districts in the Upper Euphrates; he then overran the Luwian kingdoms of Commagene, Cilicia and Cappadocia, and drove the Hittites from the Assyrian province of Subartu, northeast of Malatia.

In a subsequent campaign, the Assyrian forces penetrated Urartu, into the mountains south of Lake Van and then turned westward to receive the submission of Malatia. In his fifth year, Tiglath-Pileser attacked Commagene and Cilicia in Cappadocia, and placed a record of his victories engraved on copper plates in a fortress he built to secure his Cilician conquests.

The Aramaeans of northern Syria were the next targets of the Assyrian king, who made his way as far as the sources of the Tigris.^[6] The control of the high road to the Mediterranean was secured by the possession of the Hittite town of Pethor at the junction between the Euphrates and Sajur; thence he proceeded to conquer the Canaanite/Phoenician cities of (Byblos), Sidon, and finally 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.^[6] He was passionately fond of hunting and was also a great builder. The general view is that the restoration of the temple of the gods Ashur and Hadad at the Assyrian capital of Assur (Ashur) was one of his initiatives.^[6] He also invaded and defeated Babylon twice, assuming the old title "King of Sumer and Akkad", forcing tribute from Babylon, although he was unable to actually depose the actual king in Babylonia, where the old Kassite Dynasty had now succumbed to an Elamite one.

[edit] Assyria in the Ancient Dark Ages

After Tiglath-Pileser I in 1076 BC, Assyria was in comparative decline for the next 150 years. The period from 1200 BC to 900 BC was a dark age for the entire Near East, North Africa, Caucasus, Mediterranean and Balkan regions, with great upheavals and mass movements of people. Despite the apparent weakness of Assyria, at heart it in fact remained a solid, well defended nation whose warriors were the best in the world. Assyria, with its stable monarchy and secure borders was in a stronger position during this time than potential rivals such as Egypt, Babylonia, Elam, Phrygia, Urartu, Persia and Media^[7] Kings such as Ashur-bel-kala, Eriba-Adad II, Ashur-rabi II, Ashurnasirpal I, Tiglath-Pileser II and Ashur-Dan II successfully defended Assyria's borders and upheld stability during this tumultuous time. This long period of isolation ended with the accession in 911 BC of Adad-nirari II. He firmly subjugated the areas previously under only nominal Assyrian vassalage, conquering and deporting troublesome Aramean, neo Hittite and Hurrian populations in the north to far-off places. Adadinirari II then twice attacked and defeated Shamash-mudammiq of Babylonia, annexing a large area of land north of the Diyala river and the towns of Hit and Zanqu in mid Mesopotamia. He made further gains over Babylonia under Nabu-shuma-ukin later in his reign. He was succeeded by Tukulti-Ninurta II in 891 BC, an energetic ruler who further consolidated Assyria's position and expanded northwards and eastwards into Asia Minor and the Zagros Mountains during his short reign.

[edit] Society in the Middle Assyrian period

Assyria had difficulties with keeping the trade routes open. Unlike the situation in the Old Assyrian period, the Anatolian metal trade was effectively dominated by the Hittites and the Hurrians. These people now controlled the Mediterranean ports, while the Kassites controlled the river route south to the Persian Gulf.

The Middle Assyrian kingdom was well organized, and in the firm control of the king, who also functioned as the High Priest of Ashur, the state god. He had certain obligations to fulfill in the cult, and had to provide resources for the temples. The priesthood became a major power in Assyrian society. Conflicts with the priesthood are thought to have been behind the murder of king Tukulti-Ninurta I.

The main Assyrian cities of the middle period were Ashur, Kalhu (Nimrud) and Nineveh, all situated in the Tigris River valley. At the end of the Bronze Age, Nineveh was much smaller than Babylon, but still one of the world's major cities (population ca. 33,000). By the end of the Neo-Assyrian period, it had grown to a population of some 120,000, and was possibly the largest city of that time.^[8] All free male citizens were obliged to serve in the army for a time, a system which was called the ilku-service. The Assyrian law code, notable for its repressive attitude towards women in their society, was compiled during this period.

