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176-462: Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform : [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] , māt Aššur ) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC to the 7th century BC. Spanning from the early Bronze Age to the late Iron Age , modern historians typically divide ancient Assyrian history into

352-481: A completely new city or a new name applied to Nineveh, which by this point already rivalled Assur in scale and political importance. The capital was transferred under Tukulti-Ninurta II's son Ashurnasirpal II to Nimrud in 879 BC. An architectural detail separating Nimrud and the other Neo-Assyrian capitals from Assur is that they were designed in a way that emphasized royal power: the royal palaces in Assur were smaller than

528-401: A completely unknown writing system in 19th-century Assyriology . It was successfully deciphered by 1857. The cuneiform script changed considerably over more than 2,000 years. The image below shows the development of the sign SAĜ "head" (Borger nr. 184, U+12295 𒊕 ). Stages: The cuneiform script was developed from pictographic proto-writing in the late 4th millennium BC, stemming from

704-559: A given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, and writing became increasingly phonological . Determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity. Cuneiform writing proper thus arises from the more primitive system of pictographs at about that time, labeled the Early Bronze Age II epoch by historians. The earliest known Sumerian king, whose name appears on contemporary cuneiform tablets,

880-487: A half thousand years after the Neo-Assyrian Empire's fall. The Assyrian army was throughout its history mostly composed of levies, mobilized only when they were needed (such as in the time of campaigns). Through regulations, obligations and sophisticated government systems, large amounts of soldiers could be recruited and mobilized already in the early Middle Assyrian period. A small central standing army unit

1056-582: A language structure typical of the non-Indo-European agglutinative Sumerian language . The first tablets using syllabic elements date to the Early Dynastic I–II periods c.  2800 BC , and they are agreed to be clearly in Sumerian. This is the time when some pictographic element started to be used for their phonetic value, permitting the recording of abstract ideas or personal names. Many pictographs began to lose their original function, and

1232-460: A legacy of great cultural significance, particularly through the Neo-Assyrian Empire, making a prominent impression in later Assyrian, Greco-Roman , and Hebrew literary and religious tradition. In the Old Assyrian period , when Assyria was merely a city-state centered on the city of Assur , the state was typically referred to as ālu Aššur ("city of Ashur "). From the time of its rise as

1408-525: A mainstay of the Persian Army. The city revived during the Parthian Empire period, particularly between 150 BC and 270 AD, its population expanding and it becoming an administrative centre of Parthian-ruled Assuristan . Assyriologists Simo Parpola and Patricia Crone suggest Assur may have had outright independence in this period. New administrative buildings were erected to the north of

1584-578: A new capital was perhaps inspired by developments in Babylonia in the south, where the Kassite dynasty had transferred the administration from the long-established city of Babylon to the newly constructed city of Dur-Kurigalzu , also named after a king. It seems that Tukulti-Ninurta I intended to go further than the Kassites and also establish Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta as the new Assyrian cult center. The city

1760-659: A phonetic complement. Yet even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary remained a mixture of logographic and phonemic writing. Elamite cuneiform was a simplified form of the Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, used to write the Elamite language in the area that corresponds to modern Iran from the 3rd millennium BC to the 4th century BC. Elamite cuneiform at times competed with other local scripts, Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite . The earliest known Elamite cuneiform text

1936-432: A pointed stylus, sometimes called "linear cuneiform". Many of the early dynastic inscriptions, particularly those made on stone, continued to use the linear style as late as circa 2000 BC. In the mid-3rd millennium BC, a new wedge-tipped stylus was introduced which was pushed into the clay, producing wedge-shaped cuneiform. This development made writing quicker and easier, especially when writing on soft clay. By adjusting

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2112-612: A recovery. Under the Achaemenids, most of the territory was organized into the province Athura ( Aθūrā ). The organization into a single large province, the lack of interference of the Achaemenid rulers in local affairs, and the return of the cult statue of Ashur to Assur soon after the Achaemenids conquered Babylon facilitated the survival of Assyrian culture. Under the Seleucid Empire , which controlled Mesopotamia from

