The Middle Assyrian Empire was the third stage of Assyrian history, covering the history of Assyria from the accession of Ashur-uballit I c. 1363 BC and the rise of Assyria as a territorial kingdom to the death of Ashur-dan II in 912 BC. The Middle Assyrian Empire was Assyria's first period of ascendancy as an empire . Though the empire experienced successive periods of expansion and decline, it remained the dominant power of northern Mesopotamia throughout the period. In terms of Assyrian history, the Middle Assyrian period was marked by important social, political and religious developments, including the rising prominence of both the Assyrian king and the Assyrian national deity Ashur .
292-477: In the history of Assyria , Limmu was an Assyrian eponym (a person after whom something is named). At the beginning of the reign of an Assyrian king , the limmu, an appointed royal official, would preside over the New Year festival at the capital. Each year a new limmu would be chosen. Although picked by lot, there was most likely a limited group, such as the men of the most prominent families or perhaps members of
584-584: A battle in which the Babylonians burned down their own siege engines so that they would not be captured by the Assyrians. Though the Synchronistic History describes Assyria as in danger of Babylonian aggression in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar's father and predecessor Ninurta-nadin-shumi , it casts Ashur-resh-ishi as a savior of the empire, who defeated Nebuchadnezzar in several battles and was able to defend
876-585: A border agreement with the Babylonian king Nabu-shuma-ukin I , a clear indicator that Assyrian power was on the rise. The second and more substantial phase of early Neo-Assyrian expansion began under Tukulti-Ninurta's son Ashurnasirpal II ( r. 883–859 BC), whose conquests made the Neo-Assyrian Empire the dominant political power in the Near East. One of Ashurnasirpal's most persistent enemies
1168-611: A city assembly made up of influential figures from Assur, the Middle Assyrian kings were autocratic rulers who used the title šar ("king") and sought equal status to the monarchs of other empires. The transition into an empire also led to the development of various necessary systems, such as a sophisticated road system, various administrative divisions of territory and a complex web of royal administrators and officials. Assyria became an independent territorial state under Ashur-uballit I c. 1363 BC, having previously been under
1460-414: A concubine, or someone who was not the primary wife, were lower in status but could still inherit money and property if the "main" marriage remained childless. The status of widowed women depended on whether they were the main or secondary wife and on whether they had children. The Middle Assyrian Laws specify that a woman who lost her husband as a prisoner of war was expected to wait for two years; if she had
1752-485: A desire to restore old glory, later Assyrian documents saw this time as one of painful losses of territory. By 1000 BC, Assyria was at the low point of its power, with many previously large settlements lying in ruins and local rulers battling new tribal chiefs for control of lands that were previously part of the empire. The Assyrian heartland continued to remain intact, however, protected due to its geographical remoteness. The Assyrian kings never ceased to believe that
2044-686: A family feud, whose children convert to Christianity. The legend of the Saints Behnam and Sarah , set in the 4th century but written long thereafter, casts Sennacherib, under the name Sinharib , as their royal father. After Behnam converts to Christianity, Sinharib orders his execution, but is later struck by a dangerous disease that is cured through being baptized by Saint Matthew in Assur. Thankful, Sinharib then converts to Christianity and founds an important monastery near Mosul , called Deir Mar Mattai . The 7th-century Assyrian History of Mar Qardagh made
2336-484: A father-in-law or a son to support her, she was given no support from the government, but if she was alone and her husband had been a free man, she could appeal for government support by making an application to the "judges" ( da”anū ), royal officials who were obligated to help her. The expansion of the Middle Assyrian Empire, combined with deportations and movements of conquered peoples, led to contact between
2628-585: A fortress on the Euphrates, records that a son of a physician and priest named Simeon was named Nebuchadnezzar (rendered Bukthanaṣar in the Arabic text). Simeon and Nebuchadnezzar were members of a prominent ecclesiastical family which also included Philoxenus Nemrud (a name deriving from Nimrud or Nimrod), a Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church . Middle Assyrian Empire The Middle Assyrian Empire
2920-555: A great number of chariots. Though he did not conquer Babylonia, several cities, including Babylon itself, were successfully attacked and looted. He was probably unable to conquer Babylonia since a significant amount of attention needed to be diverted to the Aramean tribes in the west. Though he was one of the most powerful kings of the Middle Assyrian period, succeeding in imposing tribute from as far away as Phoenicia , his achievements were not long-lasting and several territories, especially in
3212-490: A growing disconnect between the king and the traditional elite of the empire; eunuchs grew unprecedently powerful in his time, being granted large tracts of lands and numerous tax exemptions. After Ashurbanipal's death in 631 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire quickly collapsed. His son and successor Ashur-etil-ilani ruled only briefly before another son of Ashurbanipal, Sinsharishkun , became king in 627 BC. In 626 BC Babylonia revolted again, this time led by Nabopolassar , probably
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#17328950365693504-440: A guest in c. 1221 BC and make offerings to the Babylonian gods, it is clear that Adad-shuma-iddina enjoyed Assyrian support for his rule. Though this campaign was followed by several years of peace, it is clear that Adad-shuma-iddina eventually stopped acting like a puppet ruler. Though Tukulti-Ninurta forgave him for a revolt in which he seized the city of Lubdi , a second revolt by Adad-shuma-iddina in c. 1217 BC
3796-494: A landowner died or refused their agreed-upon duties, his families could lose the lands they had been given. It is not clear what factors determined the nature of the services, nor what determined how much land a particular individual or family were given. The most high-ranking officials were typically provided with large states, perhaps including entire villages and their people. In theory, the system ensured close links between landowners and their land, but numerous factors destabilized
4088-463: A large amount of buildings being either repaired or constructed from scratch. From around or shortly after the end of the 2nd century BC, the city may have become the capital of its own small semi-autonomous realm, either under the suzerainty of Hatra, or under direct Parthian suzerainty. Stelae erected by the local rulers of Assur in this time resemble the stelae erected by the Neo-Assyrian kings,
4380-510: A large number of villages. The most significant phase of ancient Assyrian history following the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire transpired after the region was conquered by the Parthian Empire in the 2nd century BC. Under Parthian rule, the slow recovery of Assyria initiated under the Seleucids continued. This process eventually resulted in an unprecedented return to prosperity and revival in
4672-432: A letter to the pharaoh Akhenaten wherein he falsely claimed that the Assyrians were his vassals. After several years of peaceful co-existence between Assyria and Babylonia, the Babylonian king Kara-hardash , son of Burnaburiash and Muballitat-Serua, was overthrown. Muballitat-Serua was most likely killed at the same time, which prompted Ashur-uballit to march south and restore order. The usurper who had taken Babylonia in
4964-501: A local Assyrian version of this narrative appears in some Syriac-language writings from the Sasanian period, which allege that Balaam's prophecy was remembered only through being transmitted through the ancient Assyrian kings. In some stories, explicit claims of descent are made. According to the 6th-century History of Karka , twelve of the noble families of Karka (ancient Arrapha ) were descendants of ancient Assyrian nobility who lived in
5256-658: A local cult dedicated to Ashur. Towards the end of the 6th century BC, the Assyrian dialect of the Akkadian language went extinct, having towards the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire already largely been replaced by Aramaic as a vernacular language. After the Achaemenid conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, Assyria was incorporated into the Achaemenid Empire, organized into the province Athura ( Aθūrā ). Some former Assyrian territory
5548-540: A member of a prominent political family in Uruk . Though Nabopolassar was more successful than previous Babylonian rebels, it is unlikely that he would have been victorious in the end had the Medes under Cyaxares not entered the conflict in 615/614 BC. In 614 BC, the Medes and Babylonians sacked and destroyed Assur and in 612 BC, they captured and plundered Nineveh, Sinsharishkun dying in
5840-452: A more immediate threat, but conquering southern Mesopotamia would also be more prestigious. Through military focus on Babylonian border towns, such as Lubdi and Rapiqu , it is clear that Adad-nirari's ultimate goal was to subdue the Babylonians and achieve hegemony over all of Mesopotamia. Adad-nirari's temporary occupations of Lubdi and Rapiqu were met with an attack by the Babylonian king Nazi-Maruttash , though Adad-nirari defeated him at
6132-479: A part. Assur's importance as a trading center declined in the 19th century BC, perhaps chiefly because of increasing conflict between states and rulers of the ancient Near East leading to a general decrease in trade. From this time to the end of the Old Assyrian period, Assur frequently fell into conflict with larger foreign states and empires. In particular, the nearby centers of Eshnunna and Ekallatum threatened
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#17328950365696424-450: A permanent, but not the only prominent, actor, presiding over the meetings of Assur's main administrative body, the city assembly. Perhaps partly inspired by the period of more autocratic rule when Assur was under the rule of the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I c. 1808–1776 BC, the influence of the city assembly had disappeared by the time of Ashur-uballit I's accession. Although
6716-561: A positive development and as a part of the struggle between the eastern churches and the Chalcedonians. The Muslim Conquest also strengthened local identities, such as that of the Assyrians, through to a large extent shattering the communications between local Christians and those in the Roman Empire. Under Muslim rule, the province or region containing the ancient Assyrian heartland was called al-Jazira , meaning "the island", in reference to
7008-717: A prisoner, and assuming the ancient title " king of Sumer and Akkad ". Given that some inscriptions report "Assyrian refugees" from Babylonia and that some soldiers were "starving", it appears that the victory was a costly one. Tukulti-Ninurta's rule over Babylonia, which nominally placed territories as far south as the Persian Gulf under Assyrian rule, lasted for several years and began the apex of Middle Assyrian power, though Assyrian domination appears to have been rather indirect. Tukulti-Ninurta experienced some difficulties in keeping his empire together, particularly in Babylonia. Though
7300-513: A representative of the household. The social position of women in the Middle Assyrian Empire can be examined in detail due to the laws concerning them in the Middle Assyrian Laws. These laws include punishment for various crimes, often sexual or marital ones. Women's rights in the Middle Assyrian Empire appear to have decreased somewhat since the Old Assyrian period, when women and men had little difference in legal standing and by and large
7592-515: A royal harem composed of women of lower rank. The life and court politics within the palaces followed strict rules, overseen by a council of appointed office holders closely linked to the royal court. Officials included "provincial governors" ( bēl pāḫete ), "palace administrators" ( rab ekalle ), "palace heralds" ( nāgir ekalle ), "chief supervisors" ( rab zāriqe ) and "physicians of the Inner Quarters" ( asû ša betā nū ). These councilors supervised
7884-505: A royal palace for himself at Taite , a former Mitanni capital. Adad-nirari also fought with Babylonia, defeating the Babylonian king Nazi-Maruttash at the Battle of Kār Ištar c. 1280 BC and redrawing the border between the two kingdoms in Assyria's favor. Assyrian campaigns and conquests intensified under Shalmaneser I . Shalmaneser's most significant wars were those directed towards
8176-484: A separate component of the army. Based on surviving depictions, chariots were crewed by two soldiers: an archer who commanded the chariot ( māru damqu ) and a driver ( ša mugerre ). Chariots were not used extensively before the time of Tiglath-Pileser I, who put particular emphasis on the chariots not just as a combat unit but also as the vehicle to be used by the king. Clear evidence of the special strategic importance of chariots comes from chariots forming their own branch of
8468-568: A settlement located only a day's journey from Assur. Although the Assyrians drove him away, an incursion this deep into the Assyrian heartland left an impression on the Assyrians, who in future conflicts often focused on Babylonian border outposts along the eastern Tigris river as a preventive measure. Under the warrior-kings Adad-nirari I ( r. c. 1305–1274 BC), Shalmaneser I ( r. c. 1273–1244 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I ( r. c. 1243–1207 BC), Assyria began to realize its aspirations of becoming
8760-504: A significant regional power. Adad-nirari was the first Assyrian king to march against the remnants of the Mitanni kingdom and the first Assyrian king to include lengthy narratives of his campaigns in his royal inscriptions. Adad-nirari early in his reign defeated Shattuara I of Mitanni and forced him to pay tribute to Assyria as a vassal ruler. After a revolt by Shattuara's son Wasashatta Adad-niari annexed some Mitanni lands and constructed
9052-519: A significant regional power. Though the other powers of the Ancient Near East , such as Egypt, the Hittites and Babylonia, had at first been reluctant to view the new Assyrian kingdom as their equal, from the time of Adad-nirari I onwards, when Assyria grew to take the place of Mitanni, its status as one of the major kingdoms became undeniable. Adad-nirari I was the first Assyrian king to march against
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9344-627: A single generation, the Hittite Empire and the Kassite dynasty of Babylon had fallen, and Egypt had been severely weakened through losing its lands in the Levant. Modern researchers tend to varyingly ascribe the Bronze Age collapse to large-scale migrations, invasions by the mysterious Sea Peoples , new warfare technology and its effects, starvation, epidemics, climate change and an unsustainable exploitation of
