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History of the Assyrians
The history of the Assyrians encompasses nearly five millennia, covering the history of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Assyria, including its territory, culture and people, as well as the later history of the Assyrian people after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 609 BC. For purposes of historiography, ancient Assyrian history is often divided by modern researchers, based on political events and gradual changes in language, into the Early Assyrian (c. 2600–2025 BC), Old Assyrian (c. 2025–1364 BC), Middle Assyrian (c. 1363–912 BC), Neo-Assyrian (911–609 BC) and post-imperial (609 BC–c. AD 240) periods., Sassanid era Asoristan from 240 AD until 637 AD and the post Islamic Conquest period until the present day.
Assyria gets its name from the ancient city of Assur, founded c. 2600 BC. During much of its early history, Assur was dominated by foreign states and polities from southern Mesopotamia, for instance falling under the hegemony of the Sumerian city of Kish, being incorporated into the ethnically same Akkadian Empire and falling under the rule of the Third Dynasty of Ur. The city and its surrounds became an independent city-state under its own line of rulers during the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, achieving independence under Puzur-Ashur I c. 2025 BC. Puzur-Ashur's dynasty continued to govern Assur which became a regional power with colonies in Anatolia and influence over South Mesopotamia until the throne was usurped by the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I c. 1808 BC. This period is sometimes known as the Old Assyrian Empire and latterly the 'Empire of Shamshi Adad'. After a few decades of Babylonian domination in the mid 18th century BC, Assyrian was restored as an independent state, perhaps by the king Puzur-Sin or his successor Adasi, both of whom defeated the Babylonians and Amorites. In the 15th century BC, Assyria briefly fell under the suzerainty of the Mitanni kingdom. After wars between Mitanni and the Hittites, Assur broke free, and under Ashur-uballit I (r. c. 1363–1328 BC) destroyed the Hurri-Mitanni Empire and annexed much of the territory of the Hittite Empire and transitioned to a powerful territorial state governing an increasingly large stretch of territory in Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Levant, forming the Middle Assyrian Empire.
Under the 14th and 13th-century BC warrior-kings Adad-nirari I, Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I, the Middle Assyrian Empire became one of the great powers of the ancient Near East, for a time even occupying Babylonia in the south. After the death of Ashur-bel-kala in 1056 BC, Assyria experienced a long period of decline, sometimes interrupted by energetic warrior-kings, which restricted Assyria to little more than the Assyrian heartland and surrounding territories, though Assyrian military prowess remained the best in the world. New efforts by the Assyrian kings of the 10th and 9th centuries BC reversed this decline and saw a renewed period of expansion. Under Ashurnasirpal II in the early 9th century BC, Assyria (now the Neo-Assyrian Empire) once more became the dominant political and military power of the Near East. Assyrian expansionism and power reached its peak under Tiglath-Pileser III in the 8th century BC and the subsequent Sargonid dynasty of kings, under whom the Neo-Assyrian Empire stretched from Egypt, Libya and Arabian Peninsula the south to the Caucasus in the north, and Persia in the east to Cyprus in the west . Babylonia was recaptured and Assyrian campaigns were conducted into both Anatolia and modern-day Armenia. The empire, and Assyria as a state, came to an end in the late 7th century BC as a result of the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire after a draining civil war among rival claimants to the Assyrian throne had gravely weakened it.
After the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian people continued to survive northern Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia and Assyrian cultural traditions were kept alive. Though the Babylonians and Medes had extensively devastated Assyrian cities, the region was soon significantly rebuilt and revived under the rule of the Achaemenid Empire, Seleucid and Parthian empires, from the 4th century BC to the 3rd century AD. Assur itself flourished in the late post-imperial period, perhaps once more under its own line of rulers as a semi-autonomous city-state. During the Parthian Empire a number of Neo Assyrian states emerged from the 2nd century BC to mid 3rd century AD, including Assur, Adiabene, Osroene, Beth Nuhadra, Beth Garmai and the partly Assyrian Hatra. However these states were conquered by the Sasanian Empire c. AD 240. Starting from the 1st century AD onwards, the Assyrians were Christianized, though holdouts of the old ancient Mesopotamian religion continued to survive for many centuries, into the Late Middle Ages in some regions. The Assyrians continued to constitute a significant if not majority portion of the population in northern Mesopotamia, Northeast Syria and Southeast Anatolia until suppression and massacres under the Ilkhanate and the Timurid Empire in the 14th century. These atrocities relegated the Assyrians to a local indigenous ethnic, linguistic and religious minority. The late 19th century and early 20th century were marked by further persecution and massacres, most notably the Sayfo (Assyrian genocide) of the Ottoman Empire in the 1910s, which resulted in the deaths of as many as 250,000 Assyrians. This time of atrocities was also marked by an increasing Assyrian cultural consciousness; the first Assyrian newspaper, Zahrirē d-Bahra ("Rays of Light"), began publishing in 1848 and the earliest Assyrian political party, the Assyrian Socialist Party, was founded in 1917. Throughout the 20th century and still today, many unsuccessful proposals have been made by the Assyrians for autonomy or independence. Further massacres and persecutions, enacted both by governments and by terrorist groups such as the Islamic State have resulted in most of the Assyrian people living in diaspora.