2288-483: A resemblance to Old Japanese , written in a Chinese-derived script, where some of these Sinograms were used as logograms and others as phonetic characters. This "mixed" method of writing continued through the end of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, although there were periods when "purism" was in fashion and there was a more marked tendency to spell out the words laboriously, in preference to using signs with

2464-548: A sharpened reed stylus or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge shape of the strokes. Most Proto-Cuneiform records from this period were of an accounting nature. The proto-cuneiform sign list has grown, as new texts are discovered, and shrunk, as variant signs are combined. The current sign list is 705 elements long with 42 being numeric and four considered pre-proto-Elamite. Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as determinatives and were

2640-664: A significant amount of territory into the growing Assyrian Empire. Under Shalmaneser I, the last remnants of the Mitanni kingdom were formally annexed into Assyria. The most successful of the Middle Assyrian kings was Tukulti-Ninurta I, who brought the Middle Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent. His most notable military achievements were his victory at the Battle of Nihriya c. 1237 BC, which marked

2816-512: A slightly different way. From the 6th century, the Akkadian language was marginalized by Aramaic , written in the Aramaic alphabet , but Akkadian cuneiform remained in use in the literary tradition well into the times of the Parthian Empire (250 BC–226 AD). The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in 75 AD. The ability to read cuneiform may have persisted until

2992-620: A stylus. Writing is first recorded in Uruk , at the end of the 4th millennium BC, and soon after in various parts of the Near-East . An ancient Mesopotamian poem gives the first known story of the invention of writing : Because the messenger's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat [the message], the Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet. Until then, there had been no putting words on clay. The cuneiform writing system

3168-478: A territorial state in the 14th century BC and onward, Assyria was referred to in official documents as māt Aššur ("land of Ashur"), marking its shift to being a regional polity. The first attested use of the term māt Aššur is during the reign of Ashur-uballit I ( c. 1363–1328 BC), who was the first king of the Middle Assyrian Empire . Both ālu Aššur and māt Aššur derive from the name of

3344-408: A unit of their own. Based on surviving depictions, chariots were crewed by two soldiers: an archer who commanded the chariot ( māru damqu ) and a driver ( ša mugerre ). Chariots first entered extensive military use under Tiglath-Pileser I in the 12th–11th centuries BC and were in the later Neo-Assyrian period gradually phased out in favor of cavalry ( ša petḫalle ). In the Middle Assyrian period, cavalry

3520-428: Is Enmebaragesi of Kish (fl. c.  2600 BC ). Surviving records became less fragmentary for following reigns and by the arrival of Sargon, it had become standard practice for each major city-state to date documents by year-names, commemorating the exploits of its king. Geoffrey Sampson stated that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after Sumerian script , and, probably, [were] invented under

3696-561: Is a treaty between Akkadians and the Elamites that dates back to 2200 BC. Some believe it might have been in use since 2500 BC. The tablets are poorly preserved, so only limited parts can be read, but it is understood that the text is a treaty between the Akkad king Nāramsîn and Elamite ruler Hita , as indicated by frequent references like "Nāramsîn's friend is my friend, Nāramsîn's enemy is my enemy". The most famous Elamite scriptures and

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3872-597: Is an adaptation of the Old Assyrian cuneiform of c. 1800 BC to the Hittite language and was used from the 17th until approximately the 13th century BC. More or less the same system was used by the scribes of the Hittite Empire for two other Anatolian languages , namely Luwian (alongside the native Anatolian hieroglyphics ) and Palaic , as well as for the isolate Hattic language . When the cuneiform script

4048-429: Is called gunû or "gunification"; if signs are cross-hatched with additional Winkelhaken , they are called šešig ; if signs are modified by the removal of a wedge or wedges, they are called nutillu . "Typical" signs have about five to ten wedges, while complex ligatures can consist of twenty or more (although it is not always clear if a ligature should be considered a single sign or two collated, but distinct signs);

4224-626: Is first attested for the site in documents of the Akkadian period in the 24th century BC. Through most of the Early Assyrian period ( c. 2600–2025 BC), 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 . In c. 2025 BC, due to