9636-511: A time become the dominant power in Mesopotamia . The reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I marked the height of the Middle Assyrian Empire and included the subjugation of Babylonia and the foundation of a new capital city, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta , though it was abandoned after his death. Though Assyria was left largely unscathed by the direct effects of the Late Bronze Age collapse of the 12th century BC,
9928-575: A time neutralized the Urartian threat after he in an ambitious campaign in 856 BC sacked the Urartian capital of Arzashkun and devastated the heartland of the kingdom. In 853 BC, Shalmaneser was forced to fight against a large coalition of western states assembled at Tell Qarqur in Syria, led by the Aramean Hadadezer , the king of Aram-Damascus . Though Shalmaneser fought them at the Battle of Qarqar in
10220-511: A vassal ruler with stronger authority, he placed his eldest son Ashur-nadin-shumi on the Babylonian throne. In 694 BC, Sennacherib invaded Elam with the explicit goal to root out Marduk-apla-iddina and his supporters. Sennacherib sailed across the Persian Gulf with a fleet built by Phoenician and Greek shipwrights and captured and sacked countless Elamite cities. He never got his revenge on Marduk-apla-iddina, who died of natural causes before
10512-629: A vassal, an arrangement that lasted for about 70 years, until c. 1360 BC. Assur retained some autonomy under the Mitanni kings, as Assyrian kings during this time are attested as commissioning building projects, trading with Egypt and signing boundary agreements with the Kassites in Babylon. Another Hittite invasion, by Šuppiluliuma I in the early 14th century BC, effectively crippled the Mitanni kingdom. After his invasion, Assyria succeeded in freeing itself from its suzerain, achieving independence once more in
10804-490: A year. Mutakkil-Nusku began a conflict with the Babylonian king Itti-Marduk-balatu over control of the city of Zanqi or Zaqqa, which continued in the reign of his son and successor Ashur-resh-ishi I ( r. 1132–1115 BC). In the Synchronistic History (a later Assyrian document), further tensions at Zanqi are described between Ashur-resh-ishi and the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar I , which included
11096-615: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . 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
11388-477: Is also clear that Assyria was not entirely uninhabited, nor poor in any real sense. It is possible that large portions of the remaining Assyrian populace might have turned to nomadism due to the collapse of the local settlements and economy. Throughout the time of the Neo-Babylonian and later Achaemenid Empire , Assyria was a marginal and sparsely populated region, perhaps chiefly due to the limited interest of
11680-402: Is also famous for the most dramatic construction project of the entire Middle Assyrian period: the construction of a new capital city, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta , named after himself (the name meaning "fortress of Tukulti-Ninurta"). Founded in the eleventh year of his reign ( c. 1233 BC), the construction and brief occupation of the city was the only time the Assyrian capital was moved before
11972-434: Is clear from surviving records that the geopolitical situation in northern Mesopotamia was highly volatile, with frequent shifts in power. In c. 1772 BC Ibal-pi-el II of Eshnunna invaded and conquered Ishme-Dagan's kingdom, though he returned to power not long thereafter. A few years later, an army from Elam invaded northern Mesopotamia and seized a few cities. In c. 1761 BC, Assur, perhaps only briefly, fell under
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12264-617: Is explicitly referred to as Assyrian in many of the Sasanian-period texts and is inserted into the line of Assyrian kings. Nimrod, as well as other legendary Mesopotamian (though explicitly Assyrian in the texts) rulers, such as Belus and Ninus , sometimes play significant roles in the writings. Certain Christian texts considered the Biblical figure Balaam to have prophesied the Star of Bethlehem ;
12556-472: Is in some records alternatively referred to as Atūria or Āthōr (i.e. Assyria). Records from a 585 synod also testify to the existence of a metropolitan bishop of the Āṯōrayē (Assyrians), who was from northern Mesopotamia. The Adiabene vassal kingdom was abolished c. 379, with Adiabene thereafter being governed by royally appointed governors. Because of the size and wealth of the region, these governors, though not kings, could still be influential. In
12848-463: 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
13140-457: Is not clear; perhaps the name originated during a time when northern Mesopotamia was occupied by the Roman Empire (and thus designated the remaining part of Mesopotamia under Sasanian control) or perhaps the name derived from the Sasanians also making the connection between the present Aramaic-speaking Christians of the regions and the ancient Assyrians. Syriac-language sources continued to connect
13432-457: 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
13724-465: Is the earliest Assyrian king to appear in the Synchronistic History , a later text concerning border disputes between Assyria and Babylonia, suggesting that Assyria first entered into diplomacy and conflict with Babylonia at this time and that Assur at this time ruled a small stretch of territory beyond the city itself. Around c. 1430 BC, Assur was subjugated by Mitanni and forced to become
14016-410: Is used by modern historians to mark the transition from the Middle Assyrian Empire to the succeeding Neo-Assyrian Empire . Theologically, the Middle Assyrian period saw important transformations of the role of Ashur. Having originated as a deified personification of the city of Assur itself sometime centuries earlier in the Early Assyrian period , Ashur in the Middle Assyrian period became equated with
14308-595: The Akitu festival. In 707 BC, Sargon returned to Nimrud and in 706 BC, Dur-Sharrukin was inaugurated as the empire's new capital. Sargon did not get to enjoy his new city for long; in 705 BC he embarked on his final campaign, directed against Tabal , and died in battle in Anatolia. Sargon's son Sennacherib ( r. 705–681 BC) moved the capital to Nineveh , which was extensively renovated in his reign. Sargon's battlefield death had theological implications and some of
14600-400: The ilku system , not entirely unlike the feudalism of Medieval Europe ; the Assyrian kings had claims to most of the empire's lands, including private property, so in turn for providing attendants and personnel with arable lands to sustain themselves, the kings expected their service in return. The extent and nature of these services varied and was determined by the royal administration. If
14892-516: The Babylonian Chronicles , he was captured and surrendered to the Babylonians by his own people. Ninurta-apal-Ekur then became king, ending the line of rulers who were direct descendants of Tukulti-Ninurta. During his reign, c. 1191–1179 BC, Ninurta-apal-Ekur proved to be, like his immediate predecessors, unable to do much about the collapse of the empire. In the reign of his son, Ashur-dan I ( r. c. 1178–1133 BC),
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#173289503656915184-481: The Battle of Kār Ištar c. 1280 BC and the Assyro-Babylonian border was redrawn in Assyria's favor. Under Adad-nirari's son Shalmaneser I, Assyrian campaigns against its neighbors and equals intensified. According to his own inscriptions, Shalmaneser conquered eight countries (likely minor states) in the first year of his reign. Among the sites captured was the fortress Arinnu , which Shalmaneser razed to
15476-778: The Hittite king Mursili I in c. 1595 BC was critical to Assyria's later development. This invasion destroyed the then dominant power in southern Mesopotamia, the Old Babylonian Empire, which created a vacuum of power that led to the formation of the Kassite kingdom of Babylonia in the south and the Hurrian Mitanni state to the north of Assyria. Assyrian rulers from c. 1520 to c. 1430 were more politically assertive than their predecessors, both regionally and internationally. Puzur-Ashur III ( r. c. 1521–1498 BC)
15768-474: The Hurrians and Elamites, though many monogamous families are also attested. Censuses and ration lists record members of families by age and sex, chiefly due to this aiding in calculating how much rations should be provided to each family. The head of a household was generally the father, but in the case the father was dead and his eldest son was not yet old enough to take over the role, the mother could also act as
16060-590: The Kaskians and Urumeans , tribes who had also settled in the region, voluntarily submitted to him immediately upon the arrival of his army. He also waged war on the Nairi people in the Armenian highlands. Famed for their knowledge of horse breeding, his self-admitted goal of this campaign was to acquire more horses for the Assyrian army. It is clear from his inscriptions that the goal of the campaigns were to instill respect among
16352-585: The Kingdom of Israel . Though cuneiform had previously been the main writing system of these regions, the rise of new peoples and realms led to cuneiform being replaced in the west by more simple alphabetic writing systems. Out of the new players on the scene, the Arameans, through their at times eastward movements, had the most effect on Assyria. Documents as old as from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I demonstrate that even at that early stage, Aramean raids penetrated deep into
16644-455: The Levant . Conflict with the Hittites continued in the reign of Shalmaneser's son Tukulti-Ninurta I until the Assyrian victory at the Battle of Nihriya c. 1237 BC, which marked the beginning of the end of Hittite influence in northern Mesopotamia and the annexation of formerly Hittite territories in the Levant and Anatolia. In addition to his various campaigns and conquests, which brought
16936-515: The Levant . The hostilities reached their zenith under Shalmaneser's son and successor Tukulti-Ninurta I, who defeated the Hittites at the Battle of Nihriya c. 1237 BC. The Hittite defeat at Nihriya marked the beginning of the end of their influence in northern Mesopotamia. Shalmaneser I's son Tukulti-Ninurta I became king c. 1243 BC. He had, according to historian Stefan Jakob, "an unconditional will to create something that would last forever" and his wide-ranging conquests brought
17228-454: The Neo-Assyrian period, centuries later. After Tukulti-Ninurta's death, the capital was transferred back to Assur. Inscriptions from the late reign of Tukulti-Ninurta showcase increasing internal isolation, as many among the powerful nobility of Assyria grew dissatisfied with his rule, especially after the loss of Babylonia. In some of his own inscriptions, Tukulti-Ninurta appears to lament
17520-592: 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
17812-753: The Synchronistic History (a later Assyrian document), Ashur-resh-ishi is cast as a savior of the Assyrian Empire, defeating the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar I in several battles. In some of his inscriptions, Ashur-resh-ishi claimed the epithet "avenger of Assyria" ( mutēr gimilli māt Aššur ). Due to Ashur-resh-ishi's victories over Babylonia, his son Tiglath-Pileser I ( r. 1114–1076 BC) could focus his attention on other territories without worrying about southern attacks. Texts written already during his first few regnal years demonstrate that Tiglath-Pileser ruled with more confidence than his immediate predecessors, using titles such as "unrivalled king of
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#173289503656918104-586: The Tigris , the foothills of the Taurus Mountains and the Upper Zab , which modern historians use to mark the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period. Ashur-uballit was the first native Assyrian ruler to claim the royal title šar ("king"), and the first ruler of Assur to do so since the time of the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I in the 18th century BC. Shortly after achieving independence, he further claimed
18396-549: The Tukulti-Ninurta epic, he marched south to the Diyala River and began targeting Babylonian cities, including Sippar and Dur-Kurigalzu . Kashtiliash then attacked the Assyrians, confident that he would be victorious, but he was defeated and then avoided conflict himself for the rest of the war. Tukulti-Ninurta eventually emerged as the winner, conquering Babylonia c. 1225 BC, dragging Kashtiliash back to Assyria as
18688-516: The hypostatic union (that Jesus was both fully God and fully man), were condemned at Chalcedon. The followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church were often called "Jacobites", after Jacob Baradaeus , an anti-Chalcedon bishop of Edessa . The Sasanians, who geopolitically opposed the Romans and often found themselves at war with them, deliberately cultivated and supported the now schismatic Church of
18980-498: The ilku system, engineers or architects ( šalimpāju ), carpenters and religious functionaries. The taxation system of the Middle Assyrian Empire is not yet fully understood. Though tax collectors are known to have existed, records of taxes being collected and what these were are lacking; the only currently confidently attested direct tax paid by individuals was an import tax, levied on imports of goods from foreign states. In at least one case, this tax amounted to about 25 percent of
19272-575: The power vacuum left by the Hittites and Egyptians in Anatolia and the Levant allowed various ethno-tribal communities and states to take their place. In northern Anatolia and northern Syria, the Luwians seized power, forming the Syro-Hittite states . In Syria, the Arameans grew increasingly prominent. In Palestine , the Philistines and Israelites carved out realms of their own, eventually coalescing into
19564-468: The sạ bū ša kakkē ("weapon troops") and the sạ bū ša arâtē ("shield-bearing troops"). Surviving inscriptions do not specify what kind of weaponry these soldiers carried. In lists of the troops in armies, the sạ bū ša kakkē appear opposite the chariots, whereas the sạ bū ša arâtē appear opposite to the archers. It is possible that the sạ bū ša kakkē included ranged troops, such as slingers ( ṣābū ša ušpe ) and archers ( ṣābū ša qalte ). The chariots were
19856-415: The šiluhlu̮ were not considered property of their employers but rather of the Assyrian government. In one instance, royal officials are explicitly recorded to have intervened after the death of an employer of šiluhlu̮ to distribute their contracts among his sons and an apparently unrelated individual. Other members of clearly lower social classes included the "village residents" ( ālāyû ), also depended on
