Assyria

Assyrian Empire
2500 BC–612 BC
Overview map of the Ancient Near East in the 15th century BC (Middle Assyrian period), showing the core territory of Assyria with its two major cities Assur and Nineveh wedged between Babylonia downstream (to the south-east) and the states of Mitanni and Hatti upstream (to the north-west).
Capital		Aššur, Nineveh
Languages		Akkadian Sumerian Aramaic
Religion		Ancient Mesopotamian religion
Government		Monarchy
King
•	c. 1975 BC	Puzur-Ashur I (first)
•	1073–1056 BC	Ashur-bel-kala (last)
Historical era		Mesopotamia
•	Kikkiya overthrown	2500 BC
•	Decline of Assyria	612 BC
Succeeded by Median Empire Neo-Babylonian_Empire Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt
Today part of		Syria Iraq Turkey Iran

Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East. It existed as an independent state from perhaps as early as the 25th century BC,^[1] until its collapse between 612 BC and 599 BC, spanning the Early to Middle Bronze Age through to the late Iron Age.^[2][3]

From the end of the seventh century BC to the mid-seventh century AD, it survived as a geopolitical entity, for the most part ruled by foreign powers, although the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its successor states arose at different times during the Parthian and early Sasanian Empires between the mid-second century BC and late third century AD, a period which also saw Assyria become a major centre of Syriac Christianity and the birthplace of the Church of the East.^[4]

Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia (modern northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and the northwestern fringes of Iran), the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Making up a substantial part of the greater Mesopotamian "cradle of civilization", which included Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, and Babylonia, Assyria was at the height of technological, scientific and cultural achievements for its time. At its peak, the Assyrian empire stretched from Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea to Iran, and from what is now Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, to the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and eastern Libya.^[5]

Assyria is named after its original capital, the ancient city of Aššur, which dates to c. 2600 BC, originally one of a number of Akkadian city states in Mesopotamia. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders. From the late 24th century BC, the Assyrians became subject to Sargon of Akkad, who united all the Akkadian- and Sumerian-speaking peoples of Mesopotamia under the Akkadian Empire, which lasted from c. 2334 BC to 2154 BC.^[6]

After its fall, the greater remaining part of Assyria was geopolitical region and province of other nations between the mid-2nd century BC and late 3rd century AD, with a patchwork of small independent Assyrian kingdoms adjacent to it. The region of Assyria fell under the successive control of the Medes, the Achaemenid Empire, the Seleucid Empire, the Parthian Empire, the Roman Empire, and the Sasanian Empire. The Muslim conquest of Persia in the mid-seventh century finally dissolved it as a single entity, after which the remnants of the Assyrian people gradually became an ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious minority in the Assyrian homeland, surviving there to this day as an indigenous people of the region.^[7][8]

Names

Assyria was also sometimes known as Subartu and Azuhinum prior to the rise of the city-state of Aššūr, after which it was Aššūrāyu, and after its fall, from 605 BC through to the late seventh century AD variously as Achaemenid Assyria, and also referenced as Atouria, Ator, Athor^[9] according to Strabo, Syria (Greek), Assyria (Latin) and Asōristān (Middle Persian). "Assyria" can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were (and still are) centered. The modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey and northwest Iran are the descendants of the ancient Assyrians (see Assyrian continuity).^[10][11]

Pre-history

In prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria (and Subartu) was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c. 7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, the centre of the Hassuna culture, c. 6000 BC.

The Akkadian-speaking people (the earliest historically-attested Semitic-speaking people^[12]) who would eventually found Assyria appear to have entered Mesopotamia at some point during the latter 4th millennium BC (c. 3500–3000 BC),^[13] eventually intermingling with the earlier Sumerian-speaking population, with Akkadian names appearing in written record from as early as the 29th century BC.^[12][14]

During the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism.^[15] The influence of Sumerian (a language isolate) on Akkadian, and vice versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence.^[15] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a sprachbund.^[15] Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere after the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate),^[16] although Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD, as did use of the Akkadian cuneiform.

Letter sent by the high-priest Lu'enna to the king of Lagash (maybe Urukagina), informing him of his son's death in combat, c. 2400 BC, found in Girsu.

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

Greco-Roman classical writers such as Julius Africanus, Marcus Velleius Paterculus and Diodorus Siculus dated the founding of Assyria to various dates between 2284 BC and 2057 BC,^[17][18][19] listing the earliest king as Belus or Ninus.

According to the Biblical generations of Noah, which appears to have been largely compiled between the 7th and 5th centuries BC,^[20] the city of Aššur was allegedly founded by a biblical Ashur the son of Shem, who was deified by later generations as the city's patron god. Assyrian tradition itself lists the first king of Assyria as the 25th century BC Tudiya, and an early urbanised Assyrian king named Ushpia (c. 2050 BC) as having dedicated the first temple to the god Ashur in the city in the mid-21st century BC. It is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name.

History

Early period

Early Period
c. 2600 BC–c. 2025 BC
Capital		Aššur
Languages		Akkadian language
Religion		Ancient Mesopotamian religion
Government		Monarchy
King
•	c. 2450 BC	Tudiya (first)
•	c. 2025 BC	Ilu-shuma (last)
Historical era		Bronze Age
•	Established	c. 2600 BC
•	Disestablished	c. 2025 BC
Preceded by Succeeded by Early Dynastic Period (Mesopotamia) Old Assyrian Empire
Today part of		Iraq

The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, seem to have been established by 2600 BC. However it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, mentions "smiting Subartu" (Subartu being the Sumerian name for Assyria). Similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him.

Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known. In the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the latter half of the 25th century BC, i.e. somewhere between 2450 BC and 2400 BC. In archaeological reports from Ebla, it appeared that Tudiya's activities were confirmed with the discovery of a tablet where he concluded a treaty for the operation of a karum (trading colony) in Eblaite territory, with "king" Ibrium of Ebla (who is now known to have been the vizier of Ebla for king Ishar-Damu).

Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu and then a further thirteen rulers (Yangi, Shuhlamu, Harharu, Mandaru, Imshu, Harshu, Didanu, Hanu, Zuabu, Nuabu, Abazu, Belu and Azarah). Nothing concrete is yet known about these names, although it has been noted that a much later Babylonian tablet listing the ancestral lineage of Hammurabi, the Amorite king of Babylon, seems to have copied the same names from Tudiya through Nuabu, though in a heavily corrupted form.

