Coordinates: 36°N 43°E

Assyria
Assyria (/əˈsɪəriə/), also called the Assyrian Empire, was a
Mesopotamian kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East Assyria
and the Levant that existed as a state from perhaps as early as 2500 BC–609 BC[1]
the 25th century BC (in the form of the Assur city-state[4]) until
its collapse between 612 BC and 609 BC – spanning the periods
of the Early to Middle Bronze Age through to the late Iron
Age.[5][6] This vast span of time is divided into the Early Period
(2500 BC-2025 BC), Old Assyrian Empire (2025 BC - 1378
BC), Middle Assyrian Empire (1392 BC - 934 BC) and Neo-
Assyrian Empire (911 BC - 609 BC).

From the end of the seventh century BC (when the Neo-

Assyrian state fell) to the mid-seventh century AD, it survived
as a geopolitical entity,[7][8][9] for the most part ruled by foreign
powers such as the Parthian[10] and early Sasanian Empires[11]
between the mid-second century BC and late third century AD,
the final part of which period saw Mesopotamia become a major
centre of Syriac Christianity and the birthplace of the Church of
the East.[12] Greeks, Romans, and subsequently Arabs and
Ottomans also took over control of the Assyrian lands.
Overview map in the 15th century BC
A largely Semitic-speaking realm, Assyria was centred on the showing the core territory of Assyria
Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia. The Assyrians came to rule with its two major cities Assur and
powerful empires in several periods. Making up a substantial Nineveh wedged between Babylonia
downstream on the Tigris and the states
part of the greater Mesopotamian "cradle of civilization", which of Mitanni and Hatti upstream.
included Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, and Babylonia, Assyria
Capital Aššur
reached the height of technological, scientific and cultural (2500–1754 BC)
achievements for its time. At its peak, the Neo-Assyrian Empire Shubat-Enlil
of 911 to 609 BC stretched from eastern Libya and Cyprus in (1754–1681 BC)
the East Mediterranean to Iran, and from present-day Armenia Aššur
and Azerbaijan in the Transcaucasia to the Arabian (1681–879 BC)
Peninsula.[13] Kalhu
(879–706 BC)
Dur-Sharrukin
The name "Assyria" originates with the Assyrian state's original
(706–705 BC)
capital, the ancient city of Aššur, which dates to c. 2600 BC – Nineveh
originally one of a number of Akkadian-speaking city-states in (705–612 BC)
Mesopotamia. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian Harran
kings were pastoral leaders. From the late 24th century BC, the (612–609 BC)
Assyrians became subject to Sargon of Akkad, who united all Official languages Akkadian
the Akkadian- and Sumerian-speaking peoples of Mesopotamia
Sumerian
under the Akkadian Empire, which lasted from c. 2334 BC to
Aramaic
2154 BC.[14] After the Assyrian Empire fell, the greater
remaining part of Assyria formed a geopolitical region and Common languages Akkadian
province of other empires, although between the mid-2nd Aramaic
Religion Ancient
Mesopotamian
religion
century BC and late 3rd century AD a patchwork of small
Government Monarchy
independent Assyrian kingdoms arose, including Assur,
King
Adiabene, Osroene, Beth Nuhadra, Beth Garmai, and Hatra.
• c. 2500 BC Tudiya (first)
The region of Assyria fell under the successive control of the • 612–609 BC Ashur-uballit II
(last)
Median Empire of 678 to 549 BC, the Achaemenid Empire of
550 to 330 BC, the Macedonian Empire (late 4th century BC), Historical era Bronze Age
the Seleucid Empire of 312 to 63 BC, the Parthian Empire of • Kikkiya overthrown 2500 BC
247 BC to 224 AD, the Roman Empire (from 116 to 118 AD) • Decline of Assyria 612 BC 609
and the Sasanian Empire of 224 to 651 AD. The Arab Islamic BC[1]
conquest of the area in the mid-seventh century finally dissolved Area
Assyria (Assuristan) as a single entity, after which the remnants 194,249[2] km2 (75,000 sq mi)
of the Assyrian people (by now Christians) gradually became an
ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious minority in the Assyrian Currency Mina[3]
homeland, surviving there to this day as an indigenous people of
Preceded by Succeeded by
the region.[15][16]
Akkadian Median
Empire Empire
Neo-
Contents Babylonian
Empire
Etymology
Pre-history
History
Early Period, 2600–2025 BC
Akkadian Empire and Neo-Sumerian Empires,
2334–2050 BC
Old Assyrian Empire, 2025–1522 BC
Decline, 1450–1393 BC
Middle Assyrian Empire 1392–1056 BC
Society and law in the Middle Assyrian Period
Assyria during the Bronze Age Collapse, 1200–936
BC Map showing the approximate location of
Neo-Assyrian Empire the geographical region referred to as
Expansion, 911–627 BC "Assyria".
Downfall, 626–609 BC
Assyria after the empire
Achaemenid Assyria, Osroene, Asōristān,
Athura and Hatra
Achaemenid Assyria (549–330 BC)
Macedonian and Seleucid Assyria
Parthian Assyria (150 BC – 225 AD)
Roman Assyria (116–118)
Christian period
Sassanid Assyria (226 – c. 650)
Arab Islamic conquest (630–780)
Mongol Empire (1200–1300)
Breakup of the Church of the East (1552–1830)
Modern history
 Ottoman Empire (1900–1928)
Simele Massacre and World War II (1930–
1950)
Ba'athism (1966–2003)
Kurdistan Region (2005–present)
Syrian Civil War (2012–present)
Culture
Language
Religion
Ancient Assyrian religion
Christianity
Architecture
Arts and sciences
Legacy
Notes
See also
Notes
References
External links

Etymology
Assyria was also sometimes known as Subartu and Azuhinum prior to the rise of the city-state of Ashur, after
which it was Aššūrāyu, and after its fall, from 605 BC through to the late seventh century AD variously as
Achaemenid Assyria, and also referenced as Atouria, Ator, Athor, and sometimes as Syria which
etymologically derives from Assyria[17] according to Strabo, Syria (Greek), Assyria (Latin) and Asōristān
(Middle Persian). "Assyria" can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires
and the Assyrian people were (and still are) centered.

The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq,
north east Syria, southeast Turkey and northwest Iran are the descendants of the ancient Assyrians (see
Assyrian continuity).[18][19] As Babylonia is called after the city of Babylon, Assyria means "land of
Asshur".[2]

Etymologically, Assyria is connected to the name of Syria,[20] with both being ultimately derived from the
Akkadian Aššur.[21] Theodor Nöldeke in 1881 was the first to give philological support to the assumption
that Syria and Assyria have the same etymology,[22] a suggestion going back to John Selden (1617). A 21st-
century discovery of the Çineköy inscription also confirmed that Syria, being a Greek corruption of the
name Assyria, is ultimately derived from the Assyrian term Aššūrāyu.[23]

Pre-history
In prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria (and Subartu) was home to a
Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in what will be
Assyria were the Jarmo culture c. 7100 BC, the Halaf culture c. 6100 BC, and the Hassuna culture c. 6000
BC.
The Akkadian-speaking people (the earliest historically-attested
Semitic-speaking people)[24] who would eventually found Assyria
appear to have entered Mesopotamia at some point during the latter
4th millennium BC (c. 3500–3000 BC),[25] eventually intermingling
with the earlier Sumerian-speaking population, who came from
northern Mesopotamia,[26][27] with Akkadian names appearing in
written record from as early as the 29th century BC.[24][28]

During the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis

developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout
Official letter sent by the high-priest
Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism.[29] The
Lu'enna to the king of Lagash
influence of Sumerian (a language isolate) on Akkadian, and vice
(maybe Urukagina), informing him of
versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive his son's death in combat, c. 2400
scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological BC, found in Girsu.
convergence.[29] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian
and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a sprachbund.[29]
Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere after the turn of
the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate),[30] although Sumerian
continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st
century AD, as did use of the Akkadian cuneiform.

The cities of Assur, Nineveh, Gasur and Arbela together with a number of other towns and cities, existed
since at least before the middle of the 3rd millennium BC (c. 2600 BC), although they appear to have been
Sumerian-ruled administrative centres at this time, rather than independent states.

Greco-Roman classical writers such as Julius Africanus, Marcus Velleius Paterculus and Diodorus Siculus
dated the founding of Assyria to various dates between 2284 BC and 2057 BC,[31][32][33] listing the earliest
king as Belus or Ninus.

According to the Biblical generations of Noah, which appears to have been largely compiled between the
7th and 5th centuries BC,[34] the city of Aššur was allegedly founded by a biblical Ashur the son of Shem,
who was deified by later generations as the city's patron god. However, the much older attested Assyrian
tradition itself lists the first king of Assyria as the 25th century BC Tudiya, and an early urbanised Assyrian
king named Ushpia (c. 2050 BC) as having dedicated the first temple to the god Ashur in the city in the mid-
21st century BC. It is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the
same name.

History

Early Period, 2600–2025 BC

The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian Early Period
cities, seem to have been established by 2600 BC. However it is c. 2600 BC–c. 2025 BC
likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated
administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of
Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia,
mentions "smiting Subartu" (Subartu being the Sumerian name
for Assyria). Similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-
Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists
Subartu as paying tribute to him.
Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is
known.[35] In the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded
was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in
the mid 25th century BC, i.e. c. 2450 BC. In archaeological
reports from Ebla, it appeared that Tudiya's activities were
confirmed with the discovery of a tablet where he concluded a
treaty for the operation of a karum (trading colony) in Eblaite
territory, with "king" Ibrium of Ebla (who is now known to have
been the vizier of Ebla for king Ishar-Damu).
A map detailing the location of Assyria
within the Ancient Near East c. 2500
Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known BC.
reference to the Semitic name Adam[36] and then a further Capital Aššur
thirteen rulers (Yangi, Suhlamu, Harharu, Mandaru, Imsu,
Harsu, Didanu, Hanu, Zuabu, Nuabu, Abazu, Belus and Common languages Akkadian
Azarah). Nothing concrete is yet known about these names, language
Sumerian
although it has been noted that a much later Babylonian tablet language
listing the ancestral lineage of Hammurabi, the Amorite king of
Babylon, seems to have copied the same names from Tudiya Religion Ancient
through Nuabu, though in a heavily corrupted form. Mesopotamian
religion
The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings Government Monarchy
who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist King
rulers. These kings at some point became fully urbanised and • c. 2450 BC Tudiya (first)
founded the city state of Aššur in the mid 21st-century BC.[37] • c. 2025 BC Ilu-shuma (last)
Historical era Bronze Age
Akkadian Empire and Neo-Sumerian Empires, • Established c. 2600 BC
• Disestablished c. 2025 BC
2334–2050 BC
Preceded by Succeeded
During the Akkadian Empire (2334–2154 BC), the Assyrians, by
like all the Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamians (and also the Early Dynastic Old
Sumerians), became subject to the dynasty of the city-state of Period Assyrian
Akkad, centered in central Mesopotamia. The Akkadian Empire (Mesopotamia) Empire
founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the
surrounding "four-quarters". The region of Assyria, north of the Today part of Iraq
seat of the empire in central Mesopotamia, had also been known
as Subartu by the Sumerians, and the name Azuhinum in
Akkadian records also seems to refer to Assyria proper.[38] The
Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian
(Assyro-Babylonian) population.[29][30]

Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and

the city of Ashur became a regional administrative center of the
Empire, implicated by the Nuzi tablets.[39] During this period,
the Akkadian-speaking Semites of Mesopotamia came to rule
an empire encompassing not only Mesopotamia itself but large
swathes of Asia Minor, ancient Iran, Elam, the Arabian
Map of the Akkadian Empire (brown) and
Peninsula, Canaan and Syria. the directions in which military campaigns
were conducted (yellow arrows).
Assyria seems to have already been firmly involved in trade in
Asia Minor by this time; the earliest known reference to
Anatolian karu in Hatti was found on later cuneiform tablets
describing the early period of the Akkadian Empire (c. 2350 BC). On those tablets, Assyrian traders in
Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, and this appellation continued to exist
throughout the Assyrian Empire for about 1,700 years. The name "Hatti" itself even appears in later
accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia.

Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script
to Asia Minor and the Levant (modern Syria and Lebanon). However, towards the end of the reign of Sargon
the Great, the Assyrian faction rebelled against him; "the tribes of Assyria of the upper country—in their
turn attacked, but they submitted to his arms, and Sargon settled their habitations, and he smote them
grievously".[40]

The Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and

internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian
people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period
between c. 2154 BC and 2112 BC once again became fully
independent, as the Gutians are only known to have
administered southern Mesopotamia. However, the king list is
the only information from Assyria for this period.

Most of Assyria briefly became part of the Neo-Sumerian

Empire (or 3rd dynasty of Ur) founded in c. 2112 BC. Sumerian
domination extended as far as the city of Ashur but appears not
to have reached Nineveh and the far north of Assyria. One local
ruler (shakkanakku) named Zāriqum (who does not appear on
any Assyrian king list) is listed as paying tribute to Amar-Sin of
Ur. Ashur's rulers appear to have remained largely under
Sumerian domination until the mid-21st century BC (c. 2050
BC); the king list names Assyrian rulers for this period and Empire of the Third Dynasty of Ur. West
several are known from other references to have also borne the is at top, North at right.
title of shakkanakka or vassal governors for the neo-
Sumerians.[41][42]

Old Assyrian Empire, 2025–1522 BC

The Old Assyrian Empire is one of four periods into which the Old Assyrian Empire
history of Assyria is divided, the other three being: the Early c. 2025 BC–c. 1750 BC
Assyrian Period, the Middle Assyrian Period and the New
Assyrian Period.