20148-441: The ḫalṣu (fortifications/districts), but these were soon thereafter replaced completely with pāḫutu . The number of provinces changed as the territory of Assyria expanded and contracted, with the highest number of provinces being recorded in the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I. Each province was headed by a provincial governor ( bel pāḫete ) who was responsible for the local economy and public safety and order. Another important task of
20440-453: The "age of the magnates", when powerful officials and generals were the principal wielders of political power, rather than the king. The last few campaigns of Shalmaneser's reign were not led by the king, probably on account of old age, but rather by the capable turtanu (commander-in-chief) Dayyan-Assur . Shalmaneser's final years became preoccupied by an internal crisis when one of his sons, Ashur-danin-pal , rebelled in an attempt to seize
20732-589: 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
21024-623: The 1st century AD, the Christian Assyrian writer Tatian composed the influential Diatessaron , a synoptic rendition of the gospels. Assyrian Christians were periodically persecuted in the Sasanian Empire until 422, when the Roman Empire instituted tolerance for Zoroastrianism (the official Persian religion in ancient times) and the Sasanians in turn officially allowed Christianity. The Assyrian churches became separate from those of
21316-404: The 1st to 3rd centuries AD. The Parthians oversaw an intense resettlement and rebuilding of the region. In this time, the archaeological evidence shows that the population and settlement density of the region reached heights not seen since the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Under Parthian suzerainty, several small and semi-independent kingdoms of Assyrian character and large Assyrian populations cropped up in
21608-640: The 6th-century, one such governor, Denḥa bar Šemraita, is referred to as "grand prince of all the region of Adiabene". With the fall of Ctesiphon in 637, the Sasanian Empire lost control of its political heartland in Mesopotamia, which instead fell under the rule of the Rashidun Caliphate . Due to missionary work by the Church of the East, a significant share of the population in Mesopotamia and Persia were Christian by
21900-490: The 830s, his armies reached into Cilicia and Cappadocia in Anatolia and in 836, Shalmaneser reached Ḫubušna (near modern-day Ereğli ), one of the westernmost places ever reached by Assyrian forces. Though successful, Shalmaneser's conquests had been very quick and had not been fully consolidated by the time of his death. From the late reign of Shalmaneser III onwards, the Neo-Assyrian Empire entered into what scholars call
22192-464: The Achaemenid conquest of Babylon, the remaining inhabitants of Assur received the permission of Cyrus the Great to rebuild the city's ancient temple dedicated to Ashur and Cyrus even returned Ashur's cult statue from Babylon. The organization of Assyria into the single administrative unit Athura effectively kept the region on the map as a distinct political entity throughout the time of Achaemenid rule. In
22484-437: 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
22776-470: The Assyrian army landed, and the campaign instead significantly escalated the conflict with the anti-Assyrian faction in Babylonia and with the Elamites. The Elamite king Hallushu-Inshushinak took revenge on Sennacherib by marching on Babylonia while the Assyrians were busy in his lands and captured Ashur-nadin-shumi, who was taken to Elam and probably executed. In his place, the Elamites and Babylonians crowned
23068-460: The Assyrian court was appointed as vassal ruler of Babylon. In 701 BC, Sennacherib invaded the Levant , the most famous campaign of his reign. Bel-ibni's tenure as Babylonian vassal ruler did not last long and he was continually opposed by Marduk-apla-iddina and another Chaldean warlord, Mushezib-Marduk , who hoped to seize power for themselves. In 700 BC, Sennacherib invaded Babylonia again and drove Marduk-apla-iddina and Mushezib-Marduk away. Needing
23360-452: The Assyrian heartland and in far-away underdeveloped provinces. Tiglath-Pileser's son Shalmaneser V ( r. 727–722 BC) was after only a brief reign usurped by Sargon II ( r. 722–705 BC), either his brother or a non-dynastic usurper. Sargon founded the Sargonid dynasty , which would rule until the fall of the Assyrian Empire. Sargon's accession, possible marking
23652-467: The Assyrian heartland than those of any previous king. In the east, he in one campaign reached as far into modern-day Iran as Dasht-e Kavir . Esarhaddon's greatest military achievement was the 671 BC conquest of Egypt , which not only placed a land of great cultural prestige under Esarhaddon's rule but also brought the Assyrian Empire to its greatest ever extent. Despite his successes, Esarhaddon faced numerous conspiracies against his rule, perhaps because
23944-554: The Assyrian heartland to quell uprisings and soon enough, a Babylonian uprising led by Adad-shuma-usur , perhaps a son of Kashtiliash IV, drove the Assyrians out of Babylonia c. 1216 BC. Tukulti-Ninurta is recorded to have complained to the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma II , at this point an ally of Assyria and expected to cooperate militarily, that he had "remained silent" on the "illegal seizure of power" of Adad-shuma-usur. In addition to his campaigns and conquests, Tukulti-Ninurta
24236-678: The Assyrian heartland, and in 879 BC designated that city as the new capital of the empire, employing thousands of workers to construct new fortifications, palaces and temples in the city. Though no longer the political capital, Assur remained the ceremonial and religious center of Assyria. The reign of Ashurnasirpal's son Shalmaneser III ( r. 859–824 BC) also saw a considerable expansion of Assyrian territory. Lands conquered under Ashurnasirpal were consolidated and divided into further provinces and Shalmaneser's campaigns were also more wide-ranging than those of his predecessors. The most powerful and threatening enemy of Assyria at this point
24528-420: The Assyrian heartland, at one point reaching Assur itself. The Arameans were tribal and their attacks were uncoordinated raids carried out by individual groups. As such, Assyrian kings were able to defeat several Aramean groups in battle. The guerilla tactics and ability of the Arameans to quickly withdraw into difficult terrain however prevented Assyrian armies from ever achieving a lasting decisive victory. From
24820-521: 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
25112-441: 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
25404-516: The Assyrian people, provide offerings to the god. Middle Assyrian kings were also expected to care for all the other gods; Shalmaneser I in his inscriptions mentions that he provided offerings for "all of the gods". From the time of Ashur-resh-ishi I onwards, the religious and cultic duties of the king were pushed somewhat into the background, though they were still prominently mentioned in accounts of building and restoring temples. Assyrian titles and epithets in inscriptions from then on generally emphasize
25696-476: The Assyrian usurper Puzur-Sin re-establishing native rule. The defeat of the Babylonians and Amorites did not mean an end to the troubles, as there was a time of non-dynastic kings and further infighting before the rise of Bel-bani c. 1700 BC. Bel-bani founded the Adaside dynasty , which after his reign ruled Assyria for about a thousand years. In large parts, the invasion or raid of southern Mesopotamia by
25988-404: The Assyrians and instead fought with Enlil-nirari. His treason and betrayal resulted in deep trauma, still referenced in Assyrian writings concerning diplomacy and wars against Babylonia more than a century later; it was seen by many later Assyrians as the starting point of the historical enmity between the two civilizations. At one point, Kurigalzu reached as far into the Assyrian lands as Sugagu ,
26280-408: The Assyrians defeated several Aramean groups in battle, their guerrilla tactics and ability to withdraw into difficult terrain quickly prevented the Assyrians from ever achieving a lasting victory. Though control was lost over most of the Middle Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian heartland remained safe and intact, protected by its geographical remoteness and the military capabilities of its army. Assyria
26572-566: 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
26864-531: The Assyrians had a choice between conversion to Islam, death, slavery or relegation to dhimmi , paying a special tax ( jizya ) to live under protected status. Some local Christians fled from the conquered territories into the lands under Roman rule and some, probably few in number, chose to convert to Islam for economic or political reasons. Certain Syriac Christian authors viewed the Muslim Conquest as
27156-541: The Assyrians in their trade network. The most notable locality excavated is Kültepe , near the modern city of Kayseri in Turkey. At this time, Kültepe was also a city-state ruled by its own line of kings. Over 22,000 Assyrian cuneiform clay tablets have been found at the site. In some way, Assur was able to maintain its central position in its trade network despite being small and having no known history of military activity, though it may be that military activity did in fact play
27448-495: The Assyrians of the Assyrian heartland and foreign groups growing closer. The most prominent foreign ethnic groups within the Middle Assyrian Empire were the Hurrians (incorporated through conquests in northern Syria), Kassites (descendants of deportees and captives from the Babylonian campaigns) and Arameans. Though many Aramean tribes were fought by the Assyrian kings, others traded with the Assyrians and several Aramean tribes towards
27740-488: 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
28032-400: The Babylonian noble Nergal-ushezib as king of Babylon. Sennacherib defeated Nergal-ushezib a few months later, but Mushezib-Marduk seized Babylon in late 693 BC and continued the struggle. In 689 BC, Sennacherib defeated Mushezib-Marduk and nearly completely destroyed Babylon . Sennacherib's reign came to an end in 684 BC, murdered by his eldest surviving son Arda-Mulissu due to having made
28324-448: The Bible, and not actual remembrance of ancient Assyria, some figures who appear in them, such as Esarhaddon and Sargon II, are only briefly mentioned in the Bible. The texts are also very much a local Assyrian phenomenon, as their historical accounts are at odds with those of other historical writings of the Sasanian Empire. The legendary figure Nimrod, otherwise viewed as simply Mesopotamian,
28616-562: The Chaldean warlord Marduk-apla-iddina II , who took control of Babylon, restoring Babylonian independence, and allied with the Elamite king Ḫuban‐nikaš I . While Sargon was campaigning in the east in 720 BC, his generals also put down a major revolt in the western provinces, led by Yau-bi'di of Hamath . After securing the silver treasury of the city of Carchemish in 717 BC, Sargon began construction of another new imperial capital. The new city
28908-532: The Church of the East under the Abbasids, such as Timothy I (780–823), they were considerably weaker than patriarchs such as Ishoyahb III (649–659) had been under the Umayyads. In the tenth century, there was a decisive religious shift in the religion among the populations under Muslim rule; before 850, Muslims had often been an elite minority, making up on average less than 20% of the population, but after 950 they were
29200-405: The Church of the East were thus closer to the seat of power than they had been under the Umayyads (who ruled from Damascus ). Their influence increased under Abbasid rule, since the patriarchs were placed on the council of state of the caliphs. Under the Abbasids, Baghdad was transformed into a great center of learning, and debates were often held among intellectuals, regardless of their religion. At
29492-573: The East. In 421, the Synod of Markabta decided that the head of the church, now styled as the Patriarch of the Church of the East , was declared answerable only to Christ himself, in effect declaring the Church of the East independent. The church's independence was upheld under the authority of the Sasanian King of Kings Jamasp , who in 497 authorized a synod which also declared it independent and abolished
29784-543: The Euphrates. Making use of this opportunity, Ashurnasirpal in his ninth campaign marched to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea , collecting tribute from various Phoenician , Aramean , Cilician , and Neo-Hittite kingdoms on the way. A significant development during Ashurnasirpal's reign was the second transfer of the Assyrian capital away from Assur. Ashurnasirpal restored the ancient and ruined town of Kalhu (the biblical Calah and Medieval Nimrud ) also located in
30076-573: The Great , written by Michael the Syrian , patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, as well as the theological works of Dionysius bar Salibi and Abdisho bar Berika , and the scientific writings of Bar Hebraeus . This short heyday came to an end with persecutions in the 13th and 14th centuries. Records of personal names from this time demonstrate that the names of some Assyrians continued to be connected to ancient Mesopotamia even at this late time; an Arabic-language manuscript created 1272–1275 at Rumkale ,
30368-600: 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
30660-425: The Levant. Modern researchers tend to varyingly ascribe the collapse to large-scale migrations, invasions by the mysterious Sea Peoples , new warfare technology and its effects, starvation, epidemics, climate change and unsustainable exploitation of the working population. Enlil-kudurri-usur enjoyed a much poorer relationship with the line of vassal rulers of Hanigalbat, perhaps because he might not have supported
30952-585: The Middle Assyrian Empire began to experience a significant period of decline roughly at the same time. The assassination of Tukulti-Ninurta I c. 1207 BC led to inter-dynastic conflict and a significant drop in Assyrian power. Even during its period of decline, Middle Assyrian kings continued to be assertive geopolitically; both Ashur-dan I ( r. c. 1178–1133 BC) and Ashur-resh-ishi I ( r. 1132–1115 BC) campaigned against Babylonia. Under Ashur-resh-ishi I's son and successor Tiglath-Pileser I ( r. 1114–1076 BC),
31244-511: The Middle Assyrian Empire experienced a period of resurgence, owing to wide-ranging campaigns and conquests. Tiglath-Pileser's armies marched as far from the Assyrian heartland as the Mediterranean . Though the reconquered and newly conquered lands were held on to for some time, the empire experienced a second and more catastrophic period of decline after the death of Tiglath-Pileser's son Ashur-bel-kala ( r. 1073–1056 BC), which saw
31536-521: The Middle Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent, Tukulti-Ninurta is also famous for being the first Assyrian king to transfer the capital of Assyria away from Assur itself. In his eleventh year as king ( c. 1233 BC), Tukulti-Ninurta inaugurated the new capital city Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta , named after himself (the name meaning "fortress of Tukulti-Ninurta"). The city only served as the capital during Tukulti-Ninurta's reign, with later kings returning to ruling from Assur. Tukulti-Ninurta's main goal