[edit] Neo-Assyrian Empire

Map of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its expansions.

The Neo-Assyrian Empire is usually considered to have begun with the accession of Adad-nirari II, in 911 BC, lasting until the fall of Nineveh at the hands of the Babylonians, Medes, Scythians and Cimmerians in 612 BC.^[9]

In the Middle Assyrian period, Assyria had at times been a strong kingdom and imperial power based in northern Mesopotamia, competing for dominance with Babylonia to the south and with the Hittites and Arameans to the west, the Hittite empire and the Phrygians to the north, and the Elamites to the east. Beginning with the campaigns of Adad-nirari II, Assyria once more became a great power, growing to be the greatest empire the world had yet seen. Its domination spread from the Caucasus Mountains in the north to Nubia, Egypt and Arabia in the south, and from Cyprus and Antioch in the west to Persia in the east. This power was increased by such rulers as Ashurnasirpal II, Shalmaneser III and the regent Queen Semiramis. It began reaching the peak of its power with the reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III (ruled 745 – 727 BC).^[10][11] This period, which included the Sargonid dynasty, is well-referenced in several sources, including the Assyro-Babylonian Chronicles and the Hebrew Bible. Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal expanded Assyrian territories further still. At its height Assyria conquered the 25th dynasty Egypt (and expelled its Nubian/Kushite dynasty) as well as Babylonia, Chaldea, Elam, Media, Persia, Ararat (Armenia), Phoenicia, Aramea/Syria, Phrygia, the Neo-Hittites, Hurrians, northern Arabia, Gutium, Israel, Judah, Moab, Edom, Corduene, Cilicia, Mannea and parts of Ancient Greece (such as Cyprus), and defeated and/or exacted tribute from Scythia, Cimmeria, Lydia, Nubia, Ethiopia and others.

[edit] Downfall

Assyria was severely crippled following the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC — the nation descending into a prolonged and brutal series of civil wars involving three rival kings, Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and Sin-shar-ishkun.

Ashur-etil-ilani was deposed after four years of bitter fighting by Sin-shumu-lishir, an Assyrian general who had also claimed Babylon briefly. In turn, Sin-shumu-lishir was deposed after a year of warfare by Sin-shar-ishkun — who was then himself faced with constant rebellion in the Assyrian homeland, coupled with wholesale revolution in Babylon and aggression from former Assyrian colonies to the east and north. Many of Assyria's vassal states and colonies took advantage of this situation to free themselves from Assyrian rule.

By 620 BC, Nabopolassar, a member of the Chaldean tribe from the far southeast of Mesopotamia, had claimed Babylonia. Sin-shar-ishkun was unable to reconquer Babylonia, being hampered by rebellion in Assyria; similarly, Nabopolassar was unable to make inroads into Assyria, being repelled at every attempt. However, Nabopolassar entered into an alliance with the Median king Cyaxares, who had taken advantage of the upheavals in Assyria to free his people from Assyrian vassalage and unite the Iranic Medes and Persians, and the remnants of the Elamites and Manneans, into a powerful Median-dominated force. The Babylonians and Medes, together with the Scythians and Cimmerians, attacked Assyria in 616 BC. After bitter fighting, Nineveh was finally sacked in 612 BC, after a prolonged siege, Sin-shar-ishkun was killed in the process. The last known Assyrian king, Ashur-uballit II, held out at Harran from 612 BC until 609 BC, but was overrun by the Babylonians and Medes. Final resistance seems to have ended in 605 BC, with the defeat of an Assyrian-Egyptian relief force at Carchemish. It is not known whether Ashur-uballit II perished at Harran, Carchemish, or simply disappeared.