The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers. These kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur in the mid 21st century BC.^[21]

Akkadian Empire and Neo-Sumerian Empires

During the Akkadian Empire (2334–2154 BC), the Assyrians, like all the Mesopotamian Semites (and also the Sumerians), became subject to the dynasty of the city state of Akkad, centered in central Mesopotamia. The Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding "four quarters". The region of Assyria, north of the seat of the empire in central Mesopotamia, had also been known as Subartu by the Sumerians, and the name Azuhinum in Akkadian records also seems to refer to Assyria proper.^[22]

Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became a regional administrative center of the Empire, implicated by the Nuzi tablets.^[23] During this period, the Akkadian-speaking Semites of Mesopotamia came to rule an empire encompassing not only Mesopotamia itself but large swathes of Asia Minor, ancient Iran, Elam, the Arabian Peninsula, Canaan and Syria.

Assyria seems to have already been firmly involved in trade in Asia Minor by this time; the earliest known reference to Anatolian karums in Hatti was found on later cuneiform tablets describing the early period of the Akkadian Empire (c. 2350 BC). On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, and this appellation continued to exist throughout the Assyrian Empire for about 1,700 years. The name "Hatti" itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia.

Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor and The Levant (modern Syria and Lebanon). However, towards the end of the reign of Sargon the Great, the Assyrian faction rebelled against him; "the tribes of Assyria of the upper country—in their turn attacked, but they submitted to his arms, and Sargon settled their habitations, and he smote them grievously".^[24]

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

Most of Assyria briefly became part of the Neo-Sumerian Empire (or 3rd dynasty of Ur) founded in c. 2112 BC. Sumerian domination extended as far as the city of Ashur, but appears not to have reached Nineveh and the far north of Assyria. One local ruler (shakkanakku) named Zāriqum (who does not appear on any Assyrian king list) is listed as paying tribute to Amar-Sin of Ur. Ashur's rulers appear to have remained largely under Sumerian domination until the mid-21st century BC (c. 2050 BC); the king list names Assyrian rulers for this period and several are known from other references to have also borne the title of shakkanakka or vassal governors for the neo-Sumerians.^[25][26]

Old Assyrian Empire

Old Assyrian Empire
circa 2025 BC–circa 1393 BC
Capital		Aššur
Languages		Akkadian language
Religion		Ancient Mesopotamian religion
Government		Monarchy
King
•	circa 2025 BC	Erishum I (first)
•	circa 1393 BC	Ashur-nadin-ahhe II (last)
Historical era		Bronze Age
•	Established	circa 2025 BC
•	Disestablished	circa 1393 BC
Preceded by Succeeded by Early Assyrian kingdom Kingdom of Mitanni Middle Assyrian Empire
Today part of		Iraq

Assyria became a regionally powerful nation in the Old Assyrian Empire from the late 21st century to the mid 18th century BC. Following this, it found itself under short periods of Babylonian and Mitanni-Hurrian rule in the 18th and 15th centuries BC respectively. From the mid 18th century BC, Assyria came into conflict with the newly created city state of Babylon, which eventually eclipsed the far older Sumero-Akkadian states and cities in the south.

The first written inscriptions by 'urbanised' Assyrian kings appear in the mid-21st century BC, after they had shrugged off Sumerian domination. The land of Assyria as a whole then consisted of a number of city states and small kingdoms, some of which were initially independent of Assyria. The foundation of the first major temple in the city of Ashur was traditionally ascribed to king Ushpia who reigned c. 2050 BC, possibly a contemporary of Ishbi-Erra of Isin and Naplanum of Larsa. He was reputedly succeeded by kings named Apiashal, Sulili, Kikkiya and Akiya (died c. 2026 BC), of whom little is known, apart from much later mentions of Kikkiya conducting fortifications on the city walls, and building work on temples in Ashur.

The Amorites had overrun the kingdoms of southern Mesopotamia and the Levant between the 21st and 19th centuries BC, but had hitherto been successfully repelled by the Assyrian kings during this period. However, Erishum II (c. 1818–1809 BC) was to be the last king of the dynasty of Puzur-Ashur I, founded c. 2025 BC. In 1808 BC he was deposed and the throne of Assyria was usurped by Shamshi-Adad I (c. 1809 – 1776 BC) in the expansion of Amorite tribes from the Khabur River delta in the north eastern Levant.

After securing its borders on all sides, Assyria entered into a quiet and peaceful period in its history which lasted for two and a half centuries, remaining untroubled by the emergence of the Hittite Empire and Hurri-Mitanni Empire, both to the north of Assyria, and by the Kassites who had seized Babylonia from its Amorite founders.

Assyria found itself under short periods of Babylonian and Mitanni-Hurrian rule in the 18th and 15th centuries BC respectively. The emergence of the Mitanni Empire in the 16th century BC did eventually lead to a short period of sporadic Mitannian-Hurrian domination in the latter half of the 15th century. The Indo-European-speaking Mitannians are thought to have conquered and formed the ruling class over the indigenous Hurrians of eastern Anatolia. The Hurrians spoke a language isolate, i.e. neither Semitic nor Indo-European.

Middle Assyrian Empire

Middle Assyrian Empire
Middle Assyrian Empire
1392 BC–934 BC
Map of the Ancient Near East during the Amarna Period (14th century BC), showing the great powers of the day: Egypt (orange), Hatti (blue), the Kassite kingdom of Babylon (black), Assyria (yellow), and Mitanni (brown). The extent of the Achaean/Mycenaean civilization is shown in purple.
Capital		Aššur
Languages		Akkadian
Religion		Ancient Mesopotamian religion
Government		Monarchy
King
•	1365–1330 BC	Ashur-uballit I (first)
•	967–934 BC	Tiglath-Pileser II (last)
Historical era		Mesopotamia
•	Independence from Mitanni	1392 BC
•	Reign of Ashur-dan II	934 BC
Preceded by Succeeded by Old Assyrian Empire Neo-Assyrian Empire

Beginning with the campaigns of Adad-nirari II from 911 BC, it again became a great power over the next three centuries, overthrowing the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt and conquering Egypt, driving the Ethiopians, Kushites and Nubians from Egypt. The Middle period (1365 BC - 1056 BC) saw reigns of great kings, such as Ashur-uballit I, Arik-den-ili, Tukulti-Ninurta I and Tiglath-Pileser I. During this period, Assyria overthrew the empire of the Hurri-Mitanni and eclipsed the Hittite Empire, Egyptian Empire, Babylonia, Elam, Canaan and Phrygia in the Near East.^[27]

Society and law in the Middle Assyrian Period

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

The Middle Assyrian Period was marked by the long wars fought that helped build Assyria into a warrior society. The king depended on both the citizen class and priests in his capital, and the landed nobility who supplied the horses needed by Assyria's military. Documents and letters illustrate the importance of the latter to Assyrian society.