31828-412: The Middle Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent. Even before he became king, neighboring kingdoms had been wary of his accession; when he assumed the throne, the Hittite king Tudḫaliya IV sent him a letter of congratulations but secretly also sent a letter to the Assyrian grand vizier Babu-aha-iddina in which he implored the vizier to dissuade Tukulti-Ninurta from attacking the Hittite territories in
32120-413: The Middle Assyrian civilization given that the line of kings and inhabitation of the Assyrian heartland was continuous. The inscriptions of early Neo-Assyrian kings typically treat their wars of expansions as reconquests of territory lost during the decline of the Middle Assyrian Empire. In the preceding Old Assyrian period , the Assyrian government was in many respects an oligarchy , with the king being
32412-412: The Middle Assyrian period. The earliest Assyrian king known to have explicitly referred to himself as a priest ( šangû ) was Adad-nirari I, who among his titles used the epithet šangû ṣıru ša Enlil ("exalted priest of the god Enlil "). Several sources emphasize the Assyrian king being close to Ashur, and their role as intermediaries between Ashur and mankind. The king was expected to, in conjunction with
32704-444: The Mitanni lands governed by the grand viziers. Under the provincial governors, cities also had their own administrations, headed by mayors ( ḫazi’ānu ), appointed by the kings but representing the local city elite. Similar to the governors, though less important, the mayors were mostly responsible for local economy, including overseeing rations, agriculture and organization of labor. The Assyrians also employed what they referred to as
32996-460: The Mitanni lands. Sometime later, Shattuara's son Wasashatta rebelled against the Assyrians, though was defeated by Adad-nirari who, as punishment, annexed several cities alongside the Khabur river. At Taite , a former Mitanni capital, Adad-nirari constructed a royal palace for himself. The primary focus of Adad-nirari was the conquest and/or pacification of Babylonia. Not only did Babylonia present
33288-459: The Mittani kingdom as different factions vied with each other to depose him. During the wars that followed Tushratta's accession, multiple rivals came to rule Mitanni, such as Artatama II and Shuttarna III . The Assyrians sometimes fought them and sometimes allied with them. Shuttarna III secured Assyrian support, but had to pay heavily for it in silver and gold. Ashur-uballit, doubtlessly watching
33580-485: The Mushki strongholds, the city of Katmuḫu in the northeast, continued to be troublesome for a few years before it was reconquered, looted and its king, Errupi , was deported. Numerous other sites in the northeast were also conquered and incorporated into his empire. Tiglath-Pileser also went on significant campaigns in the west. The cities of northern Syria, which had ceased to pay tribute decades prior, were reconquered and
33872-515: 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
34164-561: The Neo-Babylonian kings to invest resources into its economic and societal development. Individuals with Assyrian names are attested at multiple sites in Babylonia during the Neo-Babylonian Empire, including Babylon itself, Nippur , Uruk, Sippar , Dilbat and Borsippa . The Assyrians in Uruk apparently continued to exist as a community until the reign of the Achaemenid king Cambyses II ( r. 530–522 BC) and were closely linked to
34456-411: The Neo-Babylonian period, suggesting a significant societal breakdown in the region. Archaeological evidence suggests that the former Assyrian capital cities, such as Assur , Nimrud and Nineveh , were initially nearly completely abandoned. The breakdown in society does not necessarily reflect an enormous drop in population; it is clear that the region became less rich and less densely populated, but it
34748-492: The Rashidun (637–661) and succeeding Umayyad Caliphate (661–750); many Christians lived in rural communities run administratively by village headmen ( dihqans ) and country squires ( shaharija ), positions occupied by other Christians. A large number of Christians under Rashidun and Umayyad rule likely lived their entire lives without once seeing a Muslim. There were a number of positions available largely only to Christians under
35040-464: The Sasanian and later Islamic periods. According to some traditions, Christianity took hold in Assyria when Saint Thaddeus of Edessa converted King Abgar V of Osroene in the mid-1st century AD. From the 3rd century AD onwards, it is clear that Christianity was becoming the major religion of the region, with the Christian god replacing the old Mesopotamian deities. Assyrians had by this time already intellectually contributed to Christian thought; in
35332-608: The Sasanian period and later times connected themselves to the ancient Assyrian civilization. Figures like Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin long figured in local folklore and literary tradition. In large part, tales from the Sasanian period and later times were invented narratives, based on ancient Assyrian history but applied to local and current landscapes. Medieval tales written in Aramaic (or Syriac ) for instance by and large characterize Sennacherib as an archetypical pagan king assassinated as part of
35624-630: The Syriac Orthodox Church and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church . They continued to enjoy institutional relationships with the Abbasid caliphs, who held a mainly ceremonial role under the Seljuks. In the 10th–13th centuries, Syriac-language literature experienced something of a renaissance, indicated by the production of several significant pieces of literature, including the Chronicle of Michael
35916-571: The Umayyad Caliphate and the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate in its place in 750 was viewed positively by many Christians under Muslim rule, as the Abbasids were considered to be even more positively inclined towards Christians. In terms of church affairs, the Assyrians benefitted especially much from the regime change since the Abbasids ruled from Baghdad in Mesopotamia, and the Patriarchs of
36208-550: The Umayyad caliphs. The Academy of Gondishapur in southern Mesopotamia, founded by Assyrians from Nisibis in the north, continued to operate and produce skilled Christian physicians under Muslim rule, many of whom were employed by the caliphs. There were also many Christians who rose to other high offices as scribes, accountants and teachers. The cultural and scientific flourishing in the Islamic Golden Age (8th to 14th century)
36500-459: The achievements of individual kings; during the periods of decline, the royal titles used typically grew more simple again, only to grow grander once more as Assyrian power experienced resurgences. In addition to their roles as military leaders, the kings were religiously significant. Already in the Old Assyrian period, the kings were regarded to be the stewards of the Assyrian national deity Ashur, though this began to manifest itself even more in
36792-494: The achievements of their predecessors. The period of decline initiated after Ashur-bel-kala's death was not reversed until the middle of the 10th century BC. Though this period is poorly documented, it is clear that Assyria underwent a major crisis. Although Assyria was only marginally affected by the Late Bronze Age collapse, the collapse caused great changes in the geopolitics of the lands surrounding Assyria. In large part,
37084-481: The aftermath of the Achaemenid Empire's conquest by Alexander the Great in 330 BC, Assyria and much of the rest of the former Achaemenid lands came under the control of the Seleucid Empire , founded by Seleucus I Nicator , one of Alexander's generals. Though Assyria was centrally located within this empire, and must thus have been a significant base of power, the region is rarely mentioned in textual sources from
37376-615: The aggressive armies of the Kassites, Qutû , Lullumu , and Šubaru "), šakanki ilāni ("appointee of the gods") and rubā’u ellu ("holy prince"). The development reached its peak under the wide-ranging Tukulti-Ninurta I, who used various styles denoting the size of his domain, such as "king of Assyria and Karduniash ", "king of Sumer and Akkad", "king of the Upper and the Lower Seas" and " king of all peoples ". Royal titles and epithets were often highly reflective of current political developments and
37668-577: The army and centralize the realm, Tiglath-Pileser is by some regarded as the first true initiator of Assyria's "imperial" phase. Tiglath-Pileser is the earliest Assyrian king mentioned in the Babylonian Chronicles and in the Hebrew Bible and thus the earliest king for which there exists important outside perspectives on his reign. Early on, Tiglath-Pileser reduced the influence of the powerful magnates. Tiglath-Pileser campaigned in all directions with resounding success. His most impressive achievements were
37960-439: The army whereas cavalry ( ša petḫalle ) did not. When used, cavalry was often simply employed for escorting or message deliveries. Further specialized combat roles existed, including the sappers ( ša nēpeše ), particularly useful at sieges. Military officials and generals, included individuals appointed to positions termed sukkallu , sukkallu rabi’u , tartennu and nāgiru . Generals were generally recruited from officials in
38252-448: The assassination of his father. Such a poor relationship was dangerous given that these vassal rulers were also members of the Assyrian royal family, as descendants of Adad-nirari I. At some point during Enlil-kudurri-usur's reign, Ili-ipadda's son Ninurta-apal-Ekur traveled to Babylonia where he met with Adad-shuma-usur. With Babylonian support, Ninurta-apal-Ekur then invaded Assyria and defeated Enlil-kudurri-usur in battle. According to
38544-633: The assassination on his son Ashur-nasir-apli, perhaps a misspelled version of the name of his successor Ashur-nadin-apli ( r. c. 1206–1203 BC). Another leader of the conspiracy appears to have been the grand vizier and vassal king of Hanigalbat Ili-ipadda , who retained a prominent position at the court for years thereafter. Ashur-nadin-apli was after his short reign succeeded by two of his brothers, Ashur-nirari III ( r. c. 1202–1197 BC) and Enlil-kudurri-usur ( r. c. 1196–1192 BC), who also ruled only briefly and were unable to maintain Assyrian power. Though
38836-437: The basis of legal obligations and regulations. It is impossible to ascertain from the surviving inscriptions the extent to which Middle Assyrian levies were trained for their tasks, but it is unlikely that the Assyrian army would be able to be as successful as it was in the reigns of figures like Tukulti-Ninurta I and Tiglath-Pileser I without trained soldiers. In addition to the levies, who are called ḫurādu or ṣābū ḫurādātu in
39128-402: The building and repairs of temples being the primary concern, but construction of other works, such as palaces, also being mentioned. When rebuilding or constructing buildings, the kings often laid down foundation deposits with their names. Later rulers were expected to honor the works of their predecessors and anyone who did not was cursed. One of Tukulti-Ninurta's foundation deposits, relating to
39420-415: The capital's defense. Though the prince Ashur-uballit II , possibly Sinsharishkun's son, attempted to lead the resistance against the Medes and Babylonians from Harran in the west, he was defeated in 609 BC, marking the end of the ancient line of Assyrian kings and of Assyria as a state. The fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire after its final war with the Babylonians and Medes had dramatic consequences for
39712-482: The city and partook in its religious ceremonies. Shamshi-Adad also oversaw the renovation of the city, the rebuilding of the temple of Ashur and the addition of a sanctuary dedicated to the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon, Enlil . It is possible that Shamshi-Adad promoted a theology that equated Ashur and Enlil as one and the same. In that case, his theology was hugely influential as Assyrians in later times attributed
40004-558: The city assembly. The Assyrians used the name of the limmu for that year to designate the year on official documents. Lists of limmus have been found accounting for every year between 892 BC and 648 BC. During the Old Assyrian period, the king himself was never the limmum , as it was called in their language. In the Middle Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian periods, however, the king could take this office. This time -related article
40296-432: The city during the time of Sargon II. The Sasanian Empire confusingly applied the name Āsōristān ("land of the Assyrians") to a province corresponding roughly to the borders of ancient Babylonia, thus excluding the historical Assyria in northern Mesopotamia. The population of Southern Mesopotamia was however during this time also largely made up of Aramaic-speaking Christians. The reason for naming Babylonia Āsōristān
40588-410: The city of Shubat-Enlil . Around 1785 BC, Shamshi-Adad placed his two sons in control of different parts of the kingdom, the elder son Yasmah-Adad being granted Mari and the younger son Ishme-Dagan I being granted Ekallatum and Assur. Though the locals in Assur considered Shamshi-Adad and his family to be foreign conquerors, Shamshi-Adad did have certain respect for Assur and sometimes stayed in
40880-525: 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
41172-457: The collapse of the kingdom. His principal successor, Ishme-Dagan I, ruled from Ekallatum and retained control only of that city and of Assur. The time between the collapse of Shamshi-Adad's kingdom in the 18th century BC and the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BC is often regarded by modern scholars as an Assyrian "Dark Age" due to the lack of sufficient historical evidence to clearly establish events during this time. It
41464-403: The conduct of other courtiers, who were divided into ša-rēši and mazzāz pāni . The meaning of these designations are poorly understood, and some individuals are attested with both. It is possible that the ša-rēši were eunuchs , though this is disputed. The mazzāz pāni may have been close friends and confidants of the king. The surviving palace decrees deal with rules and daily lives of
41756-483: The conflict between Mitanni and the Hittites closely out of interest in expanding Assyria, directed much of his attention to the lands south of his realm. Successful campaigns were directed against both Arrapha and Nuzi , which was destroyed by Assyrian troops in the 1330s BC or before. Neither city was formally incorporated into Assyria; the Assyrian army probably withdrew to the Little Zab , allowing Babylonia to conquer
42048-464: The conquered regions of the empire once again began to assert their right to independence. Most prominently, the vassal states in the Levant stopped paying tribute to Sennacherib and Marduk-apla-iddina retook Babylon with the aid of the Elamites. It took several years for Sennacherib to defeat all of his enemies. Towards the end of 704 BC, Sennacherib retook Babylonia, though Marduk-apla-iddina escaped to Elam again. The Babylonian noble Bel-ibni , raised at