[edit] Assyria after the Empire

Assyria was ruled by Babylon from 605 BC until 539 BC, and in a twist of fate, Nabonidus the last king of Babylon was himself an Assyrian from Harran, however apart from plans to dedicate religious temples in that city, Nabonidus showed little interest in rebuilding Assyria. Nineveh and Kalhu remained in ruins, conversely a number of towns and cities such as Arrapkha and Harran remained intact, and it is not certain if Assur and Arbela were completely destroyed. However, although the Biblical accounts of Assyria's total distruction were far fetched, Assyria spent much of this period in a state of devastation following its fall. After this, it was ruled by the Persian Achaemenid Empire (as Athura) from 539 BC to 330 BC. Assyria seems to have recovered somewhat, and flourished during this period. It became a major agricultural and administrative centre of the Achaemenid Empire, and its soldiers were a mainstay of the Persian Army.^[12] In fact Assyria even became powerful enough to raise a full scale revolt against the empire in 520 BC. The Persians had spent centuries under Assyrian domination, and Assyrian influence can be seen in Achaemenid art, infrastructure and administration. Early Persian rulers saw themselves as successors to Ashurbanipal, and Mesopotamian Aramaic was retained as the lingua franca of the empire for over two hundred years.^[13] In 330 BC, Assyria fell to Alexander the Great, the Macedonian Emperor from Greece and became part of the Seleucid Empire and was renamed Syria, a Hurrian, Luwian and Greek corruption of Assyria.^[14] It is from this period that the later Syria Vs Assyria naming controversy arises, the Seleucids applied the name to Assyria itself but also to the lands to the west which had been part of the Assyrian empire. When they lost control of Assyria itself, the name Syria survived and was applied to these lands. By 150 BC, it was under the control of the Parthian Empire as Athura where the city of Ashur seems to have gained a degree of autonomy and temples to the native gods of Assyria were resurrected. A number of neo-Assyrian states arose, namely Adiabene, Osroene and Hatra. In 116 AD, under Trajan, it was taken over by Rome as the Roman Province of Assyria. The Assyrians began to convert to Christianity from Ashurism during the period between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. Romans and Parthians fought over Assyria and the rest of Mesopotamia until 226 AD, when it was taken over by the Sassanid (Persian) Empire. It was known as Asuristan during this period, and became a main centre of the Church of the East, with a flourishing Syriac (Assyrian) Christian culture which exists there to this day. Temples were still being dedicated to the national god Ashur in his home city and in Harran during the 4th century AD, indicating an Assyrian identity was still strong. After the Arab Islamic conquest in the 7th Century AD Assyria was dissolved as an entity. Under Arab rule Mesopotamia as a whole underwent a process of Arabisation and Islamification, and the region saw a large influx of non indigenous Arabs, Kurds, and later Turkic peoples. However a percentage of the indigenous Assyrian population resisted this process, Mesopotamian Aramaic language and Church of the East Christianity were still dominant in the north, possibly as late as the 11th century AD. The 14th century AD massacres by Tamurlane massively reduced the population, however they exist to this day as the modern Assyrians (aka Chaldo-Assyrian Christians), who still retain Mesopotamian ethnicity, heritage, identity, names and Mesopotamian Aramaic dialects as mother tongues. An Assyrian war of independence was fought during World War I following the Assyrian Genocide suffered at the hands of the Ottomans and their Kurdish allies. Further persecutions have occurred since, such as the Simele Massacre, al Anfal campaign and Baathist and Islamist persecutions.

[edit] Language

During the third millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism.^[15] The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence.^[15] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium as a sprachbund.^[15]

Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate),^[16] but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD.

The ancient people of Assyria spoke a dialect of the Akkadian language, a branch of the Semitic languages. The first inscriptions, called Old Assyrian (OA), were made in the Old Assyrian period. In the Neo-Assyrian period the Aramaic language became increasingly common, more so than Akkadian — this was thought to be largely due to the mass deportations undertaken by Assyrian kings, in which large Aramaic-speaking populations, conquered by the Assyrians, were relocated to other parts of the empire and intermixed with the Assyrians. The ancient Assyrians also used the Sumerian language in their literature and liturgy, although to a more limited extent in the Middle- and Neo-Assyrian periods, when Akkadian became the main literary language.