Agricultural villages in the region that would later become Assyria are known to have existed by the time of the Hassuna culture, c. 6300–5800 BC. Though the sites of some nearby cities that would later be incorporated into the Assyrian heartland, such as Nineveh, are known to have been inhabited since the Neolithic, the earliest archaeological evidence from Assur dates to the Early Dynastic Period, c. 2600 BC, a time in which the surrounding region was already relatively urbanized. It is possible that the city was founded earlier; much of the early historical remains of Assur may have been destroyed during the extensive construction projects of later Assyrian kings, who worked to create level foundations for the buildings they erected in the city. There is no evidence that early Assur was an independent settlement, and it might not have been called Assur at all initially, but rather Baltil or Baltila, used in later times to refer to the city's oldest portion. The name "Assur" is first attested for the site in documents of the Akkadian period in the 24th century BC.
Early Assur was probably a local religious and tribal center and must have been a town of some size since it had monumental temples. It was located in a highly strategic location, on a hill overlooking the Tigris river, protected by a river on one side and a canal on another. Surviving archaeological and literary evidence has been suggested by some historians that Assur in its earliest history may have been inhabited by Hurrians as well as Semitic ancestors of the Assyrians, although others reject this hypothesis. Assur was the site of a fertility cult devoted to the Assyrian-Akkadian goddess Ishtar. The earliest known archaeological finds at the site are Early Dynastic-age temples dedicated to Ishtar. These temples and the artifacts within them also show considerable similarities to temples and artifacts from Sumer in southern Mesopotamia, which might suggest that there was also a group of Sumerians living in the city, that it at some point was conquered by an unknown Sumerian ruler or simply be an example of the melding of Sumerian and Akkadian speaking culture in Mesopotamia. The East Semitic-speaking ancestors of the later Assyrians settled in Mesopotamia at some point during the 35th and 31st century BC, either assimilating or displacing the previous population. The earliest Assyrian king named Tudia appears to have lived in the mid 25th century BC.
During much of the early Assyrian period, Assur was dominated by states and polities from southern Mesopotamia. Early on, Assur for a time fell under the loose hegemony of the Sumerian city of Kish and it was later occupied by both the Akkadian Empire and then the Third Dynasty of Ur. The Akkadian Empire probably conquered Assur in the time of its first ruler, Sargon (c. 2334–2279 BC), and is known to have controlled the city at least from the reign of Manishtushu (c. 2270–2255 BC) onwards since contemporary inscriptions dedicated to Manishtushu have been recovered from the city. The earliest historically attested rulers of Assur were local governors under the Akkadian kings, including figures such as Ititi and Azazu, who bore the title Išši'ak Aššur (governor of Assur). Assur was strongly influenced both culturally and linguistically by the period under Akkadian rule (the Akkadians and Assyrians being ethno-linguistically the same people) and the period would be regarded as a golden age by later Assyrian kings, who often sought to emulate the Akkadian rulers who they viewed as their ancestors.
Assur was largely destroyed in the late Akkadian period, possibly by the Lullubi, but was rebuilt and later conquered by the Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur in the late 22nd or early 21st century BC. Under the rulers of Ur, Assur became a peripheral city state under its own governors, such as Zariqum, who paid tribute to the southern kings. This period of Sumerian dominance over the city came to an end as the last king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Ibbi-Sin (c. 2028–2004 BC) lost his administrative grip on the peripheral regions of his empire and Assur became an independent city-state controlling areas of northern Mesopotamia under its own rulers, beginning with Puzur-Ashur I c. 2025 BC, although it appears kings such as Ushpia c. 2080 BC were also independent.