42340-557: The conquest and vassalization of the entirety of the Levant all the way to the Sinai and Egyptian border, his domination of the Persians and Medes to the east, the Arabs to the south of Babylonia, and the 729 conquest of Babylonia, after which he and later Assyrian kings often ruled as both "king of Assyria" and "king of Babylon". By the time of his death in 727 BC, Tiglath-Pileser had more than doubled
42632-446: The construction of Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, included the message "He who destroys that wall, discards my monumental inscriptions and my inscribed name, abandons Kar‐Tukulti‐Ninurta, my capital, and neglects (it): may the god Ashur, my lord, overthrow his sovereignty, smash his weapons, bring about the defeat of his army, diminish his borders, decree the end of his reign, darken his days, vitiate his years (and) destroy his name and his seed from
42924-458: The continued existence of the Assur city-state. However Assyrian records during the reigns of Ilu-shuma , Erishum I and Sargon I show signs of intervention in southern Mesopotamia, which was under pressure from Elamites to the east and Amorites to the west. It is unclear whether this was military intervention in support of their fellow Akkadian speakers, favourable trading terms or both. The original city-state came to an end c. 1808 BC when it
43216-527: The control of the Old Babylonian Empire under Hammurabi . At some point, Assur returned to being an independent city-state. There was during this time also significant infighting within the government of Assur itself, as members of Shamshi-Adad's dynasty fought with native Assyrians and Hurrians for control of the city. Eventually, the Shamshi-Adad dynasty's rule over Assur came to an end through
43508-439: The death of Ashurnasirpal I ( r. 1049–1031 BC) to the end of the Middle Assyrian period more than a century later, no surviving Assyrian royal inscriptions describe any military activities whatsoever. Though kings from this time, such as Shalmaneser II ( r. 1030–1019 BC) and Ashur-rabi II ( r. 1012–972 BC), used names that proudly echoed those of earlier successful rulers, suggesting
43800-680: The decline could not be stopped. In addition to repression, additional measures were also implemented from the time of the earliest Muslim rulers to harass and humiliate Christians. For instance, Christians were not allowed to build new churches (but were allowed to conduct repairs on current ones), they had to wear a distinct turban and belt, they were forbidden to disturb Muslims by ringing church bells and praying, and they were forbidden from riding horses and carrying weapons. These measures were however only rarely enforced and could in most cases be avoided through bribery. Additionally, contacts between Christians and Muslims were probably very infrequent under
44092-488: The defensive. An increasing problem from the late reign of Ashur-bel-kala onwards were the Aramean tribes in the west. Due to the Aramean tactics of avoiding open battle and instead attacking the Assyrians in numerous minor skirmishes, the Assyrian army could in conflict with them not take advantage of their combat, technical and numerical superiority. From the time of Eriba-Adad II ( r. 1056–1054 BC) onwards,
44384-414: The dignity of a great king on the level of the pharaohs and the Hittite kings . Ashur-uballit's claim to be a great king meant that he also embedded himself in the ideological implications of that role; a great king was expected to expand the borders of his realm to incorporate "uncivilized" territories, ideally eventually ruling the entire world. On account of political realism however, the true situation
44676-493: The dignity of a great king on the level of the Egyptian pharaohs and the Hittite kings . Ashur-uballit's claim to be a great king meant that he also embedded himself in the ideological implications of that role; a great king was expected to expand the borders of his realm to incorporate "uncivilized" territories, ideally eventually ruling the entire world. Ashur-uballit's reign was often regarded by later generations of Assyrians as
44968-451: The early 14th century BC, and under Ashur-uballit I ( r. c. 1363–1328 BC), whose rise to power and conquests at the expense of the Mitanni and Babylonians traditionally marks the transition between the Old and Middle Assyrian periods. Ashur-uballit I was the first native Assyrian ruler to claim the royal title šar ("king"). Shortly after achieving independence, he further claimed
45260-620: The early stages of the civil war, Shamshi-Adad was eventually victorious, apparently due to help from the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi or his successor Marduk-balassu-iqbi . The age of the magnates is typically characterized as a period of decline, with little to no further territorial expansion and weak central power. This does not mean that there were no successes in this time. In 812 BC, Shamshi-Adad managed to termporarily conquer large portions of Babylonia and numerous campaigns were conducted under his son Adad-nirari III ( r. 811–783 BC) which resulted in new territory both in
45552-409: The east. Nōdšīragān was the Sasanian name for Adiabene, which included much of the old Assyrian lands and continued to function as a vassal kingdom under Sasanian rule as well, perhaps (at least at times) ruled by Sasanian princes. A handful of Sasanian sources made the connection between northern Mesopotamia and Assyria as well, despite Āsōristān being used for the south. The province of Nōdšīragān
45844-737: The empire during his reign. At some point after 656 BC, the empire lost control of Egypt, which instead fell into the hands of the pharaoh Psamtik I , founder of Egypt's twenty-sixth dynasty , originally appointed as a vassal by Ashurbanipal. Assyrian control faded from Egypt only gradually, without the need for revolt. Ashurbanipal went on numerous campaigns against various Arab tribes which failed to consolidate rule over their lands and instead wasted Assyrian resources. Perhaps most importantly, his devastation of Babylon after defeating Shamash-shum-ukin fanned anti-Assyrian sentiments in southern Mesopotamia, which soon after his death would have disastrous consequences. Ashurbanipal's reign also appears to have seen
46136-473: The empire itself; one documents attests that a gift given to Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur while he was still a prince in the reign of his father Ashur-dan I included 914 sheep. There was no standing army in the Middle Assyrian period. Instead, the majority of soldiers used for military engagements were mobilized only when they were needed, such as for civil projects or in the time of campaigns. Large amounts of soldiers could be recruited and mobilized relative quickly on
46428-478: The empire's western territories, were local governors and representatives required greater autonomy to deal with local geopolitics and challenges. The most well-known site today that at one point functioned as a dunnu estate is Tell Sabi Abyad . Documents describe the estate as a large agricultural one, comprising about 3,600 hectares and employing around 100 free farmers and their families, as well as 100 unfree ( šiluhlu̮ ) farmers and their families. In order for
46720-414: The end of his reign marks the transition to the Neo-Assyrian period . Through decades of military conquests, the early Neo-Assyrian kings worked to retake the former lands of their empire and re-establish the position of Assyria as it was at the height of the Middle Assyrian Empire. The reigns of Adad-nirari II ( r. 911–891 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta II ( r. 890–884 BC) saw
47012-428: The end of the Mitanni kingdom. It was in this struggle for supremacy and hegemony that Ashur-uballit secured independence. The Mittani-Hittite conflict was preceded by a period of weakness in the Mitanni kingdom; the heir to the Mitanni throne, Artashumara , was murdered in the 14th century BC, which led to the accession of the otherwise minor figure Tushratta . Tushratta's rise to power led to internal conflict within
47304-402: The end of the nearly thousand-year long Adaside dynasty, was met with considerable internal unrest. In his own inscriptions Sargon claims to have deported 6,300 "guilty Assyrians", probably Assyrians from the heartland who opposed his accession. Several peripheral regions of the empire also revolted and regained their independence. The most significant of the revolts was the successful uprising of
47596-407: 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
47888-426: The first Assyrian inscriptions to describe punitive measures against rebelling cities and regions in any detail. A more important innovation was increasing the size of the Assyrian cavalry and introducing war chariots on a grander scale than previous kings. Chariots were also increasingly used by Assyria's enemies. In the final years of his reign, he twice engaged the Babylonian king Marduk-nadin-ahhe in battles with
48180-547: The first Assyrian inscriptions to describe punitive measures against rebelling cities and regions in any detail. He also increased the size of the Assyrian cavalry and introducing war chariots on a grander scale than previous kings. Though one of the most successful Middle Assyrian kings, Some of Tiglath-Pileser's conquests were not long-lasting and several territories, especially in the west, were likely lost again before or just after his death. Assyria became overstretched and Tiglath-Pileser's successors were forced to adapt to be on
48472-467: The former Assyrian heartland, including Osroene , Adiabene and Hatra . These kingdoms lasted until the 3rd or 4th centuries AD, though they were mostly ruled by dynasties of Iranian or Arab, not Assyrian, descent and culture. Aspects of old Assyrian culture endured in these new kingdoms, despite their foreign rulers. For instance, the main god worshipped at Hatra was the old Mesopotamian sun-god Shamash . Assur itself flourished under Parthian rule, with
48764-510: The funds granted to them by the government, high officials could generate money in various other ways. They could for instance loan money to private individuals and charge highly unfavorable interests, sometimes amounting to up to 100 percent, in addition to demanding goods such as sheep and vessels. Another source of income was "gifts" ( šulmanū ), i.e. bribes, from private individuals. In exchange for money, many officials are recorded to have paid extra attention to certain requests made to them or to
49056-507: The geopolitics of the ancient Near East: Babylonia, now the heart of the Neo-Babylonian Empire , experienced an unprecedented time of prosperity and growth, trade routes were redrawn and the economical organization and political power of the entire region was restructured. Archaeological surveys of the Assyrian heartland have consistently shown that there was a dramatic decrease in the size and number of inhabited sites in Assyria during
49348-476: The governors was to store and distribute the goods produced in the province, which were inspected and collected by royal representatives once a year. Through this system, the central government remained informed about current stocks of supplies throughout the empire. The governors also supervised local craftsmen and farmers, organizing their activities and ensuring that they had enough food and other supplies to live. If rations were low, governors requested support from
49640-420: 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
49932-406: The ground and turned into dust. Some of the dust from Arinnu was collected and symbolically brought back to Assur. After the new Mitanni king Shattuara II rebelled against Assyrian authority, assisted by the Hittites, further campaigns were conducted against Mitanni in order to suppress the resistance. Shalmaneser's campaign against Mitanni was a great success; the Mitanni capital of Washukanni
50224-486: The hostile land like a rain storm". In his first year as king, Tiglath-Pileser defeated the Mushki , a tribe who had taken control of various lands in the north fifty years prior. The inscriptions mention that no king had defeated them in battle before and that their 20,000 men strong army, led by five kings, was defeated by Tiglath-Pileser, who however allowed the 6,000 surviving enemies to settle in Assyria as his subjects. One of
50516-404: The initiative for trade and large-scale foreign transactions entirely to his populace. Though large institutions, such as the temples and the king himself, did take part in trade, the financing itself was provided by private bankers, who in turn bore nearly all the risk (but also earned nearly all the profits) of the trading ventures. The king earned a portion of the profit through imposing tolls and
50808-545: The inscriptions, there was also a more experienced class of "professional" soldiers, called the ṣābū kaṣrūtu . It is not clear what exactly separated the ṣābū kaṣrūtu from the other soldiers; perhaps the term included some certain branches of the army, such as archers and charioteers, who required more extensive training than normal foot soldiers , probably part of the ṣābū ḫurādātu . It is also clear from inscriptions that bands of mercenaries were recruited for some campaigns. The foot soldiers appear to have been divided into
51100-419: The intermediary between mankind and the gods, the Assyrian king was the head of the administration of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian period. Though there is no evidence that the Middle Assyrian kings had a cabinet of his highest officials, as might have been the case in the succeeding Neo-Assyrian period, the kings did surround themselves with a group of counselors that advised on politics and decisions. Among
51392-474: The king and other governors, and were in turn required to provide such support for others as well. In addition to taxes, provinces had to supply offerings to the god Ashur, marking their affiliation and allegiance to the Assyrian government. The offerings were quite small and mainly symbolic. Some regions of the Assyrian realm were outside of the provincial framework but still subject to the Assyrian kings, these included vassal states ruled by lesser kings, such as
51684-457: The king could intervene at any level at any time, either in person, through a command, by issuing a decree, or by sending a representative. The most powerful officials had representatives of their own, termed qepū . The territory of the Middle Assyrian Empire was divided into a set of provinces or districts ( pāḫutu ), first attested during the reign of Ashur-uballit I. In some 13th-century BC sources there also appears another type of subdivision,
51976-503: The king having built a temple dedicated to Ashur "for his own life and the life of his city". The fourth king of the dynasty, Erishum I ( r. c. 1974–1934 BC), is the earliest king whose length of reign is recorded in the Assyrian King List , a later document recording the kings of Assyria and their reigns. Erishum is noteworthy for being the earliest known ruler in world history to experiment with free trade , leaving