Ushpia (2080 BC) appears to have been the first fully urbanised
independent king of Assyria, and is traditionally held to have
dedicated temples to the god Ashur in the city of the same
name.[43] He was followed by Sulili, Kikkiya and Akiya, of
whom little is known aside from Kikkiya conducting various
building works in Assur. A number of scholars also place
Zariqum, a contemporary of Amar-Sin (2046–2038 BC) of Ur
as an Assyrian ruler, though he does not appear on the Assyrian
king list, but is claimed by Amar-Sin to be the 'governor' of
Map showing the approximate extent of
Assur.[44] the
Upper Mesopotamian Empire
at the death of Shamshi-Adad I c. 1721
BC.
In approximately 2025 BC, a king named Puzur-Ashur I came Capital Aššur
to the throne of Assyria, and there is some debate among Common languages Akkadian
scholars as to whether he was the founder of a new dynasty or a (official)
descendant of Ushpia. He is mentioned as having conducted Sumerian
building projects in Assur, and he and his successors took the (official)
title Išši’ak Aššur (meaning viceroy of Ashur). From this time Hittite
Assyria began to expand trading colonies called Karum into Hurrian
Amorite
Hurrian and Hattian lands in Anatolia.[45] He was succeeded by
Shalim-ahum (c. 2000 BC), a king who is attested in a Religion Ancient
contemporary record of the time, leaving inscriptions in an Mesopotamian
religion
archaic form of Akkadian.[46] In addition to the expansions into
Anatolia Ilu-shuma (C. 1995–1974 BC) (Middle chronology) Government Monarchy
appears to have conducted military campaigns in southern King
Mesopotamia, either in conquest of the city-states of the south, • c. 2025 BC Erishum I (first)
or in order to protect his fellow Akkadian-speakers from • c. 1393 BC Ashur-nadin-
incursions by Elamites from the east and/or Amorites from the ahhe II (last)
west – Historical era Bronze Age
• Established c. 2025 BC
"The freedom[nb 1] of the Akkadians and their • Disestablished c. 1750 BC
children I established. I purified their copper. I Preceded by Succeeded by
established their freedom from the border of the
Early Kingdom
marshes and Ur and Nippur, Awal, and Kismar,
Assyrian of Mitanni
Der of the god Ishtaran, as far as Assur."[47]:7–8 kingdom Middle
Assyrian
Empire
He is known to have built the old temple of Ishtar in Assur. He
was succeeded by another powerful king, the long reigning Today part of Iraq, Syria,
Erishum I (1973–1934 BC) who is notable for one of the earliest Iran, and
examples of written legal codes[48] and introducing the limmu Turkey
(eponym) lists that were to continue throughout Assyrian
history. He is known to have greatly expanded Assyrian trading colonies in Anatolia, with twenty one being
listed during his reign. These Karum traded in: tin, textiles, lapis lazuli, iron, antimony, copper, bronze,
wool, and grain, in exchange for gold and silver. Erishum also kept numerous written records, and
conducted major building works in Assyria, including the building of temples to Ashur, Ishtar and Adad.[49]

These policies were continued by Ikunum (1933–1921), Sargon I (1920–1881 BC), likely named after his
predecessor Sargon of Akkad,[50] (during Sargon I's later reign Babylon was founded as a small city-state),
and Puzur-Ashur II (1880–1873 BC). Naram-Sin (1872–1828 BC) repelled an attempted usurpation of his
throne by the future king Shamshi-Adad I late in his reign, however his successor Erishum II was deposed
by Shamshi-Adad I in 1809 BC, bringing an end to the dynasty founded either by Ushpia or Puzur-Ashur I.

Shamshi-Adad I (1808–1776 BC) was already the ruler of Terqa, and although he claimed Assyrian ancestry
as a descendant of Ushpia, he is regarded as a foreign Amorite usurper by later Assyrian tradition. However,
he greatly expanded the Old Assyrian Empire, incorporating the northern half of Mesopotamia, swathes of
eastern and southern Anatolia and much of the Levant into his large empire, and campaigned as far west as
the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.[51] His son and successor Ishme-Dagan I (1775–1764 BC)
gradually lost territory in southern Mesopotamia and the Levant to the state of Mari and Eshnunna
respectively, and had mixed relations with Hammurabi, the king who had turned the hitherto young and
insignificant city-state of Babylon into a major power and empire.
After Shamsi-Adad I's death Assyria was reduced to vassalage by Hammurabi; Mut-Ashkur (1763–1753
BC), Rimush and Asinum were subservient to Hammurabi, who also took ownership of Assyrian trading
colonies, thus bringing an end to the Old Assyrian Empire.

However, the Babylonian empire proved to be short lived, rapidly collapsing after the death of Hammurabi
c. 1750 BC. An Assyrian governor named Puzur-Sin deposed Asinum who was regarded as a foreign
Amorite and a puppet of the new and ineffectual Babylonian king Sumuabum, and the Babylonian and
Amorite presence was expunged from Assyria by Puzur-Sin and his successor Ashur-dugul, who reigned for
six years. A king called Adasi (1720–1701 BC) finally restored strength and stability to Assyria, ending the
civil unrest that had followed the ejection of the Babylonians and Amorites, founding the new Adaside
Dynasty.[52] Bel-bani (1700–1691 BC) succeeded Adasi and further strengthened Assyria against potential
threats,[53] and remained a revered figure even in the time of Ashurbanipal over a thousand years later.[54]

There followed a long, prosperous and peaceful period in Assyrian history, rulers such as Libaya (1691–
1674 BC), Sharma-Adad I, Iptar-Sin, Bazaya, Lullaya, Shu-Ninua and Sharma-Adad II appear to have had
peaceful and largely uneventful reigns[55]

Assyria remained strong and secure; when Babylon was sacked and its Amorite rulers deposed by the Hittite
Empire and subsequently fell to the Kassites in 1595 BC, both powers were unable to make any inroads into
Assyria, and there seems to have been no trouble between the first Kassite ruler of Babylon, Agum II, and
Erishum III (1598–1586 BC) of Assyria, and a mutually beneficial treaty was signed between the two rulers.
Shamshi-Adad II (1585–1580 BC), Ishme-Dagan II (1579–1562 BC) and Shamshi-Adad III (1562–1548
BC) seem also to have had peaceful tenures, although few records have thus far been discovered about their
reigns. Similarly, Ashur-nirari I (1547–1522 BC) seems not to have been troubled by the newly founded
Mitanni Empire in Asia Minor, the Hittite empire, or Babylon during his 25-year reign. He and his successor
Puzur-Ashur III (1521–1497 BC) are known to have been active kings, improving the infrastructure,
dedicating temples and conducting various building projects throughout the kingdom. Enlil-nasir I, Nur-ili,
Ashur-shaduni and Ashur-rabi I (who deposed his predecessor) followed.[56]

Decline, 1450–1393 BC

The emergence of the Hurri-Mitanni Empire and allied Hittite empire in the 16th century BC did eventually
lead to a short period of sporadic Mitannian-Hurrian domination in the latter half of the 15th century. The
Mitannians (an Indo-Aryan speaking people) are thought to have entered Anatolia from the north, conquered
and formed the ruling class over the indigenous Hurrians of eastern Anatolia. The indigenous Hurrians
spoke the Hurrian language, a language in the now wholly extinct Hurro-Urartian language family.

Ashur-nadin-ahhe I (1450–1431 BC) was courted by the Egyptians, who were rivals of Mitanni, and
attempting to gain a foothold in the Near East. Amenhotep II sent the Assyrian king a tribute of gold to seal
an alliance against the Hurri-Mitannian empire. It is likely that this alliance prompted Saushtatar, the
emperor of Mitanni, to invade Assyria, and sack the city of Ashur, after which Assyria became a sometime
vassal state. Ashur-nadin-ahhe I was deposed, either by Shaustatar or by his own brother Enlil-nasir II
(1430–1425 BC) in 1430 BC, who then paid tribute to the Mitanni. Ashur-nirari II (1424–1418 BC) had an
uneventful reign and appears to have also paid tribute to the Mitanni Empire.

The Assyrian monarchy survived, and the Mitannian influence appears to have been short-lived.

They appear not to have been always willing or indeed able to interfere in Assyrian internal and
international affairs.

Ashur-bel-nisheshu (1417–1409 BC) seems to have been independent of Mitannian influence, as evidenced
by his signing a mutually beneficial treaty with Karaindash, the Kassite king of Babylonia in the late 15th
century. He also undertook extensive rebuilding work in Ashur itself, and Assyria appears to have
redeveloped its former highly sophisticated financial and economic systems during his reign. Ashur-rim-
nisheshu (1408–1401 BC) also undertook building work, strengthening the city walls of the capital. Ashur-
nadin-ahhe II (1400–1393 BC) also received a tribute of gold and diplomatic overtures from Egypt,
probably in an attempt to gain Assyrian military support against Egypt's Mitannian and Hittite rivals in the
region. However, the Assyrian king appears not to have been in a strong enough position to challenge
Mitanni or the Hittites.

Eriba-Adad I (1392–1366 BC), a son of Ashur-bel-nisheshu, ascended the throne in 1392 BC and finally
broke the ties to the Mitanni Empire, and instead turned the tables, and began to exert Assyrian influence on
the Mitanni.

Middle Assyrian Empire 1392–1056 BC

The Middle period (1365 BC–1056 BC) saw reigns of great Middle Assyrian Empire
kings, such as Ashur-uballit I, Arik-den-ili, Tukulti-Ninurta I 1392 BC–934 BC
and Tiglath-Pileser I. During this period, Assyria overthrew the
empire of the Hurri-Mitanni and eclipsed the Hittite Empire,
Egyptian Empire, Babylonia, Elam, Canaan and Phrygia in the
Near East.[57]

By the reign of Eriba-Adad I (1392–1366 BC) Mitanni

influence over Assyria was on the wane. Eriba-Adad I became
involved in a dynastic battle between Tushratta and his brother
Artatama II and after this his son Shuttarna III, who called Map of the Ancient Near East during
himself king of the Hurri while seeking support from the the Amarna Period (14th century BC),
Assyrians. showing the great powers of the day:
Egypt (orange), Hatti (blue), the Kassite
Ashur-uballit I (1365–1330 BC) went further, defeating kingdom of Babylon (black), Assyria
Shuttarna III and bringing an end to the Mitanni empire, the (yellow), and Mitanni (brown). The
Assyrian king then annexing its territories in Anatolia and the extent of the Achaean/Mycenaean
civilization is shown in purple.
Levant, turning Assyria once more into a major empire.[58] The
ambitious Assyrian king went further still, attacking and Capital Aššur
conquering Babylonia, and imposing a puppet ruler loyal to Common languages Akkadian
himself upon its throne. Assyria then annexed hitherto language
Babylonian territory in central Mesopotamia.[59] Enlil-nirari (official)
Hittite
(1330–1319 BC) also defeated Babylonia's Kassite kings. Hurrian
The Hittites, having failed to save Mitanni, allied with Babylon Religion Ancient
in an unsuccessful economic war against Assyria for many Mesopotamian
years. Assyria was now a large and powerful empire, and a religion
major threat to Egyptian and Hittite interests in the region, and Government Monarchy
was perhaps the reason that these two powers, fearful of King
Assyrian might, made peace with one another.[60] • 1365–1330 BC Ashur-uballit I
(first)
Arik-den-ili (1318–1307 BC) campaigned further still, entering • 967–934 BC Tiglath-Pileser
northern Ancient Iran and subjugating the 'pre-Iranic' Gutians, II (last)
Turukku and Nigimhi, before campaigning deeper into the Historical era Mesopotamia
Levant, subjugating the Suteans, Ahlamu and Yauru.[61] His
• Independence from 1392 BC
successor Adad-nirari I (1307–1275 BC) was another highly Mitanni
successful military leader, he defeated and conquered the Hurro- • Reign of Ashur-dan 934 BC
Mitanni kingdom of Hanigalbat and the rest of the independent II
Hurro-Mitanni kingdoms of Anatolia, despite the Hittites
attempting to support their allies, and inflicted a series of Preceded by Succeeded by
crushing defeats on Babylonia, annexing large swathes of Old Neo-
Babylonian territory. Hittite kings during his reign assumed a Assyrian Assyrian
placatory attitude towards the Assyrian king.[62][63] Empire Empire

Shalmaneser I (1274–1245 BC) conquered eight kingdoms in

central Anatolia in his first year, and in the next he defeated a
coalition of Hittites, Hurrians, Mitanni and Ahlamu, annexing
yet more territory in Anatolia and the Levant, and retaining
Assyrian dominion over Babylonia and the northwest of ancient
Iran. Shalmaneser also conducted extensive building work in
Assur, Nineveh and Arbela, and founded the city of Kalhu (the
Biblical Calah/Nimrud).[64][65]