Assyria needed less artificial irrigation than Babylonia, and horse-breeding was extensive. Portions of elaborate texts about the care and training of them have been found. Trade was carried out in all directions. The mountain country to the north and west of Assyria was a major source of metal ore, as well as lumber. Economic factors were a common casus belli.

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

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

Assyria was open to homosexual relationships between men.^[28] In the Middle Assyrian Laws, sex crimes were punished identically whether they were homosexual or heterosexual.^[28][29] An individual with a higher social class faced no punishment for penetrating someone of a lower social class, or whose gender roles were not considered solidly masculine. However, homosexual relationships between social equals, or those where a social better was submissive or penetrated, were treated as rape. Omen texts referred to male homosexual acts without moral judgement or affirmation.^[29] One historian notes that the laws would not be so detailed "if homosexual behavior were not a familiar aspect of daily life of early Mesopotamia."^[30]

Assyrian expansion and empire, 1392–1056 BC

Assyrian troops return after victory.

Assyria had difficulties with keeping the trade routes open. Unlike the situation in the Old Assyrian period, the Anatolian metal trade now was effectively dominated by the empires of the Hittites and the Mitanni-Hurrians. These people now controlled the Mediterranean ports, while the Kassites controlled the river route south to the Persian Gulf. The main Assyrian cities of the middle period were Ashur, Kalhu (Nimrud) and Nineveh, all situated in the Tigris River valley, together with Arrapha (modern Kirkuk), Gasur, Ekallatum and Arbela (modern Irbil).

The Aramaeans of northern and central Syria were the next targets of the Assyrian king, who made his way as far as the sources of the Tigris.^[31] The control of the high road to the Mediterranean was secured by the possession of the Hittite town of Pitru^[32] at the junction between the Euphrates and Sajur; thence he proceeded to conquer the Canaanite/Phoenician city-states of Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Berytus (Beirut), Aradus and Arvad.^[31][31] Arvad invaded and defeated Babylon twice, assuming the old title "King of Sumer and Akkad", forcing tribute from Babylon, although he did not actually depose the actual king in Babylonia, where the old Kassite Dynasty had now succumbed to an Elamite one.

Assyrians skinning or flaying their prisoners alive

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

Assyria during the Bronze Age Collapse, 1055–936 BC

The Bronze Age Collapse from 1200 BC to 900 BC was a dark age for the entire Near East, North Africa, Asia Minor, Caucasus, Mediterranean and Balkan regions, with great upheavals and mass movements of people.

Assyria and its empire were not unduly affected by these tumultuous events for some 150 years, perhaps the only ancient power that was not. However, upon the death of Ashur-bel-kala in 1056 BC, Assyria went into a comparative decline for the next 100 or so years. The empire shrank significantly, and by 1020 BC Assyria appears to have controlled only areas close to Assyria itself, essential to keeping trade routes open in eastern Aramea, south eastern Asia Minor, central Mesopotamia and north western Iran.

New West Semitic-speaking peoples such as the Arameans, Chaldeans and Suteans moved into areas to the west and south of Assyria, including overrunning much of Babylonia to the south, Indo-European speaking Iranic peoples such as the Medes, Persians and Parthians moved into the lands to the east of Assyria, displacing the native Gutians and pressuring Elam and Mannea (which were all ancient non Indo-European civilisations of Iran), and to the north the Phrygians overran the Hittites, a new Hurrian state named Urartu arose in the Caucasus, and Cimmerians, Colchians (Georgians) and Scythians around the Black Sea and Caucasus. Egypt was divided and in disarray, and Israelites were battling with other West Asian peoples such as the Amalekites, Moabites, Edomites and Ammonites and the non-Semitic-speaking Peleset/Philistines (who have been conjectured to be one of the so-called Sea Peoples)^[33][34] for the control of southern Canaan.

Assyrian horsemen pursue defeated Arabs.

Despite the apparent weakness of Assyria in comparison to its former might, at heart it in fact remained a solid, well defended nation whose warriors were the best in the world. Assyria, with its stable monarchy, powerful army and secure borders was in a stronger position during this time than potential rivals such as Egypt, Babylonia, Elam, Phrygia, Urartu, Persia and Media. Kings such as Ashur-bel-kala, Eriba-Adad II, Ashur-rabi II, Ashurnasirpal I, Tiglath-Pileser II and Ashur-Dan II successfully defended Assyria's borders and upheld stability during this tumultuous time.

Assyrian kings during this period appear to have adopted a policy of maintaining and defending a compact, secure nation and satellite colonies immediately surrounding it, and interspersed this with sporadic punitive raids and invasions of neighbouring territories when the need arose.

Neo-Assyrian Empire

Neo-Assyrian Empire
Neo-Assyrian Empire
911 BC–605 BC
Map of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its expansions.
Capital		Aššur 911 BC Kalhu 879 BC Dur-Sharrukin 706 BC Nineveh 705 BC Harran 612 BC
Languages		Akkadian, Aramaic, Sumerian
Religion		Ancient Mesopotamian religion
Government		Monarchy
King
•	911–891 BC	Adad-nirari II (first)
•	612–608 BC	Ashur-uballit II (last)
Historical era		Iron Age
•	Reign of Adad-nirari II	911 BC
•	Battle of Nineveh	612 BC
•	Fall of Harran	605 BC
Preceded by Succeeded by Middle Assyrian Empire Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) Elam Median Empire Neo-Babylonian_Empire Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt
Today part of		Iraq  Syria  Turkey  Egypt  Saudi Arabia  Jordan  Iran  Kuwait  Lebanon  Palestine  Cyprus  Armenia  Israel

The Neo-Assyrian Empire is usually considered to have begun with the accession of Adad-nirari II, in 911 BC, lasting until the fall of Nineveh at the hands of the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes/Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians in 612 BC.^[35]

Expansion, 911–627 BC

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

Under Ashurbanipal (669–627 BC), Assyrian domination spanned from the Caucasus Mountains (modern Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) in the north to Nubia, Egypt, Libya and Arabia in the south, and from the East Mediterranean, Cyprus and Antioch in the west to Persia and the Caspian Sea in the east.