52268-409: The king is described as acting according to divine order against Kashtiliash, who is described as vile ruler, abandoned by the gods. In the text, he is accused of various atrocities, including attacking Assyria, violating temples, and deporting or killing civilians. Though there is no evidence for these accusations, they might well have been based on real events, albeit probably exaggerated. According to
52560-423: The king suffering from illness could be seen as the gods withdrawing their divine support for his rule. Through a well-developed network of spies and informants, Esarhaddon uncovered all of these coup attempts and in 670 BC had a large number of high-ranking officials put to death. In 672 BC, Esarhaddon decreed that his younger son Ashurbanipal ( r. 669–631 BC) would succeed him in Assyria and that
52852-491: The kings as powerful warriors. Middle Assyrian kings were the supreme judicial authority in the empire, though they generally appear to have been less concerned with their role as judges than their predecessors in the Old Assyrian period were. The kings were however expected to ensure the welfare and prosperity of the Assyrian lands and people, often referring to themselves as "shepherds" ( re’û ). Middle Assyrian royal inscriptions also pay special attention to public works, with
53144-541: The kings for their achievements. Ashur-nirari V was succeeded by Tiglath-Pileser III ( r. 745–727 BC), probably his brother and generally assumed to have usurped the throne. Tiglath-Pileser's accession ushered in a new age of the Neo-Assyrian Empire; while the conquests of earlier kings were impressive, they contributed little to Assyria's full rise as a consolidated empire. Through campaigns aimed at outright conquest and not just extraction of seasonal tribute, as well as reforms meant to efficiently organize
53436-473: The kings were unable to maintain the achievements of their predecessors. This period of renewed decline was not reversed until the middle of the 10th century BC. Though this period is poorly documented, it is clear that Assyria underwent a major crisis. The Arameans continued to be Assyria's most prominent enemies, at times raiding deep into the Assyrian heartland. Their attacks were uncoordinated raids carried out by individual groups, which meant that even though
53728-499: The land between the Euphrates and Tigris. Christian communities were thus not thrown into total upheaval and most Christians remained where they were and did not convert. The conquering Muslims were relatively few in number and mostly kept to themselves in their own settlements. At first, the Muslim conquerors discouraged conversions to Islam as they depended on the taxes collected from Christians and Jews. Discrimination against Christians
54020-434: The land". Middle Assyrian royal palaces were prominent symbols of royal power, and the centers and main institutions of the Assyrian government. Though the main palace was located in Assur, kings had palaces at several different sites which they often traveled between. The most important surviving source concerning Middle Assyrian royal palaces are the Middle Assyrian palace decrees, a set of documents composed either late in
54312-405: The large construction projects and military activities of the Middle Assyrian kings to have been possible, the Middle Assyrian Empire employed a sophisticated system of recruiting and administering personnel. To keep track of and administer the diverse people under imperial control, a specific type of waxed tablets, dubbed le’ānū ( le’ū in singular form), were employed. These tablets, attested from
54604-826: The last great king of Assyria. His reign saw the last time Assyrian troops marched in all directions of the Near East. One of the issues of Ashurbanipal's early reign were disagreements between Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin. While Esarhaddon's documents suggest that Shamash-shum-ukin was intended to inherit all of Babylonia, it appears that he only controlled the immediate vicinity of Babylon itself since numerous other Babylonian cities apparently ignored him and considered Ashurbanipal to be their king. Over time, it seems that Shamash-shum-ukin grew to resent his brother's overbearing control and he revolted in 652 BC, aided by several Elamite kings. Ashurbanipal defeated his brother in 648 BC and Shamash-shum-ukin might have died by setting himself on fire in his palace. As vassal king of Babylon he
54896-463: The late 12th century BC onwards to distinguish from stewards of smaller households. The stewards were in charge of the large storage facilities of the palaces, where craftsmen produced various products gathered from raw materials. The stewards also served as organizers of long-distance trade. Their main duty was to provide the palaces with metals, animals, animal skins and luxury goods (such as jewelry, wooden objects, textiles and perfume). Recognized as
55188-545: The line of Assyrian kings continued uninterrupted over the course of the decline, Assyria became restricted mostly to just the Assyrian heartland. The decline of the Middle Assyrian Empire broadly coincided with the Late Bronze Age collapse , a time when the Ancient Near East experienced monumental geopolitical changes; within a single generation, the Hittite Empire and the Kassite dynasty of Babylon had fallen, and Egypt had been severely weakened through losing its lands in
55480-446: The loss of most of the empire's territories outside of its heartlands, partly due to invasions by Aramean tribes. Assyrian decline began to be reversed again under Ashur-dan II ( r. 934–912 BC), who campaigned extensively in the peripheral regions of the Assyrian heartland. The successes of Ashur-dan II and his immediate successors in restoring Assyrian rule over the empire's former lands, and in time going far beyond them,
55772-448: The losses since his glory days. His long and prosperous reign ended with his assassination, which was followed by inter-dynastic conflict and a significant drop in Assyrian power. Though some historians have attributed the assassination to Tukulti-Ninurta's moving the capital away from Assur, a possibly sacrilegious act, it is more probable that it was the result of the growing dissatisfaction during his late reign. Later chroniclers blame
56064-542: The lost lands would eventually be retaken. In the end, the collapse of the Hittites and the Egyptian lands in the Levant benefitted Assyria; with the old empires shattered, the fragmented territories surrounding the Assyrian heartland would eventually prove to be easy conquests for the Assyrian army. The reign of Ashur-dan II ( r. 934–912 BC) effectively terminated the poorly documented second period of Middle Assyrian decline. Multiple inscriptions survive from Ashur-dan's time, several of which describe campaigns in
56356-515: The majority and accounted for more than 60%. Emigrations and conversions continued to happen and many of the remaining Christians banded together for safety; adherents of the Church of the East migrated from southern Mesopotamia and Persia to northern Mesopotamia, where they still remained in substantial numbers. Under the Seljuk Empire , which conquered much of the Middle East in the 11th century,
56648-470: The meantime, Nazi-Bugash , was overthrown and replaced by the Assyrians with Kurigalzu II , another son of Burnaburiash. Ashur-uballit's successors Enlil-nirari ( r. c. 1327–1318 BC) and Arik-den-ili ( r. c. 1317–1306 BC) were less successful than Ashur-uballit in expanding and consolidating Assyrian power, and as such the new kingdom developed somewhat haltingly and remained fragile. Kurigalzu did not remain loyal to
56940-601: 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
57232-472: The money gained was used to expand Assur and its institutions. Through Erishum's efforts, Assur quickly established itself as a prominent trading state in northern Mesopotamia and Anatolia. It is clear that an extensive long-distance Assyrian trade network was established relatively quickly, the first notable impression Assyria left in the historical record. Notable collections of Old Assyrian cuneiform tablets have been found in trading colonies established by
57524-456: The most prominent such counselors were the viziers ( sukkallu ), who at times involved themselves in diplomatic matters. From at least the time of Shalmaneser I onwards there were also grand viziers ( sukkallu rabi’u ), superior to the ordinary viziers, who often also served as vassal rulers of the lands of the former Mitanni kingdom. The grand viziers were typically members of the royal family. Like many other administrative and bureaucratic offices,
57816-404: The mountains northwest of Assyria and to work on improving relations. Tudḫaliya's letter did little to dissuade him, who saw through the empty flatteries and attacked and conquered the lands in question in his first few years as king. According to his inscriptions, the conquest was widely celebrated as one of his outstanding early achievements. As for his predecessors, Tukulti-Ninurta's main focus
58108-507: The mountains to the northeast and the Levant and is recorded to have received gifts from Egypt. Though political objectives had thus not changed since Tiglath-Pileser's time, Ashur-bel-kala too had to divert significant attention to the Arameans. Due to the Aramean tactics of avoiding open battle and instead attacking the Assyrians in numerous minor skirmishes, the Assyrian army could not take advantage of their technical and numerial superiority. The Arameans were not Ashur-bel-kala's only enemies in
58400-551: The number of Christians in Mesopotamia and elsewhere continued to fall. Under the Seljuks, conversions were motivated not only by political and economic reasons but also by fear. In the face of the Crusades , Muslim attitudes towards Christians grew more hostile. The church officials of the Church of the East meanwhile grew rich and corrupt, something admitted even by several contemporary Christian writers, and spent most of their time in squabbles against officials from rival churches, such as
58692-408: The old Sumerian head of the pantheon, Enlil , and was as a result of Assyrian expansionism and warfare transformed from a primarily agricultural god into a military one. The transition of Assyria from a city-state into an empire also had important administrative and political consequences. While the Assyrian rulers of the Old Assyrian period had governed with the title iššiak ("governor") jointly with
58984-430: The old traditional royal title iššiak Aššur ("governor [on behalf] of Ashur ") continued to be used at times throughout the period, the Middle Assyrian kings had little in common with their Old Assyrian predecessors and were very much sole rulers. As Assyria's power grew, the kings began to employ an increasingly sophisticated array of royal titles far more autocratic in nature than the old iššiak Aššur . Ashur-uballit I
59276-428: The older son Shamash-shum-ukin would rule Babylon. To ensure that the succession to the throne after his own death would go more smoothly than his own accession, Esarhaddon forced everyone in the empire, not only the prominent officials but also far-away vassal rulers and members of the royal family, to swear oaths of allegiance to the successors and respect the arrangement. Ashurbanipal is often regarded to have been
59568-436: The owner of the land they lived on, as well as the ālik ilke (people providing services through the ilku system) and hupšu people, though their position, standing and living standards vis-à-vis each other is not clear. Some information on families and living conditions in the Middle Assyrian Empire can be gathered from the preserved Middle Assyrian Laws , as well as from surviving lists of rations and censuses . The norm
59860-523: 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
60152-459: The people who lived in the palaces. They include texts concerning admission requirements for male personnel and whether they should have access to the harem, the proper behavior of the palace women (both within and outside the palaces), custody of property and dispute resolution. Among the Middle Assyrian kings, Ninurta-apal-Ekur was responsible for a particularly large amount of decrees, perhaps because he wished to restore order after his usurpation of
60444-401: The period after Kashtiliash's deposition is poorly attested in Babylonia, it appears that there was a second Assyrian campaign directed towards the south c. 1222 BC, after the rule of Tukulti-Ninurta's vassal kings Enlil-nadin-shumi and Kadashman-Harbe II , which resulted in the accession of another vassal, Adad-shuma-iddina . Because Tukulti-Ninurta was able to come to Babylon as
60736-514: The period, perhaps because the significant centers of the Seleucid Empire was in the south in Babylon and Seleucia and in the west in Antioch . There were however significant developments in Assyria during this time. Archaeological finds such as coins and pottery from prominent Assyrian sites indicate that cities such as Assur, Nimrud and perhaps Nineveh were resettled under the Seleucids, as were
61028-504: 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. Puzur-Ashur I and the succeeding kings of his dynasty, the Puzur-Ashur dynasty , did not technically claim the dignity of "king" ( šar ) for themselves, but continued to use
61320-490: The peripheries of the Assyrian heartland, illustrating that Assyrian power was beginning to resurge. Ashur-dan's campaigns were mainly focused on the northeast and northwest. Among the victories recorded in his inscriptions was the conquest of Katmuḫu, which once again had gained independence during the decline. According to the inscription, Ashur-dan captured Katmuḫu, razed the city's royal palace, brought its king to Arbela , flayed and executed him, and then displayed his skin on
61612-582: 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
61904-478: The position was hereditary, with sons succeeding their fathers. Other bureaucrats were drawn from the ša-rēši of the palaces and were tasked with various fields of responsibility to aid the king in keeping contact with various institutions throughout the empire, including keeping track of crop yields and the number of farm animals, allocating royal gifts, certifying private sales of land, and noting down amounts of tribute, prisoners of war and levies. If they so wished,
62196-500: 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
62488-480: The purchase price. Some documents also mention the ginā’u tax, which had some connection to the provincial governments. Other economically important sources of money for the empire included plundering conquered territories, which reduced the cost of the campaign that had conquered them, continuous tribute ( madattu ) from vassal states, as well as "audience gifts" ( nāmurtu ) from foreign rulers and powerful individuals. These gifts could sometimes be carry large value for
62780-404: The reign of Tiglath-Pileser I or in the reigns of his immediate successors. These documents contain a large number of regulations on the personnel of the palaces and their roles and duties, in particular the women. These regulations differentiate between the "wife of the king" ( aššat šarre ), what modern historians would term the "queen", and a group of "palace women" ( sinniltu ša ekalle ), i.e.