The destruction of the Assyrian capitals of Nineveh and Assur by the Babylonians and Medes ensured that much of the bilingual elite were wiped out. By the 7th century BC, much of the Assyrian population used Eastern Aramaic and not Akkadian. The last Akkadian inscriptions in Mesopotamia date from the 1st Century AD, Eastern Aramaic dialects survive to this day among Assyrians in the regions of northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northwest Iran and northeast Syria that constituted old Assyria.

[edit] Arts and sciences

Relief from Assyrian capital of Dur Sharrukin, showing transport of Lebanese cedar (8th century BC)

Assyrian art preserved to the present day predominantly dates to the Neo-Assyrian period. Art depicting battle scenes, and occasionally the impaling of whole villages in gory detail, was intended to show the power of the emperor, and was generally made for propaganda purposes. These stone reliefs lined the walls in the royal palaces where foreigners were received by the king. Other stone reliefs depict the king with different deities and conducting religious ceremonies. Many stone reliefs were discovered in the royal palaces at Nimrud (Kalhu) and Khorsabad (Dur-Sharrukin). A rare discovery of metal plates belonging to wooden doors was made at Balawat (Imgur-Enlil).

Assyrian sculpture reached a high level of refinement in the Neo-Assyrian period. One prominent example is the winged bull Lamassu, or shedu that guard the entrances to the king's court. These were apotropaic meaning they were intended to ward off evil. C. W. Ceram states in The March of Archaeology that lamassi were typically sculpted with five legs so that four legs were always visible, whether the image were viewed frontally or in profile.

Since works of precious gems and metals usually do not survive the ravages of time, we are lucky to have some fine pieces of Assyrian jewelry. These were found in royal tombs at Nimrud.

There is ongoing discussion among academics over the nature of the Nimrud lens, a piece of quartz unearthed by Austen Henry Layard in 1850, in the Nimrud palace complex in northern Iraq. A small minority believe that it is evidence for the existence of ancient Assyrian telescopes, which could explain the great accuracy of Assyrian astronomy. Other suggestions include its use as a magnifying glass for jewellers, or as a decorative furniture inlay. The Nimrud Lens is held in the British Museum.^[17]

The Assyrians were also innovative in military technology with the use of heavy cavalry, sappers, siege engines etc.

[edit] Legacy and rediscovery

Achaemenid Assyria (539 BC - 330 BC) retained a separate identity (Athura), official correspondence being in Imperial Aramaic, and there was even a determined revolt of the two Assyrian provinces of Mada and Athura in 520 BC. Under Seleucid rule (330 BC — Approx 150 BC), however, Aramaic gave way to Greek as the official administrative language. Aramaic was marginalised as an official language, but remained spoken in both Assyria and Babylonia by the general populace. It also remained the spoken tongue of the indigenous Assyrian/Babylonian citizens of all Mesopotamia under Persian, Greek and Roman rule, and indeed well into the Arab period it was still the language of the majority, particularly in the north of Mesopotamia, surviving to this day among the Assyrian Christians.

Between 150 BC and 226 AD Assyria changed hands between the Parthians and Romans Roman Province of Assyria until coming under the rule of Sassanid Persia in 226 AD - 651 AD, where it was known as Asuristan.

A number of at least partly neo Assyrian kingdoms existed in the area between in the late classical and early Christian period also; Adiabene, Hatra and Osroene.

Classical historiographers had only retained a very dim picture of Assyria. It was remembered that there had been an Assyrian empire predating the Persian one, but all particulars were lost. Thus Jerome's Chronicon lists 36 kings of the Assyrians, beginning with Ninus, son of Belus, down to Sardanapalus, the last king of the Assyrians before the empire fell to Arbaces the Median. Almost none of these have been substantiated as historical, with the exception of the Neo-Assyrian and Babylonian rulers listed in Ptolemy's Canon, beginning with Nabonassar.