Ashurbanipal's brutal campaign against Elam in 647 BC is recorded in this relief.

Ultimately, Assyria conquered Babylonia, Chaldea, Elam, Media, Persia, Urartu (Armenia), Phoenicia, Aramea/Syria, Phrygia, the Neo-Hittite States, the Hurrian lands, Arabia, Gutium, Israel, Judah, Samarra, Moab, Edom, Corduene, Cilicia, Mannea, and Cyprus, and defeated and/or exacted tribute from Scythia, Cimmeria, Lydia, Nubia, Ethiopia and others. At its height, the Empire encompassed the whole of the modern nations of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Palestine and Cyprus, together with large swathes of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Sudan, Libya, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Assyria now appeared stronger than ever. However, the long struggles pacifying the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Arameans and Elamites, the exertions undertaken in keeping the Medes, Scythians, Persians, Urartians and Cimmerians subjugated, and the constant campaigning over three centuries to control and expand its vast empire in all directions, had left Assyria materially, economically and physically exhausted. It had been drained of wealth and manpower; the devastated provinces could yield nothing to supply the needs of the imperial exchequer, it was difficult to find sufficient troops to garrison and effectively control the huge empire, and after the death of Ashurbanipal severe civil unrest broke out in Assyria itself, and the empire began to unravel.^{[citation needed]}

Downfall, 626–605 BC

The Assyrian Empire was severely crippled following the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC—the nation and its empire descending into a prolonged and brutal series of civil wars involving three rival kings, Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and Sin-shar-ishkun. Egypt's 26th Dynasty, which had been installed by the Assyrians as vassals, quietly detached itself from Assyria, although it was careful to retain friendly relations.

The Scythians and Cimmerians took advantage of the bitter fighting among the Assyrians to raid Assyrian colonies, with hordes of horse borne marauders ravaging parts of Asia Minor and the Caucasus, where the vassal kings of Urartu and Lydia begged their Assyrian overlord for help in vain. They also raided the Levant, Israel and Judah (where Ashkelon was sacked by the Scythians) and all the way into Egypt whose coasts were ravaged and looted with impunity.

The Iranic peoples (the Medes, Persians and Parthians), aided by the previous Assyrian destruction of the hitherto dominant Elamites of Ancient Iran, also took advantage of the upheavals in Assyria to coalesce into a powerful Median dominated force which destroyed the pre-Iranic Assyrian vassal kingdom of Mannea and absorbed the remnants of the pre-Iranic Elamites of southern Iran, and the equally pre-Iranic Gutians, Manneans and Kassites of the Zagros Mountains and the Caspian Sea.

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

Despite the sorely depleted state of Assyria, bitter fighting ensued; throughout 614 BC the alliance of powers continued to gradually make hard fought inroads into Assyria itself, however in 613 BC the Assyrians somehow rallied against the odds and scored a number of counterattacking victories over the Medes-Persians, Babylonians-Chaldeans and Scythians-Cimmerians. This led to the coalition of forces ranged against it to unite and launch a massive combined attack in 612 BC, finally besieging and entering Nineveh in late 612 BC, with Sin-shar-ishkun being slain in the bitter street by street fighting. Despite the loss of almost all of its major cities, and in the face of overwhelming odds, Assyrian resistance continued under Ashur-uballit II (612-605 BC), who fought his way out of Nineveh and coalesced Assyrian forces around Harran (in modern south east Turkey), Carchemish (modern Jarablus in north east Syria) and in the vassal kingdom of Urartu (in modern north eastern Turkey).^[36] However, the alliance of powers took Harran in 608 BC, and after a failed bid to recapture the city by the Assyrian king the same year, Carchemish too fell in 605 BC.

Sections of the Assyrian army retreated to the western corner of Assyria after the fall of Harran and Carchemish, and a number of Assyrian imperial records survive between 604 BC and 599 BC in and around the Assyrian city of Dur-Katlimmu in what is today north eastern Syria, and so it is possible that remnants of the Assyrian administration and army still continued to hold out in the region for a few years.^[37] Certainly by 599 BC at the very latest, Assyria had been destroyed as an independent political entity, although it was to launch major rebellions against the Achaemenid Empire in 546 BC and 520 BC, and remained a geo-political region, ethnic entity and colonised province until the late 7th century AD, with small Assyrian states emerging in the region between the 2nd century BC and 4th century AD.

Assyria after the empire

Achaemenid Assyria, Osroene, Adiabene, Asōristān, Athura and Hatra

Assyria was initially ruled by the short lived Median Empire (605–549 BC) after its fall. In a twist of fate, Nabonidus the last king of Babylon (together with his son and co-regent Belshazzar) was himself an Assyrian from Harran. He had overthrown the short lived Chaldean dynasty in Babylonia, after which the Chaldeans disappeared from history, being fully absorbed into the native population of Babylonia. However, apart from plans to dedicate religious temples in the city of Harran, Nabonidus showed little interest in rebuilding Assyria. Nineveh and Kalhu remained in ruins with only small numbers of Assyrians living within them, conversely a number of towns and cities such as Arrapkha, Guzana, Nohadra and Harran remained intact, and Assur and Arbela (Irbil) were not completely destroyed, as is attested by their later revival. However, Assyria spent much of this short period in a degree of devastation following its fall.

Achaemenid Assyria (549–330 BC)

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

Assyria seems to have recovered dramatically, and flourished during this period. It became a major agricultural and administrative centre of the Achaemenid Empire, and its soldiers were a mainstay of the Persian Army.^[38] In fact, Assyria even became powerful enough to raise another full-scale revolt against the Persian empire in 520–519 BC.