63072-461: The remnants of the Mitanni kingdom and the first Assyrian king to include lengthy narratives of his campaigns in his royal inscriptions. Adad-nirari early in his reign defeated Shattuara I of Mitanni and forced him to pay tribute to Assyria as a vassal ruler. Given that the Assyrian army extensively plundered and destroyed portions of Mitanni during this campaign, it is unlikely that there at this point were any plans to outright annex and consolidate
63364-435: The resources provided to them by the Assyrian government to generate private profits, was a large problem. Corruption was viewed as high treason , with officials accused of using royal funds for their own personal gain simultaneously being accused of hating the king. On the other hand, officials were at times expected to provide some of their own personal funds to public institutions if the king commanded them to. In addition to
63656-443: The role of "king of the gods" to Ashur, a role otherwise typically attributed to Enlil. In the 18th century BC, Shamshi-Adad's kingdom became surrounded by competing large states, particularly the southern kingdoms of Larsa , Babylon and Eshnunna and the western kingdoms of Yamhad and Qatna . The success and survival of his own realm chiefly relied on his personal strength and charisma. Shamshi-Adad's death in c. 1776 BC led to
63948-427: The royal administration, not the common soldiers. Some appointed generals used the title kiṣri ("captain"). The personnel of the baggage train , not partaking in active combat, also included a variety of people with different positions and duties. Because of the limited surviving material, information regarding social life and living conditions of the Middle Assyrian period is generally available in detail only for
64240-493: The royal administration. The majority of the population, who did not belong to the upper class, had a much lower standard of living. The highest group in terms of classes was the free men ( a’ılū ), who like the upper classes could receive land in exchange for performing duties for the government, but who could not live on these lands since they were comparably small. Below them were the šiluhlu̮ , or unfree men. These people were men who had given up their freedom and entered into
64532-414: The royal women; his mother Naqi'a , queen Esharra-hammat and daughter Serua-eterat were all more powerful and prominent than most women in earlier Assyrian history. Despite his paranoia, and despite suffering from both disease and depression, Esarhaddon was one of Assyria's most successful kings. He rebuilt Babylon and led several successful military campaigns. Many of his campaigns were farther from
64824-583: The rule of celibacy for the clergy. Though once more without any real political power, the population of northern Mesopotamia (called Asoristan by the Sassanids) continued to keep the memory of their ancient civilization alive and positively connected with the Assyrian Empire in local histories written during the Sasanian period. There continued to be important continuities between ancient and contemporary Mesopotamia in terms of religion, literary culture and settlement and Christians in northern Mesopotamia during
65116-508: 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
65408-499: The rule of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty, Assur was home to less than 10,000 people and the military power of the city is likely to have been limited to local regions; no sources describe any military conquests whatsoever and no surrounding cities appear to have been subjected to the rule of the Assyrian kings. The earliest known surviving inscription by an Assyrian king was written by Puzur-Ashur I's son and successor Shalim-ahum , and records
65700-486: The rulers appearing to have viewed themselves as continuing the old Assyrian royal tradition. The ancient temple dedicated to Ashur was restored for a second time in the 2nd century AD. Ancient Assyria's last golden age came to an end with the sack of Assur by the Sasanian Empire c. 240. During the sack, the Ashur temple was destroyed again and the city's population was dispersed. Though tradition holds that Christianity
65992-680: The rulers of the lands formerly subordinate to Assyria, to reconquer the old Assyrian borders, and to go beyond them; "Altogether, I conquered 42 lands and their rulers from the other side of the Lower Zab in distant mountainous regions to the other side of the Euphrates River, people of Ḫatti, and the Upper Sea in the west – from my accession year to my fifth regnal year. I subdued them to one authority, took hostages from them, (and) imposed upon them tribute and impost". Tiglath-Pileser's inscriptions are
66284-477: The same legal rights. While out in the street, many women, including widows, wives and concubines , were obligated by law to wear veils. It is uncertain whether these laws were ever strongly enforced. Many women were also prohibited from wearing veils. Certain priestesses (identified as qadiltu priestesses) were only allowed to wear veils if they were married. Slave women and prostitutes ( ḫarımtū ) were not allowed to wear veils in any circumstance. Children born of
66576-503: The same time as this more lenient approach, pressures on Christians gradually increased due to the Abbasids wishing to spread Islam. While converting influential Christians was often approached through polite conversation, Christians of lower classes were pressured through measures such as increasing the jizya tax. Through these policies, it was chiefly under the Abbasids that the Christian churches of Mesopotamia began their long period of decline. Though there were some influential patriarchs of
66868-440: The same year, the battle appears to have been indecisive. After Qarqar, Shalmaneser focused on the south. He allied with the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi I , aiding his southern neighbor in both defeating the usurper Marduk-bel-ushati and in fighting against the migrating Chaldeans in the far south of Mesopotamia. After the death of Hadadezer in 841 BC, Shalmaneser managed to incorporate some further western territories. In
67160-401: The service (mainly agricultural) of others on their own accord, who were in turn provided with rations and clothes. Many of them likely also originated as prisoners of war and foreign deportees. It was possible for a šiluhlu̮ to regain their freedom by providing a substitute who could then fulfill their obligations. Though not wholly different from slavery , surviving documents demonstrate that
67452-546: 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
67744-556: The sites. In the centuries to come, Assyrian kings often found themselves as rivals of the Babylonian kings . Ashur-uballit himself did not wish to engage in long-lasting conflicts with the Babylonians, clearly illustrated since he married his daughter Muballitat-Serua to the Babylonian king Burnaburiash II . Prior to achieving peace, Burnaburiash had been a prominent enemy of the Assyrians. At one point, he had attempted to tarnish Assyrian diplomatic and trade relations with Egypt by sending
68036-493: The situation improved somewhat as can be gathered from a campaign directed by Ashur-dan I against the Babylonian king Zababa-shuma-iddin , illustrating that hopes for gaining control of at least some southern lands and reasserting superiority over Babylonia had not been completely abandoned. After Ashur-dan's death in 1133 BC, his two sons Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur and Mutakkil-Nusku struggled for power, with Mutakkil-Nusku emerging victorious but then only ruling for less than
68328-459: The situation somewhat, campaigning against the Babylonian king Zababa-shuma-iddin , but his two sons Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur and Mutakkil-Nusku struggled for power with each other after his death. Though Mutakkil-Nusku emerged victorious, he ruled for less than a year. Mutakkil-Nusku warred against the Babylonian king Itti-Marduk-balatu , a conflict which continued in the reign of his son Ashur-resh-ishi I ( r. 1132–1115 BC). In
68620-406: The slow beginning of this project. Since the reconquista had to begun nearly from scratch, its eventual success was an extraordinary achievement. Adad-nirari's most important conquest was the reincorporation of the city of Arrapha (modern-day Kirkuk ) into Assyria, which in later times served as the launching point of innumerable Assyrian campaigns to the east. Adad-nirari also managed to secure
68912-447: The socio-economic elite and upper classes of society. At the top of Middle Assyrian society were members of long-established and large families, called "houses", who tended to occupy the most important offices within the government. These houses were in many cases the descendants of the most prominent merchant families of the Old Assyrian period. It is clear from surviving documents that corruption among royal officials, who at times used
69204-413: The southern Assyrian border. Ashur-resh-ishi as such began to reverse the decades of Assyrian decline and in his inscriptions claimed the epithet "avenger of Assyria" ( mutēr gimilli māt Aššur ). Ashur-resh-ishi's son and successor Tiglath-Pileser I ( r. 1114–1076 BC) inaugurated a second period of Middle Assyrian ascendancy. Owing to his father's victories against Babylon, Tiglath-Pileser
69496-486: The southern vicinity of the Assyrian heartland. He engaged in diplomacy with both Babylonia, ruled by Burnaburiash II , and Egypt, ruled by Akhenaten . Ashur-uballit's successors Enlil-nirari ( r. c. 1327–1318 BC) and Arik-den-ili ( r. c. 1317–1306 BC) were less successful than Ashur-uballit in expanding and consolidating Assyrian power, and as such the new empire developed somewhat haltingly and remained fragile. Enlil-nirari's reign
69788-537: The style šamšu kiššat niše ("sun[god] of all people"), a highly unusual style since the Assyrian king was typically regarded to be the representative of a god and not divine himself. Eventually Babylonia fell out of Tukulti-Ninurta's grasp. An uprising led by Adad-shuma-usur , perhaps a son of Kashtiliash IV, drove the Assyrians out of Babylonia c. 1216 BC. The loss of Babylonia increased growing dissatisfaction with Tukulti-Ninurta's rule. His long and prosperous reign ended with his assassination, which in turn
70080-425: The style rulers of Assur had used while the city was under foreign rule, Išši'ak ("governor"). The use of this style asserted that the actual king of the city was the Assyrian national deity Ashur and that the Assyrian ruler was merely his representative on Earth. It is probable that Ashur took form as a deity at some point during the Early Assyrian period as a personification of the city of Assur itself. During
70372-421: The sun-god Shamash incarnated, titling himself šamšu kiššat niše ("sun[god] of all people"). This claim was highly unusual for an Assyrian king to make as the Assyrian rulers were generally not regarded to be divine figures themselves. The last Babylonian campaign did not resolve all of Tukulti-Ninurta's problems; the Assyrian army at times had to be deployed to the mountains to the northwest and northeast of
70664-405: The suzerainty of the Mitanni kingdom. Though the transition of Assyria from being merely a city-state around Assur (as it was throughout most of the preceding Old Assyrian period ) had begun already in the last few decades under Mittani suzerainty, it is the independence achieved under Ashur-uballit, as well as Ashur-uballit's conquests of nearby territories, such as the fertile region between
70956-637: The system. These included that the duties did not have to be exercised in person, but could be fulfilled by paying money or by sending a representative, and that lands could be sold to a purchaser, who then had to take on the duties the previous owner had been demanded to undertake. Over long periods of time, this meant that the connection between duties and overseeing the land allotted was severed. Some influential Assyrian officials were as rewards for their services granted dunnu settlements, large estates that functioned as large farmsteads and were exempt from taxation on their produce. Such estates are most common in
71248-421: The term "land of the Assyrians" not to the Sasanian province in the south, but to the ancient Assyrian heartland in the north. Armenian historians, such as Anania Shirakatsi , also continued to identify Assyria as northern Mesopotamia; Shirakatsi referred to Aruastan as a region bordering Armenia and including Nineveh. The Sasanians divided northern Mesopotamia into Arbāyistān in the west and Nōdšīragān in
71540-515: The territory of the empire. His policy of direct rule rather than rule through vassal states brought important changes to the Assyrian state and its economy; rather than tribute, the empire grew more reliant on taxes collected by provincial governors, a development which increased administrative costs but also reduced the need for military intervention. Also noteworthy was the large scale in which Tiglath-Pileser undertook resettlement policies , settling tens, if not hundreds, of thousand foreigners in both
71832-419: The throne, possibly because the younger son Shamshi-Adad had been designated as heir instead of himself. When Shalmaneser died in 824 BC, Ashur-danin-pal was still in revolt, supported by a significant portion of the country, most notably the former capital of Assur. Shamshi-Adad acceded to the throne as Shamshi-Adad V, perhaps initially still a minor and a puppet of Dayyan-Assur. Though Dayyan-Assur died during
72124-417: The throne. Curiously, one of his decrees is that any palace woman who "cursed a descendant of Tukulti-Ninurta" should be mutilated; despite Ninurta-apal-Ekur having taken the throne by force from Enlil-kudurri-usur, the last of Tukulti-Ninurta I's descendants to rule Assyria. The chief administrator of the palaces were the stewards ( mašennu ), identified in writings as "great stewards" ( mašennu rabi’u ) from
72416-419: The time of Adad-nirari I onwards, summarized data on the available manpower, calculated required rations and provisions and documented responsibilities and tasks. According to administrative records on construction work at the royal palaces of Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta and Assur, these projects were completed with workforces of about 2,000 men, divided into recruits from various cities ( ḫurādu ), mostly gathered through
72708-474: The time of Adad-nirari, Assyrian envoys had been treated poorly at the court of the Hittite king Mursili III . When Mursili's successor Hattusili III reached out to Shalmaneser in an attempt to forge an alliance, probably due to recent losses against Egypt, he was insultingly rejected and called a "substitute of a great king". The strained relations between the two empires sometimes erupted into war; Shalmaneser warred several times against Hittite vassal states in
73000-430: The time of the Muslim conquests. Episcopal sees had been established as far from Mesopotamia as Uzbekistan, India and China. Though the new caliphate did not officially persecute its Christian subjects, and even offered freedom of worship and a certain extent of self-administration, there were many local Muslim administrators who acted against the Christians, and as non-Muslims conquered through jihad , Christians such as
73292-434: The titular saint, Mar Qardagh , out to be a descendant of the legendary Biblical Mesopotamian king Nimrod and the historical Sennacherib, with his illustrious descent manifesting in Mar Qardagh's mastery of archery, hunting and polo . A sanctuary constructed for Mar Qardagh during this time was built directly on top of the ruins of a Neo-Assyrian temple. Though some historians have argued that these tales were based only on
73584-497: The translation and copying of ancient works, the early medieval Syriac-language authors not only contributed to mainstream intellectual history, but also left a significant mark on the local Christian denominations. Among the most famous Syriac-language translators and scholars of this period were Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–873) and Theophilus of Edessa (695–785), both of whom translated the works of ancient authors such as Aristotle and also wrote their own scholarly works. The fall of
73876-436: The true birth of Assyria. The term "land of Ashur " ( māt Aššur ), i.e. designating Assyria as comprising a larger kingdom, is first attested as being used in his time. Assyria's rise was intertwined with the decline and fall of the Mitanni kingdom, its former suzerain, which allowed the early Middle Assyrian kings to expand and consolidate territories in northern Mesopotamia. Ashur-uballit mainly warred against small states in