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History of the Assyrians AI simulator
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History of the Assyrians
The history of the Assyrians encompasses nearly five millennia, covering the history of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Assyria, including its territory, culture and people, as well as the later history of the Assyrian people after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 609 BC. For purposes of historiography, ancient Assyrian history is often divided by modern researchers, based on political events and gradual changes in language, into the Early Assyrian (c. 2600–2025 BC), Old Assyrian (c. 2025–1364 BC), Middle Assyrian (c. 1363–912 BC), Neo-Assyrian (911–609 BC) and post-imperial (609 BC–c. AD 240) periods., Sassanid era Asoristan from 240 AD until 637 AD and the post Islamic Conquest period until the present day.
Assyria gets its name from the ancient city of Assur, founded c. 2600 BC. During much of its early history, Assur was dominated by foreign states and polities from southern Mesopotamia, for instance falling under the hegemony of the Sumerian city of Kish, being incorporated into the ethnically same Akkadian Empire and falling under the rule of the Third Dynasty of Ur. The city and its surrounds became an independent city-state under its own line of rulers during the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, achieving independence under Puzur-Ashur I c. 2025 BC. Puzur-Ashur's dynasty continued to govern Assur which became a regional power with colonies in Anatolia and influence over South Mesopotamia until the throne was usurped by the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I c. 1808 BC. This period is sometimes known as the Old Assyrian Empire and latterly the 'Empire of Shamshi Adad'. After a few decades of Babylonian domination in the mid 18th century BC, Assyrian was restored as an independent state, perhaps by the king Puzur-Sin or his successor Adasi, both of whom defeated the Babylonians and Amorites. In the 15th century BC, Assyria briefly fell under the suzerainty of the Mitanni kingdom. After wars between Mitanni and the Hittites, Assur broke free, and under Ashur-uballit I (r. c. 1363–1328 BC) destroyed the Hurri-Mitanni Empire and annexed much of the territory of the Hittite Empire and transitioned to a powerful territorial state governing an increasingly large stretch of territory in Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Levant, forming the Middle Assyrian Empire.
Under the 14th and 13th-century BC warrior-kings Adad-nirari I, Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I, the Middle Assyrian Empire became one of the great powers of the ancient Near East, for a time even occupying Babylonia in the south. After the death of Ashur-bel-kala in 1056 BC, Assyria experienced a long period of decline, sometimes interrupted by energetic warrior-kings, which restricted Assyria to little more than the Assyrian heartland and surrounding territories, though Assyrian military prowess remained the best in the world. New efforts by the Assyrian kings of the 10th and 9th centuries BC reversed this decline and saw a renewed period of expansion. Under Ashurnasirpal II in the early 9th century BC, Assyria (now the Neo-Assyrian Empire) once more became the dominant political and military power of the Near East. Assyrian expansionism and power reached its peak under Tiglath-Pileser III in the 8th century BC and the subsequent Sargonid dynasty of kings, under whom the Neo-Assyrian Empire stretched from Egypt, Libya and Arabian Peninsula the south to the Caucasus in the north, and Persia in the east to Cyprus in the west . Babylonia was recaptured and Assyrian campaigns were conducted into both Anatolia and modern-day Armenia. The empire, and Assyria as a state, came to an end in the late 7th century BC as a result of the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire after a draining civil war among rival claimants to the Assyrian throne had gravely weakened it.
After the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian people continued to survive northern Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia and Assyrian cultural traditions were kept alive. Though the Babylonians and Medes had extensively devastated Assyrian cities, the region was soon significantly rebuilt and revived under the rule of the Achaemenid Empire, Seleucid and Parthian empires, from the 4th century BC to the 3rd century AD. Assur itself flourished in the late post-imperial period, perhaps once more under its own line of rulers as a semi-autonomous city-state. During the Parthian Empire a number of Neo Assyrian states emerged from the 2nd century BC to mid 3rd century AD, including Assur, Adiabene, Osroene, Beth Nuhadra, Beth Garmai and the partly Assyrian Hatra. However these states were conquered by the Sasanian Empire c. AD 240. Starting from the 1st century AD onwards, the Assyrians were Christianized, though holdouts of the old ancient Mesopotamian religion continued to survive for many centuries, into the Late Middle Ages in some regions. The Assyrians continued to constitute a significant if not majority portion of the population in northern Mesopotamia, Northeast Syria and Southeast Anatolia until suppression and massacres under the Ilkhanate and the Timurid Empire in the 14th century. These atrocities relegated the Assyrians to a local indigenous ethnic, linguistic and religious minority. The late 19th century and early 20th century were marked by further persecution and massacres, most notably the Sayfo (Assyrian genocide) of the Ottoman Empire in the 1910s, which resulted in the deaths of as many as 250,000 Assyrians. This time of atrocities was also marked by an increasing Assyrian cultural consciousness; the first Assyrian newspaper, Zahrirē d-Bahra ("Rays of Light"), began publishing in 1848 and the earliest Assyrian political party, the Assyrian Socialist Party, was founded in 1917. Throughout the 20th century and still today, many unsuccessful proposals have been made by the Assyrians for autonomy or independence. Further massacres and persecutions, enacted both by governments and by terrorist groups such as the Islamic State have resulted in most of the Assyrian people living in diaspora.