Shalmaneser's son and successor, Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1207

BC), won a major victory against the Hittites and their king
Tudhaliya IV at the Battle of Nihriya and took thousands of
prisoners. Rather than being content to simply subjugate Map of the Ancient Near East showing
Babylonian kings as his predecessors had, he conquered the extent of the Middle Assyrian
Empire (orange) c. 1392 BC.
Babylonia directly, taking Kashtiliash IV as a captive 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.
Tukulti-Ninurta I thus became the first Akkadian speaking
native Mesopotamian to rule the state of Babylonia, its founders
having been foreign Amorites, succeeded by equally foreign
Kassites. Tukulti-Ninurta petitioned the god Shamash before
beginning his counter offensive.[66] Kashtiliash IV was
captured, single-handed by Tukulti-Ninurta according to his
account, who "trod with my feet upon his lordly neck as though
it were a footstool"[13] and deported him ignominiously in
chains to Assyria. The victorious Assyrians demolished the
walls of Babylon, massacred many of the inhabitants, pillaged Mesopotamia and Middle Assyrian
and plundered his way across the city to the Esagila temple, Empire, c. 1200 BC.
where he made off with the statue of Marduk.[67]

Middle Assyrian texts recovered at ancient Dūr-Katlimmu, include a

letter from Tukulti-Ninurta to his sukkal rabi'u, or grand vizier,
Ashur-iddin advising him of the approach of his general Shulman-
mushabshu escorting the captive Kashtiliash, his wife, and his
retinue which incorporated a large number of women,[68] on his way
to exile after his defeat. In the process he defeated the Elamites, who Assyrian troops return after victory.
had themselves coveted Babylon. He also wrote an epic poem
documenting his victorious wars against Babylon and Elam. He
progressed further south into what is today Arabia, conquering the pre-Arab South Semitic kingdoms of
Dilmun and Meluhha. After a Babylonian revolt, he raided and plundered the temples in Babylon, regarded
as an act of sacrilege. As relations with the priesthood in Ashur began deteriorating, Tukulti-Ninurta built a
new capital city; Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta.[69]

A series of short reigning kings followed, these being Ashur-nadin-apli (1207–1204 BC), Ashur-nirari III
(1203–1198 BC), Enlil-kudurri-usur (1197–1193 BC) and Ninurta-apal-Ekur (1192–1190 BC), and there
were no significant expansions of the empire during their short tenures, and Babylonia seems to have freed
itself from the Assyrian yoke for a time.
Ashur-dan I (1190–1144 BC) conquered huge swathes of Babylonia, subjugating its king, and taking much
booty home to Assyria. However, this led to conflict with the powerful Elamites of the southwest of ancient
Iran, who were themselves preying upon Babylonia. The Elamites managed to actually take the Assyrian
city of Arrapha (modern Kirkuk), before being finally defeated and driven from the Assyrian empire.[70]
Civil unrest ensued in Assyria after Ashur-Dan I's death, and Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur and Mutakkil-Nusku
followed in quick succession during 1133 BC.

Ashur-resh-ishi I (1133–1116 BC) restored the tradition of powerful conquering kings. He campaigned to
the east, taking the Zagros region of ancient Iran, and subjugated the Amorites, Ahlamu and the newly
appeared Arameans in the Levant. He also defeated the ambitious Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylonia, annexing
Babylonian territory in the process.[71]

Tiglath-pileser I (1115–1074 BC) proved to be a long reigning and all conquering ruler, who firmly
underlined Assyria's position as the world's leading military power.[72]

His first campaign was against the Phrygians and Kaskians in 1112 BC, who had attempted to occupy
certain Assyrian ruled Hittite districts in the Upper Euphrates; then he overran Commagene and eastern
Cappadocia, and drove the Hittites from the Assyrian province of Subartu, northeast of Malatia.[73]

In a subsequent campaign, the Assyrian forces penetrated into the mountains south of Lake Van and then
turned westward to receive the submission of Malatia and Urartu. In his fifth year, Tiglath-Pileser attacked
Cilicia and Comana in Cappadocia, and placed a record of his victories engraved on copper plates in a
fortress he built to secure his Cilician conquests.[73]

The Aramaeans of northern and central Syria were the next targets of the Assyrian king, who made his way
as far as the sources of the Tigris.[74] The control of the high road to the Mediterranean was secured by the
possession of the Hittite town of Pitru[75] at the junction between the Euphrates and Sajur; thence he
proceeded to conquer the Canaanite/Phoenician city-states of Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Berytus (Beirut),
Aradus 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.[74] 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.[74] He was
succeeded by Asharid-apal-Ekur who reigned for only a short time.

Ashur-bel-kala (1073–1056 BC) kept the vast empire together, campaigning successfully against Urartu and
Phrygia to the north and the Arameans to the west. He maintained friendly relations with Marduk-shapik-
zeri of Babylon, however upon the death of that king, he invaded Babylonia and deposed the new ruler
Kadašman-Buriaš, appointing Adad-apla-iddina as his vassal in Babylon. He built some of the earliest
examples of both Zoological Gardens and Botanical Gardens in Ashur, collecting all manner of animals and
plants from his empire, and receiving a collection of exotic animals as tributes from Egypt.

Late in his reign, the Middle Assyrian Empire erupted into civil war, when a rebellion was orchestrated by
Tukulti-Mer, a pretender to the throne of Assyria. Ashur-bel-kala eventually crushed Tukulti-Mer and his
allies, however the civil war in Assyria had allowed hordes of Arameans to take advantage of the situation,
and press in on Assyrian controlled territory from the west. Ashur-bel-kala counterattacked them, and
conquered as far as Carchemish and the source of the Khabur river, but by the end of his reign many of the
areas of Syria and Phoenicia-Canaan to the west of these regions as far as the Mediterranean, previously
under firm Assyrian control, were eventually lost to the Middle Assyrian Empire.

Society and law in the Middle Assyrian Period

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 Middle Assyrian Period was marked by the long wars fought
that helped build Assyria into a warrior society. The king depended
on both the citizen class and priests in his capital, and the landed
nobility who supplied the horses needed by Assyria's military.
Documents and letters illustrate the importance of the latter to
Assyrian quartet.
Assyrian society. Assyria needed less artificial irrigation than
Babylonia, and horse-breeding was extensive. Portions of elaborate
texts about the care and training of them have been found. Trade was
carried out in all directions. The mountain country to the north and west of Assyria was a major source of
metal ore, as well as lumber. Economic factors were a common casus belli.

All free male citizens were obliged to serve in the army for a time, a system which was called the ilku-
service. A legal code was produced during the 14th and 13th centuries which, among other things, clearly
shows that the social position of women in Assyria was lower than that of neighbouring societies. Men were
permitted to divorce their wives with no compensation paid to the latter. If a woman committed adultery, she
could be beaten or put to death. It's not certain if these laws were seriously enforced, but they appear to be a
backlash against some older documents that granted things like equal compensation to both partners in
divorce.

The women of the king's harem and their servants were also subject to harsh punishments, such as beatings,
mutilation, and death. Assyria, in general, had much harsher laws than most of the region. Executions were
not uncommon, nor were whippings followed by forced labour. Some offenses allowed the accused a trial
under torture or duress. One tablet that covers property rights has brutal penalties for violators. A creditor
could force debtors to work for him, but not sell them.

In the Middle Assyrian Laws, sex crimes were punished identically whether they were homosexual or
heterosexual.[76] An individual faced no punishment for penetrating a cult prostitute, someone of an equal or
lower social class, such as slaves, or someone whose gender roles were not considered solidly masculine.
Such sexual relations were even seen as good fortune.[77] However, homosexual relationships with royal
attendants, between soldiers, or with those where a social better was submissive or penetrated were either
treated as rape or seen as bad omens, and punishments applied.[76]

Furthermore, the article 'Homosexualität' in Reallexicon der Assyriologie states, "Homosexuality in itself is
thus nowhere condemned as licentiousness, as immorality, as social disorder, or as transgressing any human
or divine law. Anyone could practice it freely, just as anyone could visit a prostitute, provided it was done
without violence and without compulsion, and preferably as far as taking the passive role was concerned,
with specialists. That there was nothing religiously amiss with homosexual love between men is seen by the
fact that they prayed for divine blessing on it. It seems clear that the Mesopotamians saw nothing wrong in
homosexual acts between consenting adults".[78][79][80]

Assyria during the Bronze Age Collapse, 1200–936 BC

The Bronze Age Collapse from 1200 BC to 900 BC was a Dark Age for the entire Near East, North Africa,
Asia Minor, Caucasus, Mediterranean and Balkan regions, with great upheavals and mass movements of
people.
Assyria and its empire were not unduly affected by these tumultuous events for some 150 years, perhaps the
only ancient power that was not, and in fact thrived for most of the period. However, upon the death of
Ashur-bel-kala in 1056 BC, Assyria went into a comparative decline for the next 100 or so years. The
empire shrank significantly, and by 1020 BC Assyria appears to have controlled only areas close to Assyria
itself, essential to keeping trade routes open in eastern Aramea, South Eastern Asia Minor, central
Mesopotamia and north western Iran.

New West Semitic-speaking peoples such as the Arameans and Suteans moved into areas to the west and
south of Assyria, including overrunning much of Babylonia to the south, Indo-European speaking Iranic
peoples such as the Medes, Persians, Sarmatians and Parthians moved into the lands to the east of Assyria,
displacing the native Kassites and Gutians and pressuring Elam and Mannea (all of which ancient non-Indo-
European civilisations of Ancient Iran), and to the north in Asia Minor the Phrygians overran that part of the
Hittites not already destroyed by Assyria, and Lydia emerged, a new Hurrian state named Urartu arose in the
Caucasus, and Cimmerians, Colchians (Georgians) and Scythians around the Black Sea and Caucasus.
Egypt was divided and in disarray, and Israelites were battling with other West Asian peoples such as the
Amalekites, Moabites, Edomites and Ammonites and the non-Semitic-speaking Peleset/Philistines (who
have been conjectured to be one of the so-called Sea Peoples)[81][82] for the control of southern Canaan.
Dorian Greeks usurped the earlier Mycenaean Greeks in western Asia Minor, and the Sea Peoples ravaged
the Eastern Mediterranean.

Other new peoples, such as the Chaldeans, Sarmatians, Arabs, Nubians and Kushites were to emerge later,
during the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC).

Despite the apparent weakness of Assyria in comparison to its

former might, at heart it in fact remained a solid, well defended
nation whose warriors were the best in the world.[52] Assyria, with
its stable monarchy, powerful army and secure borders was in a
stronger position during this time than potential rivals such as Egypt,
Babylonia, Elam, Phrygia, Urartu, Persia, Lydia and Media. Kings
such as 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.
Assyrian relief depicting battle with
Assyrian kings during this period appear to have adopted a policy of camel riders, from Kalhu (Nimrud)
maintaining and defending a compact, secure nation and satellite Central Palace, Tiglath Pileser III,
728 BCE, British Museum
colonies immediately surrounding it, and interspersed this with
sporadic punitive raids and invasions of neighbouring territories
when the need arose, including campaigning as far as the
Mediterranean and sacking Babylonia.

Neo-Assyrian Empire

The Neo-Assyrian Empire is usually considered to have begun Neo-Assyrian Empire

with the ascension of Adad-nirari II, in 911 BC, lasting until the
911 BC–609 BC[83]
fall of Nineveh at the hands of the Medes/Persians and
Babylonians, Chaldeans in 609 BC.[84]

Assyria maintained a large and thriving rural population,

combined with a number of well fortified cities, Major Assyrian
cities during this period included; Nineveh, Assur, Kalhu
(Calah, Nimrud), Arbela (Erbil), Arrapha (Karka, Kirkuk), Dur-
Sharrukin, Imgur-Enlil, Carchemish, Harran, Tushhan, Til-
Barsip, Ekallatum, Kanesh, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, Urhai
(Edessa), Guzana, Kahat, Amid (Diyarbakir), Mérida (Mardin,
Tabitu, Nuhadra (Dohuk), Ivah, Sepharvaim, Rachae,
Purushanda, Sabata, Birtha (Tikrit), Tell Shemshara, Dur-
Katlimmu and Shekhna.