The Persians had spent centuries under Assyrian domination (their first ruler Achaemenes and his successors, having been vassals of Assyria), and Assyrian influence can be seen in Achaemenid art, infrastructure and administration. Early Persian rulers saw themselves as successors to Ashurbanipal, and Mesopotamian Aramaic was retained as the lingua franca of the empire for over two hundred years, and Greek writers such as Thucydides still referred to it as the Assyrian language.^[39] Nineveh was never rebuilt however, and 200 years after it was sacked Xenophon reported only small numbers of Assyrians living amongst its ruins. Conversely the ancient city of Assur once more became a rich and prosperous entity.^[40]

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

Macedonian and Seleucid Assyria

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

When the Seleucids lost control of Assyria proper, the name Syria survived but was erroneously applied only to the land of Aramea (also known as Eber Nari) to the west that had once been part of the Assyrian empire, but apart from the north eastern corner, had never been a part of Assyria itself, nor inhabited by Assyrians. This was to lead to both the Assyrians from Northern Mesopotamia and the Arameans and Phoenicians from the Levant being collectively dubbed Syrians (and later also Syriacs) in Greco-Roman and later European culture, regardless of ethnicity, history or geography.

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

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

Parthian Assyria (150 BC – 225 AD)

By 150 BC, Assyria was largely under the control of the Parthian Empire. The Parthians seem to have exercised only loose control over Assyria, and between the mid 2nd century BC and 4th century AD a number of Neo-Assyrian states arose; these included the ancient capital of Assur itself, Adiabene with its capital of Arbela (modern Irbil), Beth Nuhadra with its capital of Nohadra (modern Dohuk), Osroene, with its capitals of Edessa and Amid (modern Sanliurfa and Diyarbakir), Hatra, and "ܒܝܬܓܪܡܝ" (Beth Garmai) with its capital at Arrapha (modern Kirkuk).^[41]

These freedoms were accompanied by a major Assyrian cultural revival, and temples to the Assyrian national gods Ashur, Sin, Hadad, Ishtar, Ninurta, Tammuz and Shamash were once more dedicated throughout Assyria and Upper Mesopotamia during this period.^[42]

In addition, Christianity arrived in Assyria soon after the death of Christ and the Assyrians began to gradually convert to Christianity from the ancient Mesopotamian religion during the period between the early first and third centuries. Assyria became an important centre of Syriac Christianity and Syriac Literature, with the Assyrian Church of the East evolving in Assyria, and the Syriac Orthodox Church partly also, indeed Osroene became the first independent Christian state in history.^[4]

Roman Assyria (116–8)

However, in 116, under Trajan, Assyria and its independent states were briefly taken over by Rome as the province of Assyria. The Assyrian kingdom of Adiabene was destroyed as an independent state during this period. Roman rule lasted only a few years, and the Parthians once more regained control with the help of the Assyrians, who were incited to overthrow the Roman garrisons by the Parthian king. However, a number of Assyrians were conscripted into the Roman Army, with many serving in the region of Hadrians Wall in Roman Britain, and inscriptions in Aramaic made by soldiers have been discovered in Northern England dating from the second century.^[43]

With loose Parthian rule restored, Assyria and its patchwork of states continued much as they had before the Roman interregnum, although Assyria and Mesopotamia as a whole became a front line between the Roman and Parthian empires.. Other new religious movements also emerged in the form of gnostic sects such as Mandeanism, as well as the now extinct Manichean religion.

Christian period

Sassanid Assyria (226–c.650)

In 226, Assyria was largely taken over by the Sasanian Empire. After driving out the Romans and Parthians, the Sassanid rulers set about annexing the independent states within Assyria during the mid to late 3rd century. After the Roman empire conquered the region of Assyria in the 200s Christianity spread, and many of the ethnically Assyrian churches that exist today are among the oldest in the world. For example, the Syriac Orthodox Church is purported to have been founded by St Peter himself in 67 AD.

Nevertheless, although predominantly Christian, a minority of Assyrians still held onto their ancient Mesopotamian religion until as late as the 10th or 11th century AD.^[44][45] The Assyrians lived in a province known as Asuristan, and the region was on the frontier of the Byzantine and Sassanian empires.

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

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

Medieval Islam (600–780)

Centuries of constant warfare between the Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Empire left both empires exhausted, depleted, and battle-fatigued, which meant that when the Muslim Arabs came to invade the region during the 600s from the Arabian peninsula- The empires could do little to resist it. Therefore, after the early Islamic conquests in the seventh century, Assyria was dissolved as a political entity, although the native population still regarded the region as Assyria. Under Arab rule, Mesopotamia as a whole underwent a gradual process of Arabisation and Islamification, and the region saw a large influx of non indigenous Arabs, Kurds, Iranian, and Turkic peoples.

However, the indigenous Assyrian population of northern Mesopotamia resisted this process, retaining their language, religion, culture and identity.

Under the Arab Islamic empires, the Christian Assyrians were classed as dhimmis, second-class citizens that had certain restrictions imposed upon them. Dhimmis were excluded from specific duties and occupations reserved for Muslims, did not enjoy the same political rights as Muslims, their word was not equal to that of a Muslim in legal and civil matters without a Muslim witness, they were subject to payment of a special tax (jizyah) and they were banned from spreading their religion further in Muslim ruled lands. However, personal matters such as marriage and divorce were governed by the cultural laws of the Assyrians.^[46][47]

For those reasons, and even during the Sassanian period before Islamic rule, The Church of the East formed a church structure that spread Nestorian Christianity to as far away as China, in order to proselytize away from Muslim ruled regions In Iran and their homeland in Mesopotamia, with evidence of their massive church structure being the Nestorian Stele, an artifact found in China which documented over 100 years of Christian history in China from 600-781 Ad.^[48] Assyrian Christians maintained relations with fellow Christians in Armenia and Georgia throughout the Middle Ages. In the 12th century AD, Assyrian priests interceded on behalf of persecuted Arab Muslims in Georgia.^[49] The Assyrian Church structure thrived during the period of 600- 1300, and is regarded as a golden age for Assyrians.

Mongol Empire (1200–1300)

The first signs of trouble for the Assyrians started in the 13th century, When the Mongols first invaded the Near East after the fall of Baghdad in 1258 to Hulagu Khan.^[50] Assyrians at first did very well under Mongol rule, as the Shamanist Mongols were sympathetic to them, with Assyrian priests having traveled to Mongolia centuries before. The Mongols in fact spent most of their time oppressing Muslims and Jews, outlawing the practice of circumcision and halal butchery, as they found them repulsive and violent.^[51] Therefore, as one of the only groups in the region looked at in a good light, Assyrians were given special privileges and powers, with Hülegü even appointing an Assyrian Christian governor to Erbil (Arbela), and allowing the Syriac Orthodox Church to build a church there.^[52]

Aramaic language and Syriac Christianity in the Middle East and Central Asia until being largely annihilated by Tamerlane in the 14th century

However, the Mongol rulers in the Near East eventually converted to Islam, and then sustained persecutions of Christians throughout the entirety of the Ilkhanate began in earnest in 1295 under the rule of Oïrat amir Nauruz, which affected the indigenous Assyrian Christians greatly.^[53] During the reign of the Ilkhan Öljeitü, the Assyrian Christian inhabitants of Erbil seized control of the citadel and much of the city in rebellion against the Muslims.