Agricultural villages in the region that would later become Assyria are known to have existed by the time of the Hassuna culture, c. 6300–5800 BC. Though the sites of some nearby cities that would later be incorporated into the Assyrian heartland, such as Nineveh, are known to have been inhabited since the Neolithic, the earliest archaeological evidence from Assur dates to the Early Dynastic Period, c. 2600 BC, a time in which the surrounding region was already relatively urbanized. It is possible that the city was founded earlier; much of the early historical remains of Assur may have been destroyed during the extensive construction projects of later Assyrian kings, who worked to create level foundations for the buildings they erected in the city. There is no evidence that early Assur was an independent settlement, and it might not have been called Assur at all initially, but rather Baltil or Baltila, used in later times to refer to the city's oldest portion. The name "Assur" is first attested for the site in documents of the Akkadian period in the 24th century BC.
Early Assur was probably a local religious and tribal center and must have been a town of some size since it had monumental temples. It was located in a highly strategic location, on a hill overlooking the Tigris river, protected by a river on one side and a canal on another. Surviving archaeological and literary evidence has been suggested by some historians that Assur in its earliest history may have been inhabited by Hurrians as well as Semitic ancestors of the Assyrians, although others reject this hypothesis. Assur was the site of a fertility cult devoted to the Assyrian-Akkadian goddess Ishtar. The earliest known archaeological finds at the site are Early Dynastic-age temples dedicated to Ishtar. These temples and the artifacts within them also show considerable similarities to temples and artifacts from Sumer in southern Mesopotamia, which might suggest that there was also a group of Sumerians living in the city, that it at some point was conquered by an unknown Sumerian ruler or simply be an example of the melding of Sumerian and Akkadian speaking culture in Mesopotamia. The East Semitic-speaking ancestors of the later Assyrians settled in Mesopotamia at some point during the 35th and 31st century BC, either assimilating or displacing the previous population. The earliest Assyrian king named Tudia appears to have lived in the mid 25th century BC.
During much of the early Assyrian period, Assur was dominated by states and polities from southern Mesopotamia. Early on, Assur for a time fell under the loose hegemony of the Sumerian city of Kish and it was later occupied by both the Akkadian Empire and then the Third Dynasty of Ur. The Akkadian Empire probably conquered Assur in the time of its first ruler, Sargon (c. 2334–2279 BC), and is known to have controlled the city at least from the reign of Manishtushu (c. 2270–2255 BC) onwards since contemporary inscriptions dedicated to Manishtushu have been recovered from the city. The earliest historically attested rulers of Assur were local governors under the Akkadian kings, including figures such as Ititi and Azazu, who bore the title Išši'ak Aššur (governor of Assur). Assur was strongly influenced both culturally and linguistically by the period under Akkadian rule (the Akkadians and Assyrians being ethno-linguistically the same people) and the period would be regarded as a golden age by later Assyrian kings, who often sought to emulate the Akkadian rulers who they viewed as their ancestors.
Assur was largely destroyed in the late Akkadian period, possibly by the Lullubi, but was rebuilt and later conquered by the Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur in the late 22nd or early 21st century BC. Under the rulers of Ur, Assur became a peripheral city state under its own governors, such as Zariqum, who paid tribute to the southern kings. This period of Sumerian dominance over the city came to an end as the last king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Ibbi-Sin (c. 2028–2004 BC) lost his administrative grip on the peripheral regions of his empire and Assur became an independent city-state controlling areas of northern Mesopotamia under its own rulers, beginning with Puzur-Ashur I c. 2025 BC, although it appears kings such as Ushpia c. 2080 BC were also independent.