74168-441: The two kingdoms. Though he shared his father's ambition, and claimed the title "lord of all" after his victorious campaigns in Syria, Babylonia and the northeastern mountains, Ashur-bel-kala was ultimately unable to surpass Tiglath-Pileser and his successes were built on shaky foundations. Ashur-bel-kala's son and successor Eriba-Adad II ( r. 1056–1054 BC), and generations of kings thereafter, were unable to maintain
74460-401: The universe , king of the four quarters , king of all princes, lord of lords" and epithets such as "splendid flame which covers the hostile land like a rain storm". Tiglath-Pileser went on significant campaigns to the west and north, incorporating both territories lost after Tukulti-Ninurta's reign and territories that had never before been under Assyrian rule. Tiglath-Pileser's inscriptions are
74752-504: The wall of one of his cities. Assyrian reconquest meant that a high level of threat had to be established in order to keep the vassals in line; an explanation for the brutality and violence of certain acts (such as Ashur-dan's treatment of the defeated king) committed by the Assyrian kings. The descriptions of such acts in inscriptions do not necessarily reflect the truth given that they also served as intimidating tools for propaganda and psychological warfare. The campaigns of Ashur-dan paved
75044-424: The way of grander efforts to restore and expand Assyrian power, beginning in the reign of his son and successor Adad-nirari II ( r. 911–891 BC), whose accession conventionally marks the beginning of the succeeding Neo-Assyrian Empire. Although historically sometimes treated as a separate and distinct entity from the Middle Assyrian Empire, the Neo-Assyrian Empire was clearly the direct continuation of
75336-559: The west and east. Early in Adad-nirari's reign, Adad-nirari and his mother Shammuramat (the inspiration for the mythical Assyrian queen Semiramis ) expanded Assyrian control in Syria and Ancient Iran . The low point of the age of the magnates were the reigns of Adad-nirari's sons Shalmaneser IV ( r. 783–773 BC), Ashur-dan III ( r. 773–755 BC) and Ashur-nirari V ( r. 755–745 BC), from which very few royal documents are known and officials grew even more bold, in some cases no longer even crediting
75628-503: The west and north. After the Mitanni king Shattuara II rebelled against Assyrian authority, Shalmaneser campaigned against him to suppress the resistance. As a result of Shalmaneser's victory in the campaign, the Mitanni capital of Washukanni was sacked and the Mitanni lands were formally annexed into the Assyrian Empire. Shalmaneser's reign also saw worsening relations with the Hittites, who had supported Shattuara II's revolt. Shalmaneser warred several times against Hittite vassals in
75920-503: The west, given that he is also recorded to have fought against Tukulti-Mer , king of Mari . The conflict with Marduk-nadin-ahhe in Babylonia continued under Ashur-bel-kala, though it was eventually resolved diplomatically. After the death of Marduk-nadin-ahhe's successor Marduk-shapik-zeri in c. 1065 BC, Ashur-bel-kala was even able to intervene and install the unrelated Adad-apla-iddina as king of Babylon. Adad-apla-iddina's daughter then married Ashur-bel-kala, bringing peace to
76212-489: The west, were likely lost again before his death. As a result of Tiglath-Pileser's campaigns, Assyria became somewhat overstretched and his successors had to adapt to be on the defensive. His son and successor Asharid-apal-Ekur ( r. 1075–1074 BC) ruled too briefly to do anything and his successor Ashur-bel-kala ( r. 1073–1056 BC), another son of Tiglath-Pileser, managed to only briefly follow in his father's footsteps. Ashur-bel-kala campaigned in
76504-437: The wider Christian world in the aftermath of the 451 Council of Chalcedon , which was rejected by the groups that would later be known as the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church . The followers of the Church of the East where often pejoratively referred to as " Nestorians " by foreigners in later times, after Nestorius ( c. 386–450), an Archbishop of Constantinople whose teachings, including denying
76796-427: The working population. Tukulti-Ninurta's direct dynastic line came to an end c. 1192 BC, when the grand vizier Ninurta-apal-Ekur , a descendant of Adad-nirari I, took the throne for himself. Ninurta-apal-Ekur and his immediate successors were no more able than Tukulti-Ninurta's descendants to halt the decline of the empire. Ninurta-apal-Ekur's son Ashur-dan I ( r. c. 1178–1133 BC), improved
77088-410: The younger son Esarhaddon ( r. 681–669 BC) heir. Esarhaddon defeated Arda-Mulissu in a civil war and successfully captured Nineveh, becoming king a mere two months after Sennacherib's murder. Esarhaddon was deeply troubled, distrustful of his officials and family members owing to his tumultuous rise to the throne. His paranoia had the side-effect of leading to an increased standing of
77380-439: Was Babylonia in the south; he intentionally escalated conflict with the Babylonian king Kashtiliash IV through claiming "traditionally Assyrian" lands along the eastern Tigris river. Shortly thereafter, he invaded Babylonia in an unprovoked attack. After capturing cities such as Sippar and Dur-Kurigalzu and defeating Kashtiliash in battle, Tukulti-Ninurta eventually succeeded in conquering Babylonia c. 1225 BC. He
77672-458: Was Shalmaneser's brother, Ibashi-ili , whose descendants later continued to occupy the position. This arrangement, placing the Mitanni lands under the rule of a lesser branch of the royal family, suggests that the Assyrian elites in the heartland had only a marginal interest in the new conquests. Though Shalmaneser boasted of brutal acts against the defeated Mitanni armies, in one inscription claiming to have blinded over 14,000 prisoners of war, he
77964-474: 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 exampme 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
78256-507: Was also incorporated into the satrapy of Media ( Mada ). Though Assyrians from both Athura and Media joined forces in an unsuccessful revolt against the Achaemenid king Darius the Great in 520 BC, relations with the Achaemenid rulers were otherwise relatively peaceful. The Achaemenid kings interfered little with the internal affairs of their individual provinces as long as tribute and taxes were continuously provided, which allowed Assyrian culture and customs to survive under Persian rule. After
78548-415: Was also one of the first Assyrian kings to take prisoners in the first place instead of simply executing captured enemies. Adad-nirari was also a great builder; among his most significant construction projects was the construction of the city of Nimrud , a highly significant site in later Assyrian history. Under Shalmaneser, the Assyrians also conducted significant campaigns against the Hittites. Already in
78840-469: Was conquered by the Amorite ruler of Ekallatum, Shamshi-Adad I , who deposed Erishum II , the last king of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty after having been repelked by his predecessor, and took the city for himself. Shamshi-Adad's extensive conquests in northern Mesopotamia eventually made him the ruler of the entire region, founding what some scholars have termed the " Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia ". To rule his realm, Shamshi-Adad established his capital at
79132-468: Was considerably milder than discrimination against Zoroastrians given that the Muslims saw Christianity as a forerunner of their own religion; in most respects the situation of the Christians under the early Muslim rulers differed little from their status under the Sasanians. Over time however, the growth of the Church of the East declined and eventually gradually reversed due to emigrations and conversions. Because Christians were barred from converting Muslims,
79424-461: Was first spread to Mesopotamia by Thomas the Apostle , the exact timespan when the Assyrians were first Christianized is unknown. The city of Arbela was an important early Christian center. According to the later Chronicle of Arbela , Arbela became the seat of a bishop already in AD 100, but the reliability of this document is questioned among scholars. It is known that both Arbela and Kirkuk later served as important Assyrian Christian centers in
79716-486: Was followed by inter-dynastic conflict and a significant drop in Assyrian power. The successors of Tukulti-Ninurta were unable to maintain Assyrian power and the empire became increasingly restricted to just the Assyrian heartland. The decline of the Middle Assyrian Empire broadly coincided with the latter period of the Late Bronze Age collapse , a time when the ancient Near East, North Africa, Caucasus and Southeast Europe experienced monumental geopolitical changes; within
80008-590: Was founded through Assur , a city-state through most of the preceding Old Assyrian period , and the surrounding territories achieving independence from the Mitanni kingdom. Under Ashur-uballit, Assyria began to expand and assert its place as one of the great powers of the Ancient Near East . This aspiration chiefly came into fruition through the efforts of the kings Adad-nirari I ( r. c. 1305–1274 BC), Shalmaneser I ( r. c. 1273–1244 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I ( r. c. 1243–1207 BC), under whom Assyria expanded to for
80300-399: Was free to divert his attention to other regions and not worry about a southern attack. Texts written already during his first few regnal years demonstrate that Tiglath-Pileser ruled with more confidence than his predecessors, using titles such as "unrivalled king of the universe , king of the four quarters , king of all princes, lord of lords" and epithets such as "splendid flame which covers
80592-418: Was in large part possible through ancient Greek works previously having been copied and translated by Syriac Christian authors, which profoundly influenced science and philosophy in the Islamic world. Ancient works were copied and translated into Syriac from the 6th to 10th century, with Arabic translations (due to increasing Muslim interest) also becoming more common in the later stages of this timespan. Through
80884-411: Was intertwined with the decline and collapse of its former suzerain, Mitanni. Assyria was subjugated by Mittani c. 1430 BC, and as such spent about 70 years under Mitanni rule. Chiefly responsible for bringing an end to Mitanni dominance in northern Mesopotamia was the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma I , whose 14th century BC war with Mitanni over control of Syria effectively led to the beginning of
81176-484: Was met with a third campaign against Babylon, in which Tukulti-Ninurta looted the city and carried off the religiously important Statue of Marduk ( Marduk being Babylonia's national deity) to Assyria. He assumed the further style "king of the extensive mountains and plains" and claimed to rule from the " Upper Sea to the Lower Sea " and that he received tribute " from the four quarters ". In one of his inscriptions, Tukulti-Ninurta went as far as proclaiming himself to be
81468-431: Was most often diplomacy with adversaries of equal rank, such as Babylonia , and conquest only of smaller and military inferior states in the near vicinity. Ashur-uballit's reign was often regarded by later generations of Assyrians as the true birth of Assyria. The term "land of Ashur " ( māt Aššur ), i.e. designating Assyria as comprising a larger kingdom, is first attested as being used in his time. The rise of Assyria
81760-618: Was named Dur-Sharrukin ("Fort Sargon") after himself. Unlike Ashurnasirpal's project at Nimrud, Sargon was not simply expanding an existing, albeit ruined, site but building a new settlement from scratch. Sargon was militarily successful and frequently went to war. Between just 716 and 713, Sargon fought against Urartu, the Medes , Arab tribes, and Ionian pirates in the eastern Mediterranean. In 710 BC, Sargon retook Babylon, driving Marduk-apla-iddina into exile in Elam. Between 710 and 707 BC, Sargon resided in Babylon, receiving foreign delegations there and participating in local traditions, such as
82052-480: Was not the only realm fragmented during this period, which meant that the fragmented territories now surrounding the Assyrian heartland in time proved to be easy conquests for the Assyrian army. Ashur-dan II ( r. 934–912 BC) reversed Assyrian decline, campaigning in the peripheries of the Assyrian heartland, primarily in the northeast and northwest. His campaigns paved the way for grander efforts to restore and expand Assyrian power under his successors, and
82344-412: Was on Babylonia. His first act in regard to his southern neighbor, Kashtiliash IV , was to escalate conflict through claiming "traditionally Assyrian" lands along the eastern Tigris. Tukulti-Ninurta shortly thereafter invaded Babylonia through what modern historians generally regard to be an unprovoked attack. In the contemporary Tukulti-Ninurta Epic , a propaganda epic used to justify his exploits,
82636-431: 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
82928-410: Was replaced by the puppet ruler Kandalanu . After his victory in Babylonia, Ashurbanipal marched on Elam. The Elamite capital of Susa was captured and devastated and large numbers of Elamite prisoners were brought to Nineveh, tortured and humiliated. Though Ashurbanipal's inscriptions present Assyria as an uncontested and divinely supported hegemon of the entire world, cracks were starting to form in
83220-421: Was sacked and, realizing that the Mitanni lands were clearly not controllable through allowing the local rulers to continue to govern as vassals, the kingdom's lands were with some reluctance annexed into the Assyrian kingdom. The lands were not annexed directly into the royal domains, but rather placed under the rule of a viceroy who bore the title of grand vizier and king of Hanigalbat . The first such ruler
83512-415: 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
83804-414: Was that families were relatively small in size. In addition to family members, many households employed various servants. Such servants could be either bought or provided by the Assyrian government. Marriage was rarely decided between the prospective spouses, but instead the result of negotiations between their families. Polygamy was practised by Assyrians, as well as by foreign groups in the empire, such as
84096-431: Was the Hurro-Urartian speaking kingdom of Urartu in the north; following in the footsteps of the Assyrians, the Urartian administration, culture, writing system and religion closely followed those of Assyria. The Urartian kings were also autocrats very similar to the Assyrian kings. The imperialist expansionism of both states often led to military clashes, despite being separated by the Taurus Mountains . Shalmaneser for
84388-429: Was the Aramean king Ahuni of Bit Adini . Ahuni's forces broke through across the Khabur and Euphrates several times and it was only after years of war that he at last accepted Ashurnasirpal as his suzerain . Ahuni's defeat was highly important since it marked the first time since Ashur-bel-kala ( r. 1073–1056 BC), two centuries prior, that Assyrian forces had the opportunity to campaign further west than
84680-572: Was the beginning of the historical enmity between Assyria and Babylonia after Kurigalzu II , a king the Assyrians had helped gain the Babylonian throne, attacked Assyria. Kurigalzu's betrayal resulted in deep trauma and was still referenced in Assyrian writings concerning Babylonia more than a century later. Under the warrior-kings Adad-nirari I ( r. c. 1305–1274 BC), Shalmaneser I ( r. c. 1273–1244 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I ( r. c. 1243–1207 BC), Assyria began to realize its aspirations of becoming
84972-435: Was the first Assyrian king to assume the traditionally southern Mesopotamian title " king of Sumer and Akkad " and the first native Mesopotamian to be crowned king of Babylon, its previous rulers having all been Amorites and Kassites. Assyrian control over Babylonia was quite indirect, ruling through appointing vassal kings such as Adad-shuma-iddina . After putting down a Babylonian uprising, Tukulti-Ninurta added to his title
85264-432: Was the first to assume the style šar māt Aššur ("king of the land of Ashur") and his grandson Arik-den-ili introduced the style šarru dannu ("strong king"). The kings during Assyria's first major phase of expansion accelerated the adoption of new titles. Adad-nirari I's inscriptions required 32 lines to be devoted just to his titles, which included, among others, nêr dapnūti ummān kaššî qutî lullumî u šubarî ("defeater of
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