The modern discovery of Babylonia and Assyria begins with excavations in Nineveh in 1845, which revealed the Library of Ashurbanipal. Decipherment of cuneiform was a formidable task that took more than a decade, but by 1857, the Royal Asiatic Society was convinced that reliable reading of cuneiform texts was possible. Assyriology has since pieced together the formerly largely forgotten history of Mesopotamia. In the wake of the archaeological and philological rediscovery of ancient Assyria, Assyrian nationalism became increasingly popular among the surviving remnants of the Assyrian people, and has come to strongly identify with ancient Assyria.

[edit] Notes and references

This article incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), a publication now in the public domain.

[edit] Literature

• Ascalone, Enrico. Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians (Dictionaries of Civilizations; 1). Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007 (paperback, ISBN 0-520-25266-7).
• Grayson, Albert Kirk: Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (ABC), Locust Valley, N.Y.; Augustin (1975), Winona Lake, In.; Eisenbrauns (2000).
• Healy, Mark (1991). The Ancient Assyrians. London: Osprey. ISBN 1855321637. OCLC 26351868. http://books.google.com/?id=Hodh6fgx-DMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn=1855321637. 
• Leick, Gwendolyn. Mesopotamia.
• Lloyd, Seton. The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: From the Old Stone Age to the Persian Conquest.
• Rosie Malek-Yonan (2005). The Crimson Field. Pearlida Publishing. ISBN 0977187349. OCLC 2005906414. http://books.google.com/?id=tMpAAAAACAAJ&dq=the+Crimson+Field. 
• Nardo, Don. The Assyrian Empire.
• Nemet-Nejat, Karen Rhea. Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia.
• Oppenheim, A. Leo. Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization.
• Parpola, Simo (2004). "National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies 18 (2). http://www.jaas.org/edocs/v18n2/Parpola-identity_Article%20-Final.pdf. 
• Roux, Georges. Ancient Iraq. Third edition. Penguin Books, 1992 (paperback, ISBN 0-14-012523-X).
• Saggs, H. W. F., The Might That Was Assyria, ISBN 0-283-98961-0
• Virginia Schomp (2005). Ancient Mesopotamia: The Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. New York: Scholastic Library Pub. ISBN 0531167410. OCLC 60341786. 
• Spence, Lewis. Myths and Legends of Babylonia and Assyria.

[edit] See also

• Assyrian People
• Assyrian eclipse
• Assyriology
• Ancient Near East
• Kings of Assyria
• Military history of the Assyrian Empire
• Assyria and Babylonia contrasted
• Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria
• Geography of Babylonia and Assyria
• Social life in Babylonia and Assyria
• Cuneiform script
• Asuristan
• Achaemenid Assyria
• Adiabene
• Osroene
• Hatra
• Chaldo-Assyrians
• Roman Province of Assyria
• Akkadian Empire
• Sumer
• Assur
• Ashurism
• List of Assyrians
• List of Assyrian villages
• List of Assyrian tribes
• Amorites
• Aramaic
• Names of Syriac Christians

[edit] External links

• Assyria on Ancient History Encyclopedia
• Assyrian administrative letters
• Morris Jastrow, Jr., The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria: its remains, language, history, religion, commerce, law, art, and literature, London: Lippincott (1915) — a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; also available in layered PDF format
• "Assyrian Legacy", Prototype Productions (video)
• "Assyria", LookLex Encyclopedia
• Robert William Rogers, The History of Assyria in "btm" format
• Theophilus G. Pinches, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria in "btm" format
• "The Library at Ninevah", In our Time — BBC Radio 4
• "Assyrians in Arzni-Armenia", Website of the Abovyan city
•  "Assyria". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Babylonia and Assyria". Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

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