However, in spring 1310, the Mongol Malik (governor) of the region attempted to seize it from them with the help of the Kurds and Arabs, but was defeated. After his defeat he decided to siege the city. The Assyrians held out for three months, but the citadel was at last taken by Ilkhanate troops and Arab, Turkic and Kurdish tribesmen on July 1, 1310. The defenders of the citadel fought to the last man, and many of the Assyrian inhabitants of the lower town were subsequently massacred.^[54][55]

Regardless of these hardships, the Assyrian people remained numerically dominant in the north of Mesopotamia as late as the 14th century AD, and the city of Assur functioned as their religious and cultural capital. However, in the mid-14th century the Muslim Turk ruler Tamurlane conducted a religiously motivated massacre of the indigenous Assyrian Christians, and worked tirelessly to destroy the vast Assyrian Church structure established throughout the Far East, destroying the entire structure of the church with the exception of the St Thomas Christians of the Malabar Coast in India, whom number 10 million or so in modern times.^[56] After Timurs campaign, The Assyrian Cultural and religious capital of Assur was completely destroyed, thousands of Assyrians were massacred, the vast church structure of the Assyrian Church of the East was decimated, and the Assyrian population was from that point on reduced to a small minority living within Muslim dominated lands.^[57]

Breakup of the Assyrian Church (1500–1780)

Around 100 years after the massacres by Timur, A religious schism known as the Schism of 1552 occurred among the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia, when a large number of Nestorian(followers of the Assyrian Church of the East) Assyrians in Amid elected a rival Patriarch named Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa after becoming dissatisfied with the leadership of the Assyrian Church, At this point based in Alqosh. Due to a need for an ordination by a metropolitan bishop, Sulaqa went into communion with the Roman Catholic Church after at first failing to gain acceptance within the Syriac Orthodox Church. Rome named this new church The Church of Assyria and Mosul and its first leader Patriarch of the East Assyrians in 1553 AD.

Soon after coming back Sulaqa was assassinated by supporters of the rival patriarch in Alqosh, but was able to form a new church structure and line of succession known as the Shimun Line prior to his death. This group of Assyrians eventually broke off ties with Rome, moved en masse to the Hakkari Mountains, and returned to the Nestorian faith they once adhered to prior to the Schism of 1552, while still operating independently from the original Assyrian Church structure based in Alqosh.

A decade or so before the Shimun line broke off ties with Rome, another faction within the Assyrian Church entered into communion with Rome known as the Josephite line, and upon the Shimun line leaving, inherited the now vacant Church of Assyria and Mosul, which was renamed the "Chaldean Catholic Church" in 1683. This is now believed to be due to an error by the Catholic Church, but now due to that error their followers became known as Chaldean Catholics or Chaldo-Assyrians despite having no ethnic, historical, linguistic, cultural or geographic connections whatsoever to the by now long extinct Chaldean tribe of south east Mesopotamia.^[58]

Later on in the 1830s the original Assyrian Church of the East structure in Alqosh combined with the Chaldean Catholic one, creating the modern Chaldean Catholic Church structure, which is ironic considering that the only remaining ethnic Assyrian Church to practice the Assyrian Church of the East denomination was the first one to split from the Assyrian Church of the East back in 1552. There was also another Nestorian Denomination known as the Ancient Church of the East, which split from the Assyrian Church of the East due to reforms passed under the rule of Shimun XXIII Eshai in the 1960s, but with the election of Gewargis III in 2015 the churches had a reconciliation, and reunited.

In addition to the Eastern Rite Churches, The Syriac Orthodox Church also has a large number of ethnically Assyrian Adherents, who are known as Syriacs. The Syriac Orthodox Church has 5 million adherents across the globe, mostly in India, but is based in Damascus. However, since the 11th centurty it was based in the Saffron Monastery of Tur Abdin, and prior to that it was based in Antioch. Like the Nestorian churches, schisms also occurred within the Syriac Orthodox Church. In 1626 Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries began to proselytize among the Syriac Orthodox faithful at Aleppo, forming a larger pro-catholic movement within the Syriac Orthodox Church. So in 1662, when the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate had fallen vacant, the Catholic party was able to elect one of its own, Andrew Akijan as Patriarch of the Syriac Church. This provoked a split in the community, and after Akijan’s death in 1677 two opposing patriarchs were elected, with one of those becoming the first Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church. This line of succession died out quickly, however, but in 1782 with the election of Michael Jarweh as Patriarch the Ignatius line has been the head of the Syriac Catholic Church since then, and also has its base in Damascus.

Modern history

Ottoman Empire (1900–1928)

The burning of bodies of Christian Assyrian women during the Assyrian Genocide

After these splits, the Assyrians suffered a number of religiously and ethnically motivated massacres throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries,^[59] culminating in the large scale Hamidian massacres of unarmed men, women and children by Turks and Kurds in the 1890s at the hands of the Ottoman Empire and its associated (largely Kurdish and Arab) militias, which greatly reduced their numbers, particularly in southeastern Turkey.

The Assyrians suffered a further catastrophic series of events during World War I in the form of the religiously and ethnically motivated Assyrian Genocide at the hands of the Ottomans and their Kurdish and Arab allies from 1915 to 1918.^{[60][61][62][63]} Some sources claim the highest number of Assyrians killed during the period was 750,000, while a 1922 Assyrian assessment set it at 275,000. The Assyrian Genocide ran largely in conjunction to the similarly motivated Armenian Genocide and Greek Genocide.

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

In 1920 the Assyrian settlements in Mindan and Baquba were attacked by Iraqi Arabs, but the Assyrian tribesmen displayed their military prowess by successfully defeating and driving off the Arab forces.^[64] The Assyrians also sided with the British during the Iraqi revolt against the British.