Assyria is often noted for its brutality and cruelty during this
period, although Assyrian harshness was reserved solely for
those who took up arms against the Assyrian king, and none of
the Assyrian kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire or preceding The Neo-Assyrian empire at its greatest
Middle Assyrian Empire conducted genocides, massacres or extent, 671 BC
ethnic cleansings against civilian populations, non-combatant Capital Aššur 911 BC
men, or women and children.[85][86] Kalhu 879 BC
Dur-Sharrukin
706 BC
Expansion, 911–627 BC Nineveh 705
BC
Assyria once more began to expand with the rise of Adad-nirari Harran 612 BC
II in 911 BC. He cleared Aramean and other tribal peoples from Common languages Akkadian
Assyria's borders and began to expand in all directions into (official)
Anatolia, Ancient Iran, Levant and Babylonia. Aramaic (official)
Sumerian
Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC) continued this expansion apace, (declining)
subjugating much of the Levant to the west, the newly arrived Hittite
Persians and Medes to the east, annexed central Mesopotamia Hurrian
Phoenician
from Babylon to the south, and expanded deep into Asia Minor Egyptian
to the north. He moved the capital from Ashur to Kalhu
(Calah/Nimrud) and undertook impressive building works Religion Ancient
Mesopotamian
throughout Assyria. Shalmaneser III (859–824 BC) projected
religion
Assyrian power even further, conquering to the foothills of the
Caucasus, Israel and Aram-Damascus, and subjugating Persia Government Monarchy
and the Arabs who dwelt to the south of Mesopotamia, as well King
as driving the Egyptians from Canaan. It was during the reign of • 911–891 BC Adad-nirari II
Shalmaneser III that the Arabs and Chaldeans first enter the (first)
pages of recorded history. • 612–609 BC Ashur-uballit II
(last)
Little further expansion took place under Shamshi-Adad V and Historical era Iron Age
his successor, the regent queen Semiramis, however when • Reign of Adad- 911 BC
Adad-nirari III (811–783 BC) came of age, he took the reins of nirari II
power from mother and set about a relentless campaign of • Battle of Nineveh 612 BC
conquest; subjugated the Arameans, Phoenicians, Philistines, • Siege of Harran 609 BC[83]
Israelites, Neo-Hittites and Edomites, Persians, Medes and
Manneans, penetrating as far as the Caspian Sea. He invaded Preceded by Succeeded by
and subjugated Babylonia, and then the migrant Chaldean and Middle Median
Sutean tribes settled in south eastern Mesopotamia whom he Assyrian Empire
conquered and reduced to vassalage. Empire Neo-
Twenty- Babylonian
After the reign of Adad-nirari III, Assyria entered a period of fifth Empire
Dynasty of Twenty-
instability and decline, losing its hold over most of its vassal Egypt sixth
and tributary territories by the middle of the 8th century BC, Kingdom Dynasty of
until the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC). He created of Israel Egypt
the world's first professional army, introduced Imperial Aramaic (Samaria)
as the lingua franca of Assyria and its vast empire, and Elam
reorganised the empire drastically. Tiglath-Pileser III conquered
as far as the East Mediterranean, bringing the Greeks of Cyprus, Phoenicia, Judah, Philistia, Samaria and the
whole of Aramea under Assyrian control. Not satisfied with merely holding Babylonia in vassalage, Tiglath-
Pileser deposed its king and had himself crowned king of Babylon. The imperial, economic, political,
military and administrative reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III were to prove a blueprint for future empires, such
as those of the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians, Byzantines, Arabs and Turks.

Shalmaneser V reigned only briefly, but once more drove the Egyptians from southern Canaan, where they
were fomenting revolt against Assyria. Sargon II quickly took Samaria, effectively ending the northern
Kingdom of Israel and carrying 27,000 people away into captivity into the Israelite diaspora. He was forced
to fight a war to drive out the Scythians and Cimmerians who had attempted to invade Assyria's vassal states
of Persia and Media. The Neo-Hittite states of northern Syria were conquered, as well as Cilicia. Lydia and
Commagene. King Midas of Phrygia, fearful of Assyrian power, offered his hand in friendship. Elam was
defeated and Babylonia and Chaldea reconquered. He made a new capital city named Dur Sharrukin. He
was succeeded by his son Sennacherib who moved the capital to Nineveh and made the deported peoples
work on improving Nineveh's system of irrigation canals. Nineveh was transformed into the largest city in
the world at the time.

Esarhaddon had Babylon rebuilt, he imposed a vassal treaty upon his Persian, Median and Parthian subjects,
and he once more defeated the Scythes and Cimmerians. Tiring of Egyptian interference in the Assyrian
Empire, Esarhaddon decided to conquer Egypt. In 671 BC he crossed the Sinai Desert, invaded and took
Egypt with surprising ease and speed. He drove its foreign Nubian/Kushite and Ethiopian rulers out,
destroying the Kushite Empire in the process. Esarhaddon declared himself "king of Egypt, Libya, and
Kush". Esarhaddon stationed a small army in northern Egypt and describes how; "All Ethiopians (read
Nubians/Kushites) I deported from Egypt, leaving not one left to do homage to me". He installed native
Egyptian princes throughout the land to rule on his behalf.

Under Ashurbanipal (669–627 BC), an unusually well educated king

for his time who could speak, read and write in Sumerian, Akkadian
and Aramaic, Assyrian domination spanned from the Caucasus
Mountains (modern Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) in the north
to Nubia, Egypt, Libya and Arabia in the south, and from the East
Mediterranean, Cyprus and Antioch in the west to Persia, Cissia and
the Caspian Sea in the east.

Ultimately, Assyria conquered Babylonia, Chaldea, Elam, Media,

Persia, Urartu (Armenia), Phoenicia, Aramea/Syria, Phrygia, the
Neo-Hittite States, the Hurrian lands, Arabia, Gutium, Israel, Judah,
Samarra, Moab, Edom, Corduene, Cilicia, Mannea, and Cyprus, and
Assyrian Empire to the death of
defeated and/or exacted tribute from Scythia, Cimmeria, Lydia,
Ashurbanipal. In dark green the
Nubia, Ethiopia and others. At its height, the Empire encompassed pahitu/pahutu (provinces), in yellow
the whole of the modern nations of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, the matu (subjects kingdoms), in
Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Cyprus, together with large cream color the Babylon kingdom,
swathes of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Sudan, Libya, Armenia, the yellow points show other
Georgia and Azerbaijan. subjects kingdoms, the black points
show the pahitu/pahutu (provinces)
of Babylon kingdom, and the brown
Downfall, 626–609 BC letters provinces that existed
previously
The Assyrian Empire was severely crippled following the death of
Ashurbanipal in 627 BC, the nation and its empire descending into a
prolonged and brutal series of civil wars involving three rival kings, Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and
Sin-shar-ishkun. Egypt's 26th Dynasty, which had been installed by the
Assyrians as vassals, quietly detached itself from Assyria, although it was
careful to retain friendly relations.

The Scythians and Cimmerians took advantage of the bitter fighting among
the Assyrians to raid Assyrian colonies, with hordes of horse-borne
marauders ravaging parts of Asia Minor and the Caucasus, where the vassal
kings of Urartu and Lydia begged their Assyrian overlord for help in vain.
They also raided the Levant, Israel and Judah (where Ashkelon was sacked
by the Scythians) and all the way into Egypt whose coasts were ravaged and
looted with impunity.
Ashurbanipal's brutal
The Iranic peoples under the Medes, aided by the previous Assyrian campaign against Elam in
destruction of the hitherto dominant Elamites of Ancient Iran, also took 647 BC is recorded in this
advantage of the upheavals in Assyria to coalesce into a powerful Median- relief of the destruction of
dominated force which destroyed the pre-Iranic kingdom of Mannea and the city of Hamanu.
absorbed the remnants of the pre-Iranic Elamites of southern[Iran, and the
equally pre-Iranic Gutians, Manneans and Kassites of the Zagros Mountains
and the Caspian Sea.

Cyaxares (technically a vassal of Assyria), in an alliance with the Scythians and Cimmerians, launched a
surprise attack on a civil war beleaguered Assyria in 615 BC, sacking Kalhu (the Biblical Calah/Nimrud)
and taking Arrapha (modern Kirkuk) and Gasur. Nabopolassar, still pinned down in southern Mesopotamia
by Assyrian forces, was completely uninvolved in this major breakthrough against Assyria.

Despite the sorely depleted state of Assyria, bitter fighting ensued; throughout 614 BC the Medes continued
to gradually make hard fought inroads into Assyria itself, scoring a decisive and devastating victory over the
Assyrian forces at the battle of Assur.[87] In 613 BC, however, the Assyrians scored a number of
counterattacking victories over the Medes-Persians, Babylonians-Chaldeans and Scythians-Cimmerians.
This led to the unification of the forces ranged against Assyria who launched a massive combined attack,
finally besieging and entering Nineveh in late 612 BC, with Sin-shar-ishkun being slain in the bitter street
by street fighting. Despite the loss of almost all of its major cities, and in the face of overwhelming odds,
Assyrian resistance continued under Ashur-uballit II (612–609 BC), who fought his way out of Nineveh and
coalesced Assyrian forces around Harran which finally fell in 609 BC. The same year, Ashur-uballit II
besieged Harran with the help of the Egyptian army, but this failed too, and this last defeat ended the
Assyrian Empire.[87][88][89] During the aftermath, Egypt, along with remnants of the Assyrian army, suffered
a defeat at the battle of Carchemish, in 605 BC, but the Assyrian troops did not participate to this battle as
the army of the Assyrian state because certainly by 609 BC at the very latest,[90][91] Assyria had been
destroyed as an independent political entity, although it was to launch major rebellions against the
Achaemenid Empire in 546 BC and 520 BC, and remained a geo-political region, ethnic entity and
colonised province.

Assyria after the empire

Achaemenid Assyria, Osroene, Asōristān, Athura and Hatra

Assyria was initially ruled by the short-lived Median Empire (609–549 BC) after its fall. In a twist of fate,
Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon (together with his son and co-regent Belshazzar), was himself an
Assyrian from Harran. He had overthrown the short-lived Chaldean dynasty in Babylonia, after which the
Chaldeans disappeared from history, being fully absorbed into the native population of Babylonia. However,
apart from plans to dedicate religious temples in the city of Harran, Nabonidus showed little interest in
rebuilding Assyria. Nineveh and Kalhu
remained in ruins with only small
numbers of Assyrians living within them;
conversely, a number of towns and cities,
such as Arrapkha, Guzana, Nohadra and
Harran, remained intact, and Assur and
Arbela (Irbil) were not completely
destroyed, as is attested by their later
Athura in the Achaemenid period.
revival. However, Assyria spent much of
this short period in a degree of
devastation, following its fall.

Achaemenid Assyria (549–330 BC)

After the Medes were overthrown by Achaemenid Assyria

the Persians as the dominant force in
Ancient Iran, Assyria was ruled by the
Persian Achaemenid Empire (as
Athura) from 549 BC to 330 BC (see
Achaemenid Assyria). Between 546
and 545 BC, Assyria rebelled against
the new Persian Dynasty, which had
usurped the previous Median dynasty.
The rebellion centered around Tyareh
was eventually quashed by Cyrus the
Great.

Assyria seems to have recovered

dramatically, and flourished during
this period. It became a major
agricultural and administrative centre Assyria during the Persian empire, 588 Assyrian soldier in the
of the Achaemenid Empire, and its until 536 BC. Achaemenid army circa
soldiers were a mainstay of the 470 BC, Xerxes I tomb .
Persian Army.[92] In fact, Assyria
even became powerful enough to raise
another full-scale revolt against the Persian empire in 520–519 BC.

The Persians had spent centuries under Assyrian domination (their first ruler Achaemenes and his
successors, having been vassals of Assyria), 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, and
Greek writers such as Thucydides still referred to it as the Assyrian language.[93] Nineveh was never rebuilt
however, and 200 years after it was sacked Xenophon reported only small numbers of Assyrians living
amongst its ruins. Conversely the ancient city of Assur once more became a rich and prosperous entity.[94]

It was in 5th century BC Assyria that the Syriac language and Syriac script evolved. Five centuries later
these were later to have a global influence as the liturgical language and written script for Syriac Christianity
and its accompanying Syriac literature which also emerged in Assyria before spreading throughout the Near
East, Asia Minor, The Caucasus, Central Asia, the Indian Subcontinent and China.

Macedonian and Seleucid Assyria

In 332 BC, Assyria fell to Alexander the Great, the Macedonian Emperor, who called the inhabitants
Assyrioi. The Macedonian Empire (332–312) was partitioned in 312 BC. It thereafter became part of the
Seleucid Empire (312 BC). It is from this period that the later Syria vs Assyria naming controversy arises,
the Seleucids applied the name 'Syria' which is a 9th-century BC Indo-Anatolian derivation of 'Assyria' (see
Etymology of Syria) not only to Assyria itself, but also to the Levantine lands to the west (historically
known as Aram and Eber Nari), which had been part of the Assyrian empire but, the north east corner aside,
never a part of Assyria proper.

When the Seleucids lost control of Assyria proper, the name Syria survived but was erroneously applied not
only to the land of Assyria itself, but also now to Aramea (also known as Eber Nari) to the west that had
once been part of the Assyrian empire, but apart from the north eastern corner, had never been a part of
Assyria itself, nor inhabited by Assyrians. This was to lead to both the Assyrians from Northern
Mesopotamia and the Arameans and Phoenicians from the Levant being collectively dubbed Syrians (and
later also Syriacs) in Greco-Roman and later European culture, regardless of ethnicity, history or geography.

During Seleucid rule, Assyrians ceased to hold the senior military, economic and civil positions they had
enjoyed under the Achaemenids, being largely replaced by Greeks. The Greek language also replaced
Mesopotamian East Aramaic as the lingua franca of the empire, although this did not affect the Assyrian
population themselves, who were not Hellenised during the Seleucid era.

During the Seleucid period in southern Mesopotamia, Babylon was gradually abandoned in favour of a new
city named Seleucia on the Tigris, effectively bringing an end to Babylonia as a geo-political entity.

Parthian Assyria (150 BC – 225 AD)

By 150 BC, Assyria was largely under the control of the Parthian Empire. The Parthians seem to have
exercised only loose control over Assyria, and between the mid 2nd century BC and 4th century AD a
number of Neo-Assyrian states arose; these included the ancient capital of Assur itself, Adiabene with its
capital of Arbela (modern Irbil), Beth Nuhadra with its capital of Nohadra (modern Dohuk), Osroene, with
its capitals of Edessa and Amid (modern Sanliurfa and Diyarbakir), Hatra, and " " (Beth Garmai)
with its capital at Arrapha (modern Kirkuk). [95] Adiabenian rulers converted to Judaism from paganism in
the 1st century.[96] After 115 AD, there are no historic traces of Jewish royalty in Adiabene.

These freedoms were accompanied by a major Assyrian cultural revival, and temples to the Assyrian
national gods Ashur, Sin, Hadad, Ishtar, Ninurta, Tammuz and Shamash were once more dedicated
throughout Assyria and Upper Mesopotamia during this period.[97]

In addition, Christianity arrived in Assyria soon after the death of Christ and the Assyrians began to
gradually convert to Christianity from the ancient Mesopotamian religion during the period between the
early first and third centuries. Assyria became an important centre of Syriac Christianity and Syriac
Literature, with the Church of the East evolving in Assyria, and the Syriac Orthodox Church partly also,
with Osroene becoming the first independent Christian state in history.[12]

Roman Assyria (116–118)

However, in 116, under Trajan, Assyria and its independent states were briefly taken over by Rome as the
province of Assyria. The Assyrian kingdom of Adiabene was destroyed as an independent state during this
period. Roman rule lasted only a few years, and the Parthians once more regained control with the help of
the Assyrians, who were incited to overthrow the Roman garrisons by the Parthian king. However, a number
of Assyrians were conscripted into the Roman Army, with many serving in the region of Hadrian's Wall in
Roman Britain, and inscriptions in Aramaic made by soldiers have been discovered in Northern England
dating from the second century.[98]
With loose Parthian rule restored, Assyria and its patchwork of states continued much as they had before the
Roman interregnum, although Assyria and Mesopotamia as a whole became a front line between the Roman
and Parthian empires. Other new religious movements also emerged in the form of gnostic sects such as
Mandeanism, as well as the now extinct Manichean religion.

Christian period

Sassanid Assyria (226 – c. 650)

In 226, Assyria was largely taken over by the

Sasanian Empire. After driving out the
Romans and Parthians, the Sassanid rulers set
about annexing the independent states within
Assyria during the mid- to late 3rd century, the
last being Assur itself in the late 250s to early
260s. Christianity continued to spread, and
many of the ethnically Assyrian churches that
exist today are among the oldest in the world.
For example, the Syriac Orthodox Church is
purported to have been founded by St Peter
himself in 67 AD. Upper Mesopotamia and Syria in the early Christian period,
with Edessa in the left upper quadrant
Nevertheless, although predominantly
Christian, a minority of Assyrians still held
onto their ancient Mesopotamian religion until as late as the 10th or 11th century AD.[99][100] The Assyrians
lived in a province known as Asuristan, and the region was on the frontier of the Byzantine and Sassanian
empires.

The land was known as Asōristān (the Sassanid Persian name meaning "Land of the Assyrians") during this
period, and became the birthplace of the distinct Church of the East (now split into the Assyrian Church of
the East, Ancient Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church) and a centre of the Syriac Orthodox
Church, with a flourishing Syriac (Assyrian) Christian culture which exists there to this day. Temples were
still being dedicated to the national god Ashur (as well as other Mesopotamian gods) in his home city, in
Harran and elsewhere during the 4th and 5th centuries AD, indicating the ancient pre-Christian Assyrian
identity was still extant to some degree.

During the Sasanian period, much of what had once been Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia was
incorporated into Assyria, and in effect the whole of Mesopotamia came to be known as Asōristān. Parts of
Assyria appear to have been semi independent as late as the latter part of the 4th century AD, with a king
named Sennacherib II reputedly ruling the northern reaches in 370s AD.

Arab Islamic conquest (630–780)

Centuries of constant warfare between the Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Empire left both empires
exhausted, which made both of them open to loss in a war against the Muslim Arab army, under the
newfound Rashidun Caliphate. After the early Islamic conquests, Assyria was dissolved as an official
administrative entity by an empire. Under Arab rule, Mesopotamia as a whole underwent a gradual process
of further Arabisation and the beginning of Islamification, and the region saw a large influx of non-
indigenous Arabs, Kurds, Iranian, and Turkic peoples.
However, the indigenous Assyrian population of northern Mesopotamia retained their language, religion,
culture and identity.

Under the Arab Islamic empires, the Christian Assyrians were classed as dhimmis, who had certain
restrictions imposed upon them. Assyrians were thus excluded from specific duties and occupations reserved
for Muslims, they did not enjoy the same political rights as Muslims, their word was not equal to that of a
Muslim in legal and civil matters without a Muslim witness, they were subject to payment of a special tax
(jizyah) and they were banned from spreading their religion further in Muslim-ruled lands. However,
personal matters such as marriage and divorce were governed by the cultural laws of the Assyrians.[101][102]

For those reasons, and even during the Sassanian period before Islamic rule, The Assyrian Church of the
East formed a church structure that spread Nestorian Christianity to as far away as China, in order to
proselytize away from Muslim-ruled regions in Iran and their homeland in Mesopotamia, with evidence of
their massive church structure being the Nestorian Stele, an artifact found in China which documented over
100 years of Christian history in China from 600 to 781 AD.[103] Assyrian Christians maintained relations
with fellow Christians in Armenia and Georgia throughout the Middle Ages. In the 12th century AD,
Assyrian priests interceded on behalf of persecuted Arab Muslims in Georgia.[104]

Mongol Empire (1200–1300)

The first signs of trouble for the Assyrians started in the 13th century, when the Mongols first invaded the
Near East after the fall of Baghdad in 1258 to Hulagu Khan.[105] Assyrians at first did very well under
Mongol rule, as the Shamanist Mongols were sympathetic to them, with Assyrian priests having traveled to
Mongolia centuries before. The Mongols in fact spent most of their time oppressing Muslims and Jews,
outlawing the practice of circumcision and halal butchery, as they found them repulsive and violent.[106]
Therefore, as one of the only groups in the region looked at in a good light, Assyrians were given special
privileges and powers, with Hülegü even appointing an Assyrian Christian governor to Erbil (Arbela), and
allowing the Syriac Orthodox Church to build a church there.[107]

However, the Mongol rulers in the Near East eventually converted to

Islam. Sustained persecutions of Christians throughout the entirety
of the Ilkhanate began in earnest in 1295 under the rule of Oïrat amir
Nauruz, which affected the indigenous Christians greatly.[108]
During the reign of the Ilkhan Öljeitü, the inhabitants of Erbil seized
control of the citadel and much of the city in rebellion against the
Muslims. In spring 1310, the Mongol Malik (governor) of the region
attempted to seize it from them with the help of the Kurds and Aramaic language and Syriac
Arabs, but was defeated. After his defeat he decided to siege the city. Christianity in the Middle East and
The Assyrians held out for three months, but the citadel was at last Central Asia until being largely
taken by Ilkhanate troops and Arab, Turkic and Kurdish tribesmen annihilated by Tamerlane in the 14th
on 1 July 1310. The defenders of the citadel fought to the last man, century
and many of the inhabitants of the lower town were subsequently
massacred.

Regardless of these hardships, the Assyrian people remained numerically dominant in the north of
Mesopotamia as late as the 14th century AD, and the city of Assur functioned as their religious and cultural
capital. The seat of the Catholicos of the Church of the East was Seleucia-Ctesiphon, not Assur. In the mid-
14th century the Muslim Turkish ruler Tamurlane conducted a religiously motivated massacre of the
indigenous Christians, and entirely destroyed the vast Church of the East structure established throughout
the Far East outside what had been the Sasanid Empire, with the exception of the St Thomas Christians of
the Malabar Coast in India, who numbered 4.2 million in the 2011 census of Kerala.[109] After Timur's
campaign, ancient Assyria's cultural and religious capital of Assur fell entirely into ruins and part of it was
used as a graveyard until the 1970s.[110]

Breakup of the Church of the East (1552–1830)

Around 100 years after the massacres by Timur, a religious schism known as the Schism of 1552 occurred
among the Christians of northern Mesopotamia. A large number of followers of the Church of the East were
dissatisfied with the leadership of the Church, at this point based in the Rabban Hormizd Monastery near
Alqosh, and in particular with the system of hereditary succession of the patriarch. Three bishops elected the
abbot of the monastery, Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa, as a rival patriarch. These did not have the rank of
metropolitan bishop, which was required for appointing a patriarch and which was granted only to members
of the patriarch's family. Sulaqa therefore went to Rome to be made a patriarch, entered into communion
with the Catholic Church and was appointed "Patriarch of Mosul in Eastern Syria"[111] or "Patriarch of the
Chaldean church of Mosul"[112] by Pope Julius III in 1553. He won support only in Diyarbakır (known also
as Amid), where he set up his residence, and in Mardin. In 1555, he was killed by the Turkish authorities
after being denounced by the traditionalist patriarch, but the metropolitans he had ordained elected a
successor for him, initiating the Shimun line of patriarchs, all of whom took the name Shimun (Simon). The
patriarchs of this line requested and obtained confirmation from Rome only until 1583. In 1672 they clearly
broke off communion with Rome, but continued as a line of patriarchs independent from that at Alqosh,
with their seat, from then on, at Qodchanis in the Hakkari mountains.[113] In a letter of 29 June 1653, 19
years before the Shimun line broke off relations with Rome, Shimun XI Eshuyow (1638–1656) called
himself Patriarch of the Chaldeans. There is no record of a response from Rome confirming him as Catholic
patriarch.[114]

Biblical Aramaic was until recently called Chaldaic or Chaldee,[115][116] and East Syrian Christians, whose
liturgical language was and is a form of Aramaic, were called Chaldeans,[117] as an ethnic, not a religious
term. Hormuzd Rassam (1826–1910) still applied the term "Chaldeans" no less to those not in communion
with Rome than to the Catholic Chaldeans[118] and stated that "the present Chaldeans, with a few
exceptions, speak the same dialect used in the Targum, and in some parts of Ezra and Daniel, which are
called 'Chaldee'."[119]

Long before 1672, the Shimun line, as it "gradually returned to the traditional worship of the Church of the
East, thereby losing the allegiance of the western regions",[120] moved from Turkish-controlled Diyarbakır
to Urmia in Persia. The bishopric of Diyarbakır became subject to the Alqosh patriarch. Bishop Joseph of
Diyarbakır converted to the Catholic faith in 1667 or 1668. In 1677, he obtained recognition from the
Turkish authorities as invested with independent power in Diyarbakır and Mardin, and in 1681 he was
recognized by Rome as "patriarch of the Chaldean nation deprived of its patriarch". Thus was instituted the
Josephite line, a third line of patriarchs.[121]

In the Alqosh line, Eliya VII (1591–1617), Eliya VIII (1617–1660) and Eliya IX (1660–1700) contacted
Rome at various times but without establishing union.[122] Union was achieved in 1771 under Eliya XI, who
died in 1778. His successor Eliya XII, after sending his profession of faith to Rome and receiving
confirmation as Catholic patriarch, adopted a traditionalist position in 1779. His opponents elected
Yohannan Hormizd, a young nephew of Eliya XI, whom Eliya XI had intended to be his successor.
Although Yohannan Hormizd won the support of most of the followers of the Alqosh patriarchate, Rome
considered his election to be irregular and, instead of accepting him as patriarch, merely confirmed him as
metropolitan of Mosul and patriarchal administrator. He was thus granted the powers and the insignia of a
patriarch, but not the title. It made the same arrangement in Diyarbakır, appointing as patriarchal
administrator Augustine Hindi, a nephew of Joseph IV, whom his uncle wished to be his successor as
patriarch. There were thus two traditionalist patriarchates (the Eliya line and the Shimun) and, under
administrators, two Catholic patriarchates (Diyarbakır and Alqosh/Mosul).
In 1804, Eliya XI died and had no traditionalist successor. Augustine Hindi died in 1827 and, in 1830, Rome
appointed Yohannan Hormizd as patriarch of all the Catholics. The Shimun line, which had been the first to
enter union with Rome, remained at the head of the traditionalist church that in 1976 adopted the name
Assyrian Church of the East,[123][124][125] and that continued to be in the hands of the same family until the
death in 1975 of Shimun XXI Eshai. At the same time, the originally traditionalist Alqosh line continues,
without hereditary succession, at the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church.

Modern history

Ottoman Empire (1900–1928)

After these splits, the Assyrians suffered a number of religiously and

ethnically motivated massacres throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th
centuries,[127] such as the Massacres of Badr Khan which resulted in
the massacre of over 10,000 Assyrians in the 1840s,[128] culminating
in the large scale Hamidian massacres of unarmed men, women and
children by Turks and Kurds in the 1890s at the hands of the
Ottoman Empire and its associated (largely Kurdish and Arab)
The burning of bodies of Christian
militias, which greatly reduced their numbers, particularly in
women by Kurdish women, to
southeastern Turkey where over 25,000 Assyrians were
recover the gold and precious
murdered.[129] The Adana massacre of 1909 largely aimed at
stones they were supposed to have
Armenian Christians also accounted for the murder of some 1,500 swallowed during the Assyrian
Assyrians.[130] Genocide[126]

The Assyrians suffered a further catastrophic series of events during

World War I in the form of the religiously and ethnically motivated
Assyrian Genocide at the hands of the Ottomans and their Kurdish and Arab allies from 1915 to
1918.[131][132][133][134] Some sources claim that the highest number of Assyrians killed during the period
was 750,000, while a 1922 Assyrian assessment set it at 275,000. The Assyrian Genocide ran largely in
conjunction with the similarly ethno-religiously motivated Armenian Genocide, Greek Genocide and Great
Famine of Mount Lebanon.

In reaction against Ottoman cruelty, the Assyrians took up arms, and an Assyrian independence movement
began during the turbulent events of World War I. For a time, the Assyrians fought successfully against
overwhelming numbers, scoring a number of victories against the Ottomans and Kurds, and also hostile
Arab and Iranian groups. However, due to the collapse of the Russian Empire—due to the Russian
Revolution—and the similar collapse of the Armenian Defense, the Assyrians were left without allies. As a
result, the Assyrians were vastly outnumbered, outgunned, surrounded, cut off, and without supplies. The
only option they had was to flee the region into northwest Iran and fight their way, with around 50,000
civilians in tow, to British train lines going to Mandatory Iraq. The sizable Assyrian presence in south
eastern Anatolia which had endured for over four millennia was thus reduced to no more than 15,000 by the
end of World War I, and by 1924 many of those who remained were forcibly expelled in a display of ethnic
cleansing by the Turkish government, with many leaving and later founding villages in the Sapna and Nahla
valleys in the Dohuk Governorate of Iraq.

In 1920 the Assyrian settlements in Mindan and Baquba were attacked by Iraqi Arabs, but the Assyrian
tribesmen displayed their military prowess by successfully defeating and driving off the Arab forces.[135]
The Assyrians also sided with the British during the Iraqi revolt against the British.
The Assyrian Levies were founded by the British in 1922, with ancient Assyrian military rankings, such as
Rab-shakeh, Rab-talia and Turtanu, being revived for the first time in millennia for this force. The Assyrians
were prized by the British rulers for their fighting qualities, loyalty, bravery and discipline, and were used to
help the British put down insurrections among the Arabs, Kurds and Turcoman, guard the borders with Iran
and Turkey, and protect British military installations. During the 1920s Assyrian levies saw action in
effectively defeating Arab and Kurdish forces during anti-British rebellions in Iraq.[135][136][137]

Simele Massacre and World War II (1930–1950)

After Iraq was granted independence by the British in 1933, the Assyrians suffered the Simele Massacre,
where thousands of unarmed villagers (men, women and children) were slaughtered by joint Arab-Kurdish
forces of the Iraqi Army. The massacres of civilians followed a clash between armed Assyrian tribesmen and
the Iraqi army, where the Iraqi forces suffered a defeat after trying to disarm the Assyrians, whom they
feared would attempt to secede from Iraq. Armed Assyrian Levies were prevented by the British from going
to the aid of these civilians, and the British government then whitewashed the massacres at the League of
Nations.

Despite these betrayals, the Assyrians were allied with the British during World War II, with eleven
Assyrian companies seeing action in Palestine/Israel and another four serving in Greece, Cyprus and
Albania. Assyrians played a major role in the victory over Arab-Iraqi forces at the Battle of Habbaniya and
elsewhere in 1941, when the Iraqi government decided to join World War II on the side of Nazi Germany.
The British presence in Iraq lasted until 1955, and Assyrian Levies remained attached to British forces until
this time, after which they were disarmed and disbanded.

A further persecution of Assyrians took place in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and early 1950s when
thousands of Assyrians settled in Georgia, Armenia and southern Russia were forcibly deported from their
homes in the dead of night by Stalin without warning or reason to Central Asia, with most being relocated to
Kazakhstan, where a small minority still remain.[138]

Ba'athism (1966–2003)

The period from the 1940s through to 1963 was a period of respite
for the Assyrians in northern Iraq and north east Syria. The regime
of Iraqi President Kassim in particular saw the Assyrians accepted
into mainstream society. Many urban Assyrians became successful
businessmen, a number of Assyrians moved south to cities such as
Baghdad, Basra and Nasiriyah to enhance their economic prospects,
others were well represented in politics, the military, the arts and
entertainment, Assyrian towns, villages, farmsteads and Assyrian
The Flag of the Assyrian Nation
quarters in major cities flourished undisturbed, and Assyrians came
(created and used since 1968)[139]
to excel and be over-represented in sports such as boxing, football,
athletics, wrestling and swimming.

However, in 1963, the Ba'ath Party took power by force in Iraq, and came to power in Syria the same year.
The Baathists, though secular, were Arab nationalists, and set about attempting to Arabize the many non-
Arab peoples of Iraq and Syria, including the Assyrians. This policy included refusing to acknowledge the
Assyrians as an ethnic group, banning the publication of written material in Eastern Aramaic, and banning
its teaching in schools, together with an attempt to Arabize the ancient pre-Arab heritage of Mesopotamian
civilisation.
The policies of the Baathists have also long been mirrored in Turkey, whose nationalist governments have
refused to acknowledge the Assyrians as an ethnic group since the 1920s, and have attempted to Turkify the
Assyrians by calling them "Semitic Turks" and forcing them to adopt Turkish names and language. In Iran,
Assyrians continued to enjoy cultural, religious and ethnic rights, but due to the Islamic Revolution of 1979
their community has been diminished.

In the aftermath of the Iraq War of 2003, Assyrians became the targets of Islamist terrorist attacks and
intimidation from both Sunni and Shia groups, as well as criminal kidnapping organisations; forcing many
in southern and central Iraq to relocate to safer Assyrian regions in the north of the country or north east
Syria.

Kurdistan Region (2005–present)

In 2017, the KRG replaced the Alqosh mayor, Faiz Abed Jahwareh with a KDP member, Lara Zara, and
Assyrian protested in response.[140][141][142] The Iraqi Government ordered Lara Zara to vacate her post,
and return the title of Mayor to Jahwareh.[143][144]

Syrian Civil War (2012–present)

In recent years, Assyrians in northern Iraq and northeast Syria have

become the target of attacks amounting to genocide by Islamist
militants like ISIL and Nusra Front. In 2014, ISIL attacked Assyrian
towns and villages in the Assyrian homelands of northern Iraq and
north east Syria, and Assyrians forced from their homes in cities
such as Mosul had their houses and possessions stolen, both by ISIL
and also by their own former Arab Muslim neighbours.[145]

Assyrian Bronze Age and Iron Age monuments and archaeological

sites, as well as numerous Assyrian churches and monasteries,[145]
have been systematically vandalised and destroyed by ISIL. These
include the ruins of Nineveh, Kalhu (Nimrud, Assur, Dur-Sharrukin An Assyrian wedding in Mechelen,
and Hatra).[146][147] ISIL destroyed a 3,000-year-old Ziggurat. ISIL Belgium
destroyed Virgin Mary Church, in 2015 St. Markourkas Church was
destroyed and the cemetery was bulldozed.[148]

Assyrians in both Iraq and Syria have responded by forming armed Assyrian militias to defend their
territories,[149][150][151][152] and despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned have had success in
driving ISIL from Assyrian towns and villages, and defending others from attack.[153][154] Armed Assyrian
militias have also fought ISIL alongside armed groups of Kurds, Turcoman, Yezidis, Shabaks, Armenian
Christians, Kawilya, Mandeans, Circassians and Shia Muslim Arabs and Iranians. Dewkh Nawsha, which
translates to "those who sacrifice", is a militia that was formed days after ISIL took over Mosul in 2014. The
military force is made up of volunteers, who come from all over the Nineveh Plains. Dewkh Nawsha is
supported by Assyrian Patriotic Party and are led by Wilson Khammu.[148]

It is estimated that nearly 60 percent of Iraqi Assyrians have fled. Assyrians who have fled have ended up all
over the world. 2009 U.S Census Bureau survey, reported that roughly 100,000 have relocated to the United
States.[155]

Culture
Assyria continued to exist as a geopolitical entity until the Arab-Islamic conquest in the mid-7th century.
Assyrian identity; personal, family and tribal names; and both the spoken and written evolution of
Mesopotamian Aramaic (which still contains many Akkadian loan words and an Akkadian grammatical
structure) have survived among the Assyrian people from ancient times to this day. An Assyrian calendar
has been revived.

Language

Emerging in Sumer c. 3500 BC, cuneiform writing began as a

system of pictograms. Around 3000 BC, the pictorial representations
became simplified and more abstract as the number of characters in
use grew smaller. The original Sumerian script was adapted for the
writing of the Akkadian, Assyrian, and Hittite languages.[156] The
Kültepe texts, which were written in Old Assyrian, had Hittite
The pastime of an Assyrian King by
loanwords and names, which constitute the oldest record of any
F.A. Bridgman
language of the Indo-European language family. Most of the
archaeological evidence is typical of Anatolia rather than of Assyria,
but the use of both cuneiform and the dialect is the best indication of
Assyrian presence.[157][158] From 1700 BC and onward, the Sumerian language was preserved by the
ancient Babylonians and Assyrians only as a liturgical and classical language for religious, artistic and
scholarly purposes.[30]

Assyrian was a dialect of Akkadian, a member of the eastern branch of the Semitic family and the oldest
historically attested of the Semitic languages, which began to appear in written form in the 29th century BC.
The first inscriptions in Assyria proper, called Old Assyrian (OA), were made in the Old Assyrian
period.[159] The ancient Assyrians also used Sumerian in their literature and liturgy,[160] although to a more
limited extent in the Middle- and Neo-Assyrian periods, when Akkadian became the main literary
language.[160]

During the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and
Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism.[29] 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.[29] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and
Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a Sprachbund.[29] 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),[30] but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial,
literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD.

In the Neo-Assyrian period, the Aramaic language became increasingly common,[161] more so than
Akkadian—this was thought to be largely due to the mass deportations undertaken by Assyrian kings,[160] in
which large Aramaic-speaking populations, conquered by the Assyrians, were relocated to Assyria and
interbred with the Assyrians, and due to the fact that Tiglath-pileser II made it the lingua franca of Assyria
and its empire in the 8th century BC. The destruction of the Assyrian capitals of Nineveh and Assur by the
Babylonians, Medes and their allies, ensured that much of the bilingual elite (but not all) were wiped out. By
the 7th century BC, much of the Assyrian population used distinct Akkadian-influenced Eastern Aramaic
varieties and not Akkadian itself. The last Akkadian inscriptions in Mesopotamia date from the 1st century
AD. The Syriac language also emerged in Assyria during the 5th century BC, and during the Christian era,
Syriac literature and Syriac script were to become hugely influential.

However, the descendant Akkadian-influenced Eastern Aramaic dialects from the Neo-Assyrian Empire, as
well as Akkadian and Mesopotamian Aramaic personal, tribal, family and place names, still survive to this
day among Assyrian people and are spoken fluently by up to 1,000,000 Assyrians, with a further number
having lesser and varying degrees of fluency.[160] These dialects which contain many Akkadian loan words
and grammatical features are very different from the now almost extinct Western Aramaic of the Arameans
in the Levant and Trans-Jordan, which does not have any Akkadian grammatical structure or loan words.

After 90 years of effort, the University of Chicago in 2011 completed an Assyrian dictionary, the style of
which is more like an encyclopedia than a dictionary.[162]

Religion

Ancient Assyrian religion

The Assyrians, like the rest of the Mesopotamian peoples, followed ancient Mesopotamian religion, with
their national god Ashur having the most importance to them during the Assyrian Empire. This religion
gradually declined with the advent of Syriac Christianity between the first and tenth centuries.[99]

The major deities worshipped in Assyria include;

Adad (Hadad) – storm and rain god

Anu or An – god of heaven and the sky, lord of constellations, and father of the gods. The
name is derived from Sumero-Akkadian/ana/, which means heaven; He is considered the
father of great gods. In stories, he is mentioned as a father, creator, and god; and is believed
to be the supreme being.[163]
Dagan or Dagon – god of fertility
Enki or Ea – god of the Abzu, crafts, water, intelligence, mischief and creation and divine ruler
of the Earth and its humans
Ereshkigal – goddess of Irkalla, the Underworld
Ishtar or Inanna/Astarte – goddess of fertility, love, and war
Marduk – patron deity of Babylon who eventually became regarded as the head of the
Babylonian pantheon
Nabu – god of wisdom and writing
Nanshe – goddess of prophecy, fertility and fishing
Nergal – god of plague, war, and the sun in its destructive capacity; later husband of
Ereshkigal
Ninhursag or Mami, Belet-Ili, Ki, Ninmah, Nintu, or Aruru – earth and mother goddess
Ninlil – goddess of the air; consort of Enlil
Ninurta – champion of the gods, the epitome of youthful vigour, and god of agriculture
Nisroch – god of agriculture. Some other religions also consider him the fallen angel or
demon.[163]
Nusku – The messenger for the Gods. “"the offspring of the abyss, the creation of Êa," and
"the likeness of his father, the first-born of Bel." Nusku was also considered a great
commander, counselor of the gods, and protector of gods in heaven. Assyrian kings mention
Nusku many times, especially before wars; Nusku was fearless in battle.[163]
Shamash or Utu – god of the sun, arbiter of justice and patron of travellers
Sin or Nanna – god of the moon. Considered to be the prince of the gods. Described as having
a perfect body: everything from beard to horns is perfect. The name is believed to come from
"Zu-ena" but was changed at some point. Zu-ena means "knowledge-lord". Sin is also
mentioned in other religions in Babylonia[163]
Tammuz or Dumuzi – god of food and vegetation
 Tiamat

The original, polytheistic religion of the Assyrians was widely adhered to until around the 4th century, and
survived in pockets until at least the 10th century.[99] However, Assyrians today are mostly Christian, with
most following the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Ancient Church of the East,
Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and Assyrian Evangelical
Church. Assyrians had begun to adopt Christianity (as well as for a time Manicheanism and gnosticism)
between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD.

Christianity

The tradition of the Church of the East is that Thomas the Apostle
and his disciples Addai (Thaddeus of Edessa) and Mari brought
Christianity to Mesopotamia, thus attributing to the first century the
founding of the episcopal see of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, which became
that Church's primatial see in 410. There is clear evidence of the
presence of Christianity in Osroene in the second century. At that
time, Christians were persecuted in the Roman Empire, but were at
peace under the expanding Persian Empire. Shapur I (241–272), the
Osroene (Mesopotamia) in the first
second shahinshah (king of kings) of the Sasanian dynasty, occupied
century
Roman territory, advancing as far as Antioch in 260, and deported
eastward much of the population to strengthen the economy of his
own empire. One of those deported in 253 was Bishop Demetrius of Antioch, who then became the first
bishop of Beth Lapat. After 312, when Constantine the Great legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire,
Christians in Persia came under suspicion of pro-Roman sympathies and were persecuted, especially under
Shapur II (309–379).[164]

Under Yazdegerd I (399–421) the situation of the Christian minority improved considerably. In 410, on the
recommendation of several Western bishops (the signatories included the bishops of Antioch, Aleppo,
Edessa and Amid) Yazdegerd called the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, which organized the Persian Church
after the model approved by the First Council of Nicea for the Church in the Roman Empire. The Church of
the East was arranged as six ecclesiastical provinces, with the bishops in each grouped around a
metropolitan, while the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital city, referred to in the acts of the council as
the Grand Metropolitan, held authority throughout the Church and for that reason was called (probably only
from a later date) the Catholicos.[165][166][167][168]

Papa bar Aggai, who in about 315, almost 100 years before this council, suffered a sudden stroke during a
synod held to depose him, is looked on as the first Catholicos of the Church of the East, although this may
only mean that he was the first bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.[169][170][171]

In a synod held in Markabta in 424, the participating bishops recalled the circumstances concerning Papa,
blaming the opposition to him on the influence of unnamed Western bishops, and declared or reaffirmed that
the Catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was totally independent. They excluded any right of appeal against
him to any patriarch in the West.[172][173] They "defined, by the word of God, that Easterners cannot appeal
to Western patriarchs against their patriarch. Any case that cannot be resolved in his presence shall be
reserved to the tribunal of Christ [...] There can be no reason for thinking or saying that the Catholicos of the
East can be judged by superiors or by another patriarch. He himself is to be the judge of all his subjects, and
judgment on himself is reserved to Christ, who has chosen him, raised him up and placed him at the head of
his Church."[174][175]
This was six years before the 431 Council of Ephesus, the enforcement within the Byzantine Empire of
whose condemnation of Nestorianism is sometimes given as what led to the break between the Church of
the East and the Western Churches.

In 484, Catholicos Babowai wrote to some Western bishops asking them to get the Byzantine emperor to
intercede with the Persian king Peroz I on behalf of persecuted Christians. His letter was intercepted,
reportedly by Barsauma, metropolitan of Nisibis, between whom and Babowai there was a heated dispute. It
was shown to the king, who then had Babowai executed. Barsauma called the Synod of Beth Lapat, which,
as well as condemning some of Babowai's policies, permitted marriage of clergy and of vowed monks and
reputedly adopted Nestorian teaching. Under Babowai's successor, Acacius of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, a synod
held in the capital in 486 revoked the decrees of the Synod of Beth Lapat, whose acts have consequently not
been preserved, and in its own name affirmed the teaching of Theodore of Mopsuestia against
Monophysitism, forbade wandering monks or clergy, and allowed marriage of clergy and
monks.[176][177][178][179]

In 489, the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno closed the theological

school of Edessa because of its promotion of the teaching of
Theodore of Mopsuestia. Barsauma welcomed its teachers and
revived the school of Nisibis. A century later, an attempt by the
school's director to include influences other than that of Theodore
alone[180] His initiative was opposed by Babai the Great (551–628),
whose exposition of the theology of Theodore of Mopsuestia
became the official teaching of the Church of the East.[181][182]
Roman-Persian frontier in the late
fourth and late sixth century At this time miaphysitism was advancing in the Persian Empire. Its
followers were mainly from the "hundreds of thousands" of Western
Syriac Christians whom Khosrow I (531–579) and Khosrow II (590
and 591–628) deported to their own territory, as well as descendants of those previously deported, but there
were also some defectors from the local Church of the East.[183][184] In addition, West Syrian opponents of
the Council of Chalcedon sought refuge in Persia from the pro-Chalcedonian policy of Emperors Justin I
and Justinian I and actively propagated their own theology.[185] Jacob Baradaeus, who was ordained as
Bishop of Edessa in about 543, set about ordaining bishops and priests throughout the Syriac-speaking areas
of West Asia to such an extent that he was even claimed to have ordained over 100,000 clergy and nearly 30
bishops. Whatever the number, he set up a church structure parallel to and independent of that approved by
the Byzantine emperors, so that the Syriac Orthodox Church has been called Jacobite in reference to
him.[186][187] For Miaphysites in Persia, particularly strong in Tagrit, he in 559 appointed as "metropolitan
of the East" Ahudemmeh, a convert from the Church of the East, who won from Khosrow I freedom of
worship for the Miaphysites (unlike the Chalcedonian Christians).[188] Ahudemmeh made many converts
among the Arabs.[189] The Miaphysites of Persia united with the Syriac Orthodox Church, and in 629
Patriarch Athanasius I Gammolo placed at their head Marutha of Tagrit with the title of Maphrian and a
wide-ranging autonomy that would allay Persian suspicion that, as spiritual subjects of a patriarch who lived
under Byzantine rule, the Miaphysites would tend to be disloyal.[183][190]

Weakened by their long struggle against the Byzantines,[191] the Persians were unable to withstand the Arab
conquest. Seleucia-Ctesiphon fell in 637. The last Persian king Yazdegerd III became a fugitive and was
murdered for his money in 651/2.

For Christians in Persia, the change from Zoroastrian to Islamic rulers did not worsen their situation, but
rather bettered it, especially for the "Nestorians" (East Syrians).[192] This was a time of increased missionary
activity by the Church of the East, whose success in China with the missionary Alopen is attested by the
Nestorian Stele and in India by the continued maintenance of its liturgy by the Syro-Malabar Church. The
patriarchate of Timothy I (780–823) was a high point of the Church's expansion.[193]
After the general destruction wrought by Genghis Khan, the Church
of the East fared no worse under the Mongols of the Ilkhanate than
under the Arabs, but at the end of the 14th century Timur brought
disaster on it,[194] exterminating it in many regions,[195] so that it
survived only in the Kurdistan mountains and in India.[196]

An account of the divisions within the Church of the East from the
mid-16th to the early 19th century is given above. The separate
patriarchates at one stage grew to four, but were reduced in 1830 to
two: the now more numerous Chaldean Catholic Church and the
Assyrian Church of the East. The latter was further divided in the Metropolitan sees and missionary
20th century, with a split between the Assyrian Church of the East activity of the Church of the East in
and the Ancient Church of the East over reforms by Shimun XXI the Middle Ages
Eshai in the 1960s.

After the Arab conquest had removed the previously existing

frontier between the Byzantine and Persian Empires, the Syriac Orthodox Church no longer needed to
maintain a clear distinction between the part under the direct rule of the Patriarch and the part in the care of
the Maphrian. From 793 the Maphrian was no longer elected by the Eastern bishops but simply appointed by
the Patriarch. The Maphrianate thus became, until abolished in 1860, a mere title for the second in dignity
within the Church. The Church itself, like that of the East, underwent divisions. William Taylor states that
for 475 years, from 1364 to 1839, there were two rival series of Patriarchs, one in Mardin, the other in Tur
Abdin.[197][198]

In 1665 the Syrian Orthodox Church won the allegiance of about a third of the Saint Thomas Christians in
southwestern India, whose traditional liturgy had been that of the Church of the East.[199] However, due to
Anglican influence, they lost many of these in the 19th and 20th centuries through the setting up of the more
Evangelical Mar Thoma Syrian Church and St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India and about half of those
remaining in the 20th century declared their Church (the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church)
autocephalous, while those remaining in obedience to the Patriarch (the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church)
have been granted autonomy within the Syrian Orthodox Church such as was once granted to the Maphran-
headed part of the Church in Persia.

At about the same time as the Syriac Orthodox Church was expanding into India, where now three-quarters
of its membership live,[200] Capuchin and Jesuit missionaries won to union with Rome the majority of the
Syriac Orthodox in Aleppo, including, in 1656, their bishop, Andrew Akijan, who in 1662 was elected
Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church. On his death in 1677, two strong factions emerged, each of which
elected a Patriarch, one pro-, the other anti-Rome. The Ottoman civil authorities recognized the non-
Catholic Patriarch and suppressed the Catholic faction, eventually forcing it underground. In 1782 the newly
elected Syriac Orthodox Patriarch declared himself Catholic and moved to Lebanon. He was replaced as
Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, but initiated a series of Catholic patriarchs that in 1828 was
recognized by the Ottoman authorities as heading a distinct Catholic Syriac Church. In 1850, the Catholic
patriarchal seat was moved to Mardin. Many of its faithful were massacred during the First World War. The
patriarchal seat is now Beirut, where it was moved in the 1920.[201][202]

Patriarch Ignatius Peter IV (1872–1894) made an attempt in 1889 to set up a Latin-rite branch of his Syriac
Orthodox Church by having the Goan Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares ordained, with the religious name
of Mar Julius I, as Archbishop of Ceylon, Goa and India. In May 1892, Alvares, with the consent of the
Patriarch, ordained René Vilatte as Archbishop of America. In later years Vilatte consecrated "a number of
men who are the episcopal ancestors of an enormous variety of descendants" in what is called the
independent sacramental movement or independent Catholicism.[203]
In 1933, the seat of the patriarchate of the Syriac Orthodox Church was moved from the "Saffron
Monastery" (Mor Hananyo Monastery) of Tur Abdin, 4 kilometres north of Mardin, Turkey to Homs, Syria
and in 1959 to Bab Tuma (literally meaning "Thomas Gate"), Damascus, capital of Syria; but the Patriarch
actually resides at the Mar Aphrem Monastery in Maarat Saidnaya, about 25 kilometres north of
Damascus.[184]

The Syriac Orthodox Church has today about 2 million followers, three-quarters of whom belong to the
autonomous Jacobite Syrian Christian Church in India.[204] The Syriac Catholic Church has about 160,000
faithful, some 65,000 of them in Syria, 55,000 in Iraq, as well as about 15,000 in Lebanon and the United
States.[200]

A 2009 study by Sargon Donabed and Shamiran Mako cites the remark made by Horatio Southgate, on
learning that the Armenians called the Syrians Assouri (not Asorestants’i, the Armenian word for Assyrian),
that the Syrians call themselves sons of Asshur.[205] They also mention a dispute in 1939 between a Syrian
Orthodox writer from Mosul who protested against application to his co-religionists of the name "Assyrians"
and the editor of a publication that supported it.[206] They say that the rejection of the "Assyrian" label in
favour of "Syrian" or "Aramean" was promoted by the church and later became prevalent in modern
scholarship.[207] Thus J.F. Coakley described as "bogus ethnology" the "Assyrians" description.[208]
Donabeg and Mako deplore and argue against this judgment and that of other academics and attribute its
prevalence in part to political considerations.[209]

The continuing trend towards identification as Arameans is evidenced also in the government of Israel's
recognition in September 2014 of the Arameans in Israel as a distinct nationality.[210][211]

Architecture

Assyrian architecture, like that of Babylonia, was influenced by Sumero-Akkadian styles (and to some
degree Mitanni), but early on developed its own distinctive style. Palaces sported colourful wall decorations,
and seal-cutting (an art learned from Mittani) developed apace. Schools for scribes taught both the
Babylonian and Assyrian dialects of Akkadian, and Sumerian and Akkadian literary works were often
copied with an Assyrian flavour.

The Assyrian dialect of Akkadian was used in legal, official, religious, and practical texts such as medicine
or instructions on manufacturing items. During the 13th to 10th centuries, picture tales appeared as a new art
form: a continuous series of images carved on square stone steles. Somewhat reminiscent of a comic book,
these show events such as warfare or hunting, placed in order from the upper left to the lower right corner of
the stele with captions written underneath them. These and the excellent cut seals show that Assyrian art was
beginning to surpass that of Babylon. Architecture saw the introduction of a new style of ziggurat, with two
towers and colorful enameled tiles.

Arts and sciences

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.

Although works of precious gems and metals usually do not

survive the ravages of time, some fine pieces of Assyrian
jewelry 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 A Lamassu, from the entrance into the kings
inlay. The Nimrud Lens is held in the British Museum.[212] private apartments; 865–860 BC; British
Museum (London)
The Assyrians were also innovative in military technology,
with the use of heavy cavalry, sappers and siege engines.
Winged figure near a Openwork furniture plaque Cylinder seal and with
sacred tree; 9th century with a grazing oryx in a deities, on of them being on
BC; from the palace of forest of fronds; 9th–8th a winged lion; 8th–7th
Ashurnasirpal II (Nimrud, century BC; ivory; 12.7 × century BC; quartz, crypto-
Iraq); Hermitage Museum 11.91 × 1.09 cm; crystalline; 4.09 cm;
(Sankt Petersburg, Russia) Metropolitan Museum of Art Metropolitan Museum of Art
(New York City)

Relief from Assyrian capital Relief with a winged man; Lion weight; 6th–4th
of Dur Sharrukin, showing 713–706 BC; height: 3.3 m, century BC; bronze; height:
transport of Lebanese width: 2.1 m; from Palace 29.5 cm, width: 24.8 cm;
cedar; 716–713 BC; height: of King Sargon II; Louvre Louvre
2.41 m, width: 38 cm;
Louvre
 Assyrian ornaments and Illustrations from 1882, in
patterns, illustrated in a which are drawn people
book from 1920 dressed in Assyrian
clothing

Legacy
Achaemenid Assyria (539–330 BC) retained a separate identity,
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, 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 Austen Henry Layard in Nineveh,
Mesopotamia under Persian, Greek and Roman rule, and indeed well 1852
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 Parthian Empire and the Romans until
coming under the rule of the Sasanian Empire from 226–651, where it was known as Asōristān.

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 and Biblical writers had only retained a fragmented, very dim and often
inaccurate 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 the Canon of Kings, beginning with Nabonassar.

The Assyrians began to form and adopt a distinct Eastern Christianity, with its accompanying Syriac
literature, between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD; however, ancient Mesopotamian religion was still alive and
well into the fourth century and pockets survived into the 10th century and possibly as late as the 17th
century in Mardin.[213] However, the religion is now dead, and the Assyrian people, though still retaining
Eastern Aramaic dialects as a mother tongue, are now wholly Christian.
The modern discovery of Babylonia and Assyria begins with excavations in Nineveh in 1845, which
revealed the Library of Ashurbanipal. Decipherment of the cuneiform script was a formidable task that took
more than a decade; but, by 1857, the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 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, who have come to strongly identify with ancient Assyria.

Notes
1. Freedom=addurāru.

See also
Achaemenid Assyria
Adiabene
Akkadian empire
Akkadian language
Ancient Church of the East
Assur
Assuristan
Assyrian Christians
Assyrian Church of the East
Assyrian continuity
Assyrian culture
Assyrian diaspora
Assyrian Evangelical Church
Assyrian Genocide
Assyrian homeland
Assyrian king list
Assyrian levies
Assyrian music (disambiguation)
Assyrian nationalism
Assyrian Pentecostal Church
Assyrian people
Assyrian struggle for independence
Athura
Beth Garmai
Beth Nuhadra
Babylonia
Chaldea
Chaldean Catholic Church
Chaldo-Assyrians
Church of the East
Cuneiform script
Eastern Aramaic
 Hatra
Imperial Aramaic
List of Assyrians
List of Assyrian settlements
List of Assyrian tribes
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamian religion
Middle Assyrian Empire
Name of Syria
Neo Assyrian Empire
Nineveh
Old Assyrian Empire
Osroene
Sumer
Sumerian language
Syriac Christianity
Syriac language
Syriac Orthodox Church
Syriac script
Terms for Syriac Christians

Notes
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (https://www.britannica.com/place/Assyria/) "The state was finally
destroyed by a Chaldean-Median coalition in 612–609 bc."
2. Zenaide Ragozin, The Rise and Fall of the Assyrian Empire (Ozymandias Press 2018),
chapter 1, section 3 (https://books.google.com/books?id=UPJ4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT5): "Aturia
or Assyria proper" was a "small district of a few square miles". "At the period of its greatest
expansion, however, the name of 'Assyria' − 'land of Asshur' − covered a far greater territory,
more than filling the space between the two rivers, from the mountains of Armenia to the
alluvial line. This gives a length of 350 miles by a breadth, between the Euphrates and the
Zagros, varying from above 300 to 170 miles. 'The area was probably not less than 75,000
square miles'."
3. Radner, Karen. "1999 Money in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In J. G. Dercksen (ed.), Trade and
Finance in Ancient Mesopotamia (Leiden 1999) 127–157"
(https://www.academia.edu/592178): 128.
4. Roux 1964, p. 187
5. J.M. Munn-Rankin (1975). "Assyrian Military Power, 1300–1200 B.C.". In I.E.S. Edwards (ed.).
Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 2, Part 2, History of the Middle East and the Aegean
Region, c. 1380–1000 BC. Cambridge University Press. pp. 287–288, 298.
6. Christopher Morgan (2006). Mark William Chavalas (ed.). The Ancient Near East: Historical
Sources in Translation. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 145–152.
7. Hayim Tadmor, "World Dominion: The Expanding Horizon of the Assyrian Empire", (1997), in
L. Milano, S. de Martino et al. (Ed.), Landscapes: Territories, Frontiers and Horizons in the
Ancient Near East. XLIV Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale. (Venezia 1997), pp.59.
8. Mario Liverani (2004), "Assyria in the Ninth Century: Continuity or Change?", in Frame, Grant
(Ed.), From the Upper to the Lower Sea: Studies on the History of Assyria and Babylonia in
Honour of A.K Grayson, (Leiden, 2004), pp. 213.
 9. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. (Chicago, 1977), pp.
31.
10. Luckenbill, Daniel David (1927). Ancient records of Assyria and Babylonia (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=fvzWlRmtlO4C). Ancient records. 2: Historical records of Assyria: from
Sargon to the end. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
11. A. K. Grayson (2000), Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles. Eisenbrauns, Indiana.
12. Winkler, Church of the East: A Concise History, p. 1
13. Albert Kirk Grayson (1972). Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: Volume I. Wiesbaden: Otto
Harrassowitz. p. 108. §716.
14. Roux 1964, pp. 161–191.
15. Compare: Parpola, Simo (2004). "National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and
Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times" (http://jaas.org/edocs/v18n2/Parpola-identity_Article%
20-Final.pdf) (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2). "Disunited, dispersed in
exile, and as dwindling minorities without full civil rights in their homelands, the Assyrians of
today are in grave danger of total assimilation and extinction.[...] In order to survive as a
nation, they must now unite under the Assyrian identity of their ancestors. It is the only identity
that can help them to transcend the differences between them, speak with one voice again,
catch the attention of the world, and regain their place among the nations."
16. Frederick Mario Fales (2010). "Production and Consumption at Dūr-Katlimmu: A Survey of the
Evidence". In Hartmut Kühne (ed.). Dūr-Katlimmu 2008 and beyond (https://books.google.com/
books?id=6KnKOTissFQC). Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 82. ISBN 9783447062091.
17. Y Odisho, George (1998). The sound system of modern Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic) (https://book
s.google.com/books?id=ON7BEtQvejcC&lpg=PA8&dq=strabo%20atouria&pg=PA8#v=onepag
e&q=strabo%20atouria&f=false). Harrowitz. p. 8. ISBN 978-3-447-02744-1.
18. Saggs notes that: "the destruction of the Assyrian empire did not wipe out its population. They
were predominantly peasant farmers and, since Assyria contains some of the best wheat land
in the Near East, their descendants would, as opportunity permitted, build new villages over
the old cities and carry on with agricultural life, remembering traditions of the former cities.
After seven or eight centuries and various vicissitudes, these people became Christians"
(Saggs 1984, p. 290).
19. "Parpola identity_article" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110717071922/http://www.jaas.org/ed
ocs/v18n2/Parpola-identity_Article%20-Final.pdf) (PDF). Archived from the original (http://www.
jaas.org/edocs/v18n2/Parpola-identity_Article%20-Final.pdf) (PDF) on 17 July 2011. Retrieved
19 June 2011.
20. "Syria is not but a contraction of Assyria or Assyrian; this according to the Greek
pronunciation. The Greeks applied this name to all of Asia Minor." cited after Sa Grandeur Mgr.
David, Archevêque Syrien De Damas, Grammair De La Langue Araméenne Selon Les Deux
Dialects Syriaque Et Chaldaique Vol. 1, (Imprimerie Des Péres Dominicains, Mossoul, 1896),
12.
21. Tvedtnes, John A. (1981). "The Origin of the Name "Syria" ". Journal of Near Eastern Studies.
40 (2): 139–140. doi:10.1086/372868 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F372868).
22. cf. Harper, Douglas (November 2001). "Syria" (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Syr
ia). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 13 June 2007..
23. Frye, R.N. (October 1992). "Assyria and Syria: Synonyms" (PDF). Journal of Near Eastern
Studies 51 (4): 281–285. doi:10.1086/373570 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F373570).
24. John Huehnergard and Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", in Roger D. Woodard, ed.,
The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum, Cambridge University Press,
2008, p. 83
25. Roux 1964, p. 148.
26. Kleniewski, Nancy; Thomas, Alexander R (26 March 2010). Cities, Change, and Conflict: A
Political Economy of Urban Life (https://books.google.com/books?id=dWuQ70MtnIQC&pg=PA
51). ISBN 978-0-495-81222-7.
27. Maisels, Charles Keith (1993). The Near East: Archaeology in the "Cradle of Civilization" (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=tupSM5y9yEkC&pg=PA139). ISBN 978-0-415-04742-5.
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problematic nature of this commonly used term. It is noteworthy that the designation "of the
sea" appears only in relation to the Sherden, Shekelesh, and Eqwesh. Subsequently, this term
was applied somewhat indiscriminately to several additional ethnonyms, including the
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systematic genocides." (Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, Third Edition, p. 291)
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References
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), "Tiglath-Pileser" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%
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University Press, p. 968
Parpola, Simo (2004), "National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian
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Saggs, H.W.F. (1984), The Might That Was Assyria, London, ISBN 978-0-283-98961-2
Van De Mieroop, Marc (2004), A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000–323 BC (2nd ed.),
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External links
Sayce, Archibald Henry (1878). "Assyria" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6
dia_Britannica,_Ninth_Edition/Assyria). Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (9th ed.). pp. 182–194.
Sayce, Archibald Henry (1911). "Babylonia and Assyria" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_
Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Babylonia_and_Assyria). Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th
ed.). pp. 99–112.
Oussani, Gabriel (1907). "Assyria" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(191
3)/Assyria). Catholic Encyclopedia. 2.
Assyria on Ancient History Encyclopedia (http://www.ancient.eu.com/assyria/)
"Assyria", LookLex Encyclopedia (http://lexicorient.com/e.o/assyria.htm)
Theophilus G. Pinches, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria in "btm" format (https://web.arc
hive.org/web/20080512105833/http://www.third-millennium-library.com/readinghall/UniversalHi
story/THE_OLD_WORLD/Religion-Babilonia-Assyria/THEOPHILUS_G_PINCHES/1-Foreword.
html)
 Morris Jastrow, Jr., The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria: its remains, language, history,
religion, commerce, law, art, and literature (https://web.archive.org/web/20070722000403/htt
p://fax.libs.uga.edu/DS71xJ39C/), London: Lippincott (1915) – a searchable facsimile at the
University of Georgia Libraries; also available in layered PDF format (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20060921105053/http://fax.libs.uga.edu/DS71xJ39C/1f/civilization_of_babylonia_and_assyr
ia.pdf)

Ancient Syria and Mesopotamia

Southern
Syria Northern Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
c. 3500–
2350 BCE
Semitic nomads Sumerian city-states
c. 2350–
Akkadian Empire
2200 BCE
c. 2200–
2100 BCE
Gutians
c. 2100–
2000 BCE
Third Dynasty of Ur (Sumerian Renaissance)
c. 2000– Old Assyrian Empire Isin/Larsa and other
1800 BCE
Mari and other Amorite city-states
(Northern Akkadians) Amorite city-states
c. 1800–
1600 BCE
Old Hittite Kingdom Old Babylonian Empire (Southern Akkadians)
c. 1600–
Mitanni (Hurrians)
1400 BCE
c. 1400–
1200 BCE
Middle Hittite Kingdom Karduniaš (Kassites)
Bronze Age Collapse Middle Assyria
c. 1200–
1150 BCE
Arameans
("Sea Peoples")
c. 1150–911
Arameans
BCE Neo-Hittite Aram-
Phoenicia Middle Babylonia Chal-
911–729 city-states Damascus de-
BCE
Neo-Assyrian Empire ans
729–609
BCE
626–539
BCE
Neo-Babylonian Empire (Chaldeans)
539–331
BCE
Achaemenid Empire
336–301
BCE
Macedonian Empire (Ancient Greeks and Macedonians)
311–129
BCE
Seleucid Empire
129–63
BCE
Seleucid Empire
Parthian Empire
63 BCE–
243 CE
Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire
(Syria)
243–636 CE Sassanid Empire

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