4400-738: The Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft led initially by Robert Koldewey and later by Walter Andrae . More than 16,000 clay tablets with cuneiform texts were discovered. The German archeologists brought objects they found to Berlin enhancing the collection of the Pergamon Museum . More recently, Ashur was excavated by B. Hrouda for the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the Bavarian Ministry of Culture in 1990. During

4576-403: 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, based on political events and gradual changes in language. Assur , the first Assyrian capital, was founded c. 2600 BC, but there is no evidence that the city was independent until the collapse of

4752-595: The Euphrates the new Roman provinces of Mesopotamia and Assyria . The existence of the latter Roman province is questioned by C.S. Lightfoot and F. Miller. In any case, just two years after the province's supposed creation, Trajan's successor Hadrian restored Trajan's eastern conquests to the Parthians, preferring to live with him in peace and friendship. There were later Roman incursions into Mesopotamia under Lucius Verus and under Septimius Severus , who set up

4928-458: The Iron Age (c. 10th to 6th centuries BC), Assyrian cuneiform was further simplified. The characters remained the same as those of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiforms, but the graphic design of each character relied more heavily on wedges and square angles, making them significantly more abstract: Babylonian cuneiform was simplified along similar lines during that period, albeit to a lesser extent and in

5104-517: The Islamic State , have resulted in most of the Assyrian people living in diaspora . In the Assur city-state of the Old Assyrian period, the government was in many respects an oligarchy , where the king was a permanent, albeit not the only prominent, actor. The Old Assyrian kings were not autocrats , with sole power, but rather acted as stewards on behalf of the god Ashur and presided over

5280-592: The Medes under Cyaxares in 615/614 BC, led to the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire . Assur was sacked in 614 BC and Nineveh fell in 612 BC. The last Assyrian ruler, Ashur-uballit II , tried to rally the Assyrian army at Harran in the west but he was defeated in 609 BC, marking the end of the ancient line of Assyrian kings and of Assyria as a state. Despite the violent downfall of

5456-559: The Neolithic , the earliest archaeological evidence from Assur dates to the Early Dynastic Period , c. 2600 BC. During this time, the surrounding region was already relatively urbanized. 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"

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5632-647: The Seleucid Empire in the 3rd century BC. According to the Oxford Companion to the Bible, Assur was "built on a sandstone cliff on the west bank of the Tigris about 35 km (24 mi) north of its confluence with the lower Zab River ". Archaeology reveals the site of the city was occupied by the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. This was still the Sumerian period , before Assyria emerged. The oldest remains of

5808-462: The Third Dynasty of Ur , in the 21st century BC, when a line of independent kings starting with Puzur-Ashur I began ruling the city. Centered in the Assyrian heartland in northern Mesopotamia, Assyrian power fluctuated over time. The city underwent several periods of foreign rule or domination before Assyria rose under Ashur-uballit I in the early 14th century BC as the Middle Assyrian Empire. In

5984-632: The Upper and the Lower Seas" and " king of all peoples ". Royal titles and epithets were often highly reflective of current political developments and the achievements of individual kings; during periods of decline, the royal titles used typically grew more simple again, only to grow grander once more as Assyrian power experienced resurgences. The kings of the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods continued to present themselves, and be viewed by their subjects, as

6160-776: The Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin , the Louvre , the Istanbul Archaeology Museums , the National Museum of Iraq , the Yale Babylonian Collection (approx. 40,000), and Penn Museum . Most of these have "lain in these collections for a century without being translated, studied or published", as there are only a few hundred qualified cuneiformists in the world. The decipherment of cuneiform began with

6336-531: The Winkelhaken impressed vertically by the tip of the stylus. The signs exemplary of these basic wedges are: Except for the Winkelhaken , which has no tail, the length of the wedges' tails could vary as required for sign composition. Signs tilted by about 45 degrees are called tenû in Akkadian, thus DIŠ is a vertical wedge and DIŠ tenû a diagonal one. If a sign is modified with additional wedges, this

6512-419: The ālāyû ("village residents"), ālik ilke (people recruited through the ilku system) and the hupšu , though what these designations meant in terms of social standing and living standards is not known. The Middle Assyrian structure of society by and large endured through the subsequent Neo-Assyrian period. Below the higher classes of Neo-Assyrian society were free citizens, semi-free laborers and slaves. It

6688-460: The "outer realm" was regarded as a threat to the cosmic order within Assyria and as such, it was the king's duty to expand the realm of Ashur and incorporate these strange lands, converting chaos to civilization. Texts describing the coronation of Middle and Neo-Assyrian kings at times include Ashur commanding the king to "broaden the land of Ashur" or "extend the land at his feet". As such, expansion

6864-445: The 13th century. In around 2000 BC, Puzur-Ashur I founded a new dynasty, with his successors such as Ilushuma , Erishum I and Sargon I leaving inscriptions regarding the building of temples to Ashur , Adad and Ishtar in the city. Prosperity and independence produced the first significant fortifications in this period. As the region enjoyed relative peace and stability, trade between Mesopotamia and Anatolia increased, and

7040-401: The 23rd century BC ( short chronology ). The Akkadian language being East Semitic , its structure was completely different from Sumerian. The Akkadians found a practical solution in writing their language phonetically, using the corresponding Sumerian phonetic signs. Still, many of the Sumerian characters were retained for their logographic value as well: for example the character for "sheep"

7216-487: The 3rd century AD, and at certain other holdouts for centuries thereafter. The triumph of ancient Assyria can be attributed not only to its vigorous warrior-monarchs but also to its adeptness in efficiently assimilating and governing conquered territories using inventive and advanced administrative mechanisms. The developments in warfare and governance introduced by ancient Assyria continued to be employed by subsequent empires and states for centuries. Ancient Assyria also left

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7392-509: The 3rd millennium Sumerian script. Ugaritic was written using the Ugaritic alphabet , a standard Semitic style alphabet (an abjad ) written using the cuneiform method. Between half a million and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times, of which only approximately 30,000 –100,000 have been read or published. The British Museum holds the largest collection (approx. 130,000 tablets), followed by

7568-416: The Akkadian period, at the time of the Uruk ruler Lugalzagesi (r. c. 2294–2270 BC). The vertical style remained for monumental purposes on stone stelas until the middle of the 2nd millennium. Written Sumerian was used as a scribal language until the first century AD. The spoken language died out between about 2100 and 1700 BC. The archaic cuneiform script was adopted by the Akkadian Empire from

7744-592: The Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I, the earliest ruler of Assur to use the style šarrum (king) and the title ' king of the Universe '. Shamshi-Adad I appears to have based his more absolute form of kingship on the rulers of the Old Babylonian Empire. Under Shamshi-Adad I, Assyrians also swore their oaths by the king, not just by the god. This practice did not survive beyond his death. The influence of

7920-494: The Assyrian Empire, Assyrian culture continued to survive through the subsequent post-imperial period (609 BC – c. AD 240) and beyond. The Assyrian heartland experienced a dramatic decrease in the size and number of inhabited settlements during the rule of the Neo-Babylonian Empire founded by Nabopolassar; the former Assyrian capital cities Assur, Nimrud and Nineveh were nearly completely abandoned. Throughout

8096-455: The Assyrian administration was the position of vizier ( sukkallu ). From at least the time of Shalmaneser I onward, there were grand viziers ( sukkallu rabi’u ), superior to the ordinary viziers, who at times governed their own lands as appointees of the kings. At least in the Middle Assyrian period, the grand viziers were typically members of the royal family and the position was at this time, as were many other offices, hereditary. The elite of

8272-412: The Assyrian heartland were also significantly fragmented, it would ultimately be relatively easy for the reinvigorated Assyrian army to reconquer large parts of the empire. Under Ashur-dan II ( r.   934–912 BC), who campaigned in the northeast and northwest, Assyrian decline was at last reversed, paving the way for grander efforts under his successors. The end of his reign conventionally marks

8448-463: The Assyrian kings could also grant arable lands to individuals in exchange for goods and military service. To overcome the challenges of governing a large empire, the Neo-Assyrian Empire developed a sophisticated state communication system , which included various innovative techniques and relay stations . Per estimates by Karen Radner , an official message sent in the Neo-Assyrian period from

8624-468: The Assyrian kings. The modern name "Assyria" is of Greek origin, derived from Ασσυρία ( Assuría ). The term's