The Assyrian Levies were founded by the British in 1922, with ancient Assyrian military rankings, such as Rab-shakeh, Rab-talia and Turtanu, being revived for the first time in millennia for this force. The Assyrians were prized by the British rulers for their fighting qualities, loyalty, bravery and discipline, and were used to help the British put down insurrections among the Arabs, Kurds and Turcoman, guard the borders with Iran and Turkey, and protect British military installations. During the 1920s Assyrian levies saw action in effectively defeating Arab and Kurdish forces during anti-British rebellions in Iraq^[64][65][66]

Simele Massacre and World War II (1930–1950)

Map of Assyrian populated areas

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

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

A further persecution of Assyrians took place in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and early 1950s when thousands of Assyrians settled in Georgia, Armenia and southern Russia were forcibly deported from their homes in the dead of night by Stalin without warning or reason to Central Asia, with most being relocated to Kazakhstan, where a small minority still remain.^[67]

Ba'athism (1966–2003)

The Flag of the Assyrian Nation (created and used since 1968)^[68]

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

However, in 1963, the Ba'ath Party took power by force in Iraq, and came to power in Syria the same year. The Baathists, though secular, were Arab nationalists, and set about attempting to Arabize the many non-Arab peoples of Iraq and Syria, including the Assyrians. This policy included refusing to acknowledge the Assyrians as an ethnic group, banning the publication of written material in Eastern Aramaic, and banning its teaching in schools, together with an attempt to Arabize the ancient pre-Arab heritage of Mesopotamian civilisation.

The policies of the Baathists have also long been mirrored in Turkey, whose nationalist governments have refused to acknowledge the Assyrians as an ethnic group since the 1920s, and have attempted to Turkify the Assyrians by calling them "Semitic Turks" and forcing them to adopt Turkish names and language. In Baathist Syria too, the Assyrian (and Syriac-Aramean) Christians faced pressure to identify as "Arab Christians". In Iran, Assyrians continued to enjoy cultural, religious and ethnic rights, but due to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 their community has been diminished.

Islamic Terrorism (2003–present)

An Assyrian wedding in Mechelen, Belgium.

In recent years, Assyrians in northern Iraq and north east Syria have become the target of attacks by Islamist militants like ISIL and Nusra Front. In 2014 ISIL attacked Assyrian towns and villages in the Assyrian homelands of northern Iraq and north east Syria, and Assyrians forced from their homes in cities such as Mosul had their houses and possessions stolen.^[69] Assyrian Bronze Age and Iron Age monuments and archaeological sites, as well as numerous Assyrian churches and monasteries,^[69] have been systematically vandalised and destroyed by ISIL. These include the ruins of Nineveh, Kalhu (Nimrud, Assur, Dur-Sharrukin and Hatra).^[70][71]

Assyrians in both Iraq and Syria ^[72][73][74] have responded by forming armed Assyrian militias to defend their territories,^[75] and despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned have had success in driving ISIL from Assyrian towns and villages, and defending others from attack.^[76][77] Armed Assyrian militias have also fought ISIL alongside armed groups of Kurds, Turcoman, Yezidis, Syriac-Aramean Christians, Shabaks, Armenian Christians, Kawilya, Mandeans, Circassians and Shia Muslim Arabs and Iranians.

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

Culture

Language

The pastime of an Assyrian King by F.A. Bridgman

Assyrian was a dialect of Akkadian language, a member of the eastern branch of the Semitic family and the oldest historically attested of the Semitic languages, which began to appear in written form in the 29th century BC. The first inscriptions in Assyria proper, called Old Assyrian (OA), were made in the Old Assyrian period.^[78]

During the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism.^[15] The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence.^[15] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a sprachbund.^[15]

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

In the Neo-Assyrian period, the Aramaic language became increasingly common,^[79] more so than Akkadian—this was thought to be largely due to the mass deportations undertaken by Assyrian kings,^[80] in which large Aramaic-speaking populations, conquered by the Assyrians, were relocated to Assyria and interbred with the Assyrians, and due to the fact that Tiglath-pileser II made it the lingua franca of Assyria and its empire in the 8th century BC.

The ancient Assyrians also used the Sumerian in their literature and liturgy,^[80] although to a more limited extent in the Middle- and Neo-Assyrian periods, when Akkadian became the main literary language.^[80]

The destruction of the Assyrian capitals of Nineveh and Assur by the Babylonians, Medes and their allies, ensured that much of the bilingual elite (but not all) were wiped out. By the 7th century BC, much of the Assyrian population used distinct Akkadian influenced Eastern Aramaic varieties and not Akkadian itself. The last Akkadian inscriptions in Mesopotamia date from the 1st century AD. The Syriac language also emerged in Assyria during the 5th century BC, and during the Christian era, Syriac literature and Syriac script were to become hugely influential.

However, the descendant Eastern Aramaic dialects from the Neo-Assyrian Empire, as well as Akkadian and Mesopotamian Aramaic personal, tribal, family and place names, still survive to this day among Assyrian people in the regions of northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northwest Iran and northeast Syria that constituted old Assyria, and are spoken fluently by up to 1,000,000 Assyrians, with a further number having lesser and varying degrees of fluency.^[80] These dialects are very different from the now almost extinct Western Aramaic of the Arameans in the Levant and Trans-Jordan, which does not have an Akkadian grammatical structure or loan words.

After 90 years of effort, the University of Chicago in 2011 completed an Assyrian dictionary, the style of which is more like an encyclopedia than a dictionary.^[81]

Religion

Ancient Assyrian religion

The Assyrians, like the rest of the Mesopotamian peoples, followed ancient Mesopotamian religion, with their national god Ashur having the most importance to them during the Assyrian Empire. This religion gradually declined with the advent of Christianity between the first and tenth centuries.^[44]

Other major gods within the pantheon were Anu, Baal, Ea, Enlil, Ishtar (Astarte), Shamash, Tammuz, Adad/Hadad, Sin (Nanna), Dagan, Ninurta, Nisroch, Nergal, Tiamat, Ninlil, Mullissu, Zababa and El.

The original pagan religion of the Assyrians was widely adhered to until around the 4th century, and survived in pockets until at least the 10th century.^[44] However, Assyrians today are exclusively Christian, with most following the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Ancient Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and Assyrian Evangelical Church. Assyrians had begun to adopt Christianity (as well as for a time Manicheanism and gnosticism) between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD.

