Assyrian History: A Captivating Guide to the Assyrians and Their Powerful Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia

By Captivating History

Located in modern-day Iraq, ancient Mesopotamia, the land between the great Tigris and Euphrates rivers, is where it all began.

 

It's the part of the world where some 6,000 years ago people finally said goodbye to their lives as hunters and gatherers, started farming, and began building civilizations. It's from these civilizations that we get some of the most famous contributions to world history and culture, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to Hammurabi's famous code of law, which gave rise to the popular saying "an eye for an eye."

The story of Mesopotamia is one that is full of constantly changing borders, rising and falling civilizations, and, of course, war and conquest. The world's first empires would emerge here and spend thousands of years exchanging territories, swapping alliances, and fighting for supremacy. It was a real-life game of Risk being played out by some of the world's most revered, yet feared, leaders.

But of all the famous civilizations to emerge from Mesopotamia, a list that includes the Akkadians, the Sumerians, and the Babylonians, it's the Assyrians who deserve the fame and glory. The empire they constructed over the course of some 1,200 years survived constant attacks, a few defeats, and the famed Dark Age known as the Bronze Age collapsed to become one of the largest and most expansive empires the world has ever seen.

In Assyrian History: A Captivating Guide to the Assyrians and Their Powerful Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia, you will discover topics such as:

• The Assyrians Arrive in Mesopotamia: The Early Assyrian Period
• The Birth of a Civilization: The Old Assyrian Empire to the Middle Assyrian Empire
• The Beginning of the Neo-Assyrian Empire
• Imperial Expansion and the Golden Age of the Neo-Assyrian Empire
• The Fall of the Empire
• Assyrian Government
• The Assyrian Military
• Life in the Assyrian Empire
• Assyrian Culture: Art, Math, and Science
• Assyrian Religion
• And much, much more!

 

So if you want to learn about the Assyrians, click "buy now"!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Captivating History
• Release date: Aug 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201297565

Book preview

Introduction

Located in modern-day Iraq, ancient Mesopotamia, the land between the great Tigris and Euphrates rivers, is where it all began. It’s the part of the world where some 6,000 years ago people finally said goodbye to their lives as hunters and gatherers, started farming, and began building civilizations. It’s from these civilizations that we get some of the most famous contributions to world history and culture, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to Hammurabi’s famous code of law, which gave rise to the popular saying an eye for an eye.

The story of Mesopotamia is one that is full of constantly changing borders, rising and falling civilizations, and, of course, war and conquest. The world’s first empires would emerge here and spend thousands of years exchanging territories, swapping alliances, and fighting for supremacy. It was a real-life game of Risk being played out by some of the world’s most revered, yet feared, leaders.

But of all the famous civilizations to emerge from Mesopotamia, a list that includes the Akkadians, the Sumerians, and the Babylonians, it’s the Assyrians who deserve the fame and glory. The empire they constructed over the course of some 1,200 years survived constant attacks, a few defeats, and the famed Dark Age known as the Bronze Age collapse to become one of the largest and most expansive empires the world has ever seen.

After first settling along the banks of the Euphrates River in Assur, in c. 2500 BCE, the Assyrian Empire, by the end of the middle of the 7th century, would control more territory than any other Mesopotamian empire could ever claim. Assyrian chariots were rolling along the Nile River in Egypt, while the kings of Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Anatolia, and Phoenicia were nearly all vassals to the powerful Assyrian god-kings.

Their ruthless form of siege warfare and their brutal punishment of anyone who dared to get in their way earned them a reputation throughout Mesopotamia as a force not to be underestimated. But during this time of military dominance, the Assyrians also contributed to the advancement of human civilization. They made copies of some of the world’s most famous ancient texts while creating many new works of their own. Scientists and mathematicians flocked to the libraries of Nineveh to study and share knowledge of the ancient world, and artists helped portray to future generations the glory of Assyrian kings and gods.

But Assyrian rule of Mesopotamia would not last forever. Perhaps doomed by their own ambitions, Assyria eventually grew too big to manage. Its angry, powerful neighbors teamed up and took advantage of Assyria when its back was turned, and by the end of the 7th century, the three main Assyrian cities, Calah, Assur, and Nineveh, had been sacked, and a new power, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, was to rule Mesopotamia for the coming centuries.

However, even though the period of Assyrian domination would end seemingly soon after it began, the story of how these Semitic people started from nothing and grew to be one of the most powerful empires in the world is exciting, terrifying, and unique. And with new evidence being discovered all the time, it’s a story with many secrets left to be revealed.

Chapter 1 – The Assyrians Arrive in Mesopotamia: The Early Assyrian Period

Most historians divide the long history of the Assyrians into four periods: 1) the Early Assyrian Period (c. 2600-c.2025 BCE), 2) the Old Assyrian Empire (c. 2025-1378 BCE), 3) the Middle Assyrian Empire (1392-934 BCE), and 4) the Neo-Assyrian Empire (c. 911-609 BCE).

As should be expected, not much is known about the Early Assyrian Period. Little archaeological evidence exists that can paint an accurate picture of what life might have looked like, but a general idea can be pieced together based on the writings and evidence left behind by nearby civilizations, specifically the Akkadians.

The term Assyrian is derived from the name of the Assyrian capital, Assur, most likely named after the god Ashur, who Assyrians believed to be the king of all Mesopotamian gods. Historians believe people were living at the site of Assur as early as 2400 BCE, but it was mainly used as an outpost by Sumerian and Akkadian kings. Assur would develop into an independent city-state by the end of the 3rd millennia BCE (c. 2100 BCE).

During the time between the founding of Assur and the rise of the Old Assyrian Empire, Assur was largely a vassal state of the much larger Akkadian Empire, which dominated Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium by controlling most of the territory surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Figure 1 depicts the extent of Akkadian-controlled territory during the peak of its influence.

Some claim that the Akkadian Empire was the world’s first, although it is difficult to verify this statement as understandings of what defines an empire differ, and earlier Sumerian civilizations may possibly be able to lay claim to this title. Nonetheless, the Akkadian Period is significant in that it was the first time any political body was able to unite both Sumerian and Akkadian-speaking populations under one rule.

The Assyrian language is a Semitic language, which describes the Afroasiatic language group that emerged out of the Middle East. The most commonly spoken Semitic languages still around today are Arabic, Amharic (spoken mostly in Ethiopia), Tigrinya (spoken mostly in Eritrea and Ethiopia), and Hebrew. After the Akkadian Empire, the Akkadian language—the first Semitic language to gain prominence in the region—replaced Sumerian as the language of Mesopotamia. In the millennia after the fall of the Akkadians, Semitic languages would come to dominate Mesopotamia, something that would prove rather useful to Assyria when it began to flex its imperial muscle.

During Akkadian and Sumerian times, Assyria was referred to on maps as Subartu, and although the exact location of Subartu is not known, it’s believed to be in the northern regions of Mesopotamia near the source of the Tigris River. The Akkadians traditionally used this region as a source for slaves, and it was generally considered to be the furthest outpost of the Akkadian Empire.

The Assyrian King List documents the different Assyrian kings starting with the initial appearance of the Assyrians around Assur. The list was written on a terracotta stone in cuneiform script—the writing created in Mesopotamia that is credited as one of the origins of modern writing—and is typically divided into three groups.

The first group, The Kings Who Lived in Tents, refers to the leaders of the semi-nomadic tribes who first settled in the area surrounding Assur. The most notable king from this group is Ushpia, for he is said to have been the king to build the Temple of Ashur, the moment often regarded as the founding of the city of Assur and the birth of Assyrian civilization.

Following this group are The Kings Whose Fathers are Known, which lists 11 kings who ruled from c. 2030 BCE to c. 2000 BCE. One interesting aspect of this part of the list is that it was written in reverse order, and it is sometimes interpreted as a list of Shamshi-Adad's ancestors. This has led some scholars to conclude that the list was in fact created as an attempt to legitimize Shamshi-Adad's claim to the Assyrian throne, but this is not a widely accepted interpretation. The third group on the list is of kings whose names are known but whose ancestral lineage cannot be determined.

Most of the kings on this list, though, were not independent sovereigns, but rather vassals to other leaders, mostly those of the Akkadian Empire. At times this was undesirable, specifically when Akkadian leaders needed slaves and made their way into the Assyrian territory to get them. But at other times, it was extremely beneficial. For example, one of the sources of Assyrian power were their trading posts, also known as karem. They established several of them in Anatolia (the eastern part of modern Turkey), and frequently called upon the support of their Akkadian rulers to