Christian history of the Assyrian people

The Assyrian people originally adhered to one of two Churches- The Assyrian Church of the East, an East Syrian Rite Church, or the Syriac Orthodox Church, a West Syrian Rite Church. However, now there are nearly 20 different Assyrian Christian Churches including the ones followed by ethnically Malayali Converts in India, known as St Thomas Christians. The first new Church formed around 100 years after the massacres by Timur during the 14th century due to the Schism of 1552, which occurred among the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia when a large number of Nestorian (followers of the Assyrian Church of the East) Assyrians in Amid elected a rival Patriarch named Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa after becoming dissatisfied with the leadership of the Assyrian Church (at this point based in Alqosh). Due to a need for an official ordination, Sulaqa went into communion with the Roman Catholic Church after at first failing to gain acceptance within the Syriac Orthodox Church. Rome named this new church The Church of Assyria and Mosul and its first leader Patriarch of the East Assyrians in 1553 AD.

Soon after coming back Sulaqa was assassinated by supporters of the rival patriarch in Alqosh, but was able to form a new church structure and line of succession known as the Shimun Line prior to his death. This group of Assyrians eventually broke off ties with Rome, moved en masse to the Hakkari Mountains, and returned to the Nestorian faith they once adhered to prior to the Schism of 1552 (although the Shimun line still operated independently from the original Assyrian Church structure based in Alqosh).

A decade or so before the Shimun line broke off ties with Rome, another faction within the Assyrian Church entered into communion with Rome known as the Josephite line, and upon the Shimun line leaving, inherited the now vacant Church of Assyria and Mosul, which was renamed the "Chaldean Catholic Church" in 1683. This is now believed to be due to an error by the Catholic Church, but now due to that error their followers became known as Chaldean Catholics or Chaldo-Assyrians despite having no ethnic, historical, linguistic, cultural or geographic connections whatsoever to the by now long extinct Chaldean tribe of south east Mesopotamia.^[58]

Later on in the 1830s the original Assyrian Church of the East structure in Alqosh combined with the Chaldean Catholic Jacobite one, creating the modern Chaldean Catholic Church structure, which is ironic considering that the only remaining ethnic Assyrian Church to practice the Assyrian Church of the East denomination til this day is ruled by the Shimun line- the very first Church to split from the Assyrian Church of the East back in 1552. There was also another Nestorian Denomination known as the Ancient Church of the East, which split from the Assyrian Church of the East due to reforms passed under the rule of Shimun XXIII Eshai in the 1960s, but with the election of Gewargis III in 2015 the churches had a reconciliation, and reunited.

The Syriac Orthodox Church also has a large number of ethnically Assyrian Adherents, who are known as Syriacs. The Syriac Orthodox Church has 5 million adherents across the globe, mostly in India, but is based in Damascus. However, since the 11th century it was based in the Saffron Monastery of Tur Abdin, and prior to that it was based in Antioch. Like the Nestorian churches, schisms also occurred within the Syriac Orthodox Church.

In 1626 Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries began to proselytize among the Syriac Orthodox faithful at Aleppo, forming a larger pro-catholic movement within the Syriac Orthodox Church. So in 1662, when the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate had fallen vacant, the Catholic party was able to elect one of its own, Andrew Akijan as Patriarch of the Syriac Church. This provoked a split in the community, and after Akijan’s death in 1677 two opposing patriarchs were elected, with one of those becoming the first Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church. This line of succession died out quickly, however, but in 1782 with the election of Michael Jarweh as Patriarch the Ignatius line has been the head of the Syriac Catholic Church since then, and also has its base in Damascus.

Some Assyrians converted to Protestantism during the 20th century as well, forming the Assyrian Pentecostal Church and Assyrian Evangelical Church.

Therefore, by the end of all the schisms which occurred, the Assyrian people are now followers of the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Ancient Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and Assyrian Evangelical Church- in addition to even more sub churches which are located in India that are adherent to the mother sees in the Middle East.

Architecture

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

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

Arts and Sciences

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

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

Assyria. Head of winged bull, 9th c. B.C.; Brooklyn Museum Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection

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

Although works of precious gems and metals usually do not survive the ravages of time, some fine pieces of Assyrian jewelry were found in royal tombs at Nimrud.

There is ongoing discussion among academics over the nature of the Nimrud lens, a piece of quartz unearthed by Austen Henry Layard in 1850, in the Nimrud palace complex in northern Iraq. A small minority believe that it is evidence for the existence of ancient Assyrian telescopes, which could explain the great accuracy of Assyrian astronomy. Other suggestions include its use as a magnifying glass for jewellers, or as a decorative furniture inlay. The Nimrud Lens is held in the British Museum.^[82]

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

Legacy

Austen Henry Layard in Nineveh, 1852

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

Between 150 BC and 226 AD, Assyria changed hands between the Parthian Empire and the Romans until coming under the rule of the Sasanian Empire from 226–651, where it was known as Asōristān.

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

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

The Assyrians began to form and adopt a distinct Eastern Christianity, with its accompanying Syriac literature, between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD; however, ancient Mesopotamian religion was still alive and well into the fourth century and pockets survived into the 10th century and possibly as late as the 17th century in Mardin. However, the religion is now dead, and the Assyrian people, though still retaining Eastern Aramaic dialects as a mother tongue, are now wholly Christian.

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

Notes

See also

• Achaemenid Assyria
• Ancient Church of the East
• Assur
• Assuristan
• Assyrian Christians
• Assyrian Church of the East
• Assyrian culture
• Assyrian Evangelical Church
• Assyrian Genocide
• Assyrian nationalism
• Assyrian Pentecostal Church
• Assyrian people
• Assyrian struggle for independence
• Babylonia
• Chaldea
• Chaldean Catholic Church
• Church of the East
• Eastern Aramaic
• List of Assyrians
• Mesopotamian religion
• Name of Syria
• Syriac language
• Syriac Orthodox Church

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Bibliography

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897). "^{article name needed}". Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons.
• "Babylon—Babylonia", Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. III, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1878, pp. 182–194.
• "Babylonia and Assyria", Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. III, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911, pp. 99–112.
• "Tiglath-Pileser", Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. XXVI, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911, p. 968.
• Parpola, Simo (2004), "National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times" (PDF), Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, Vol. 18 (No. 2).
• Roux, Georges (1964), Ancient Iraq, London: Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-012523-X.
• Saggs, H. W. F. (1984), The Might That Was Assyria, London, ISBN 0-283-98961-0.
• Van de Mieroop, Mark (2004), A History of the Ancient Near East, Oxford.

External links

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

Coordinates: 36°00′N 43°18′E / 36.0°N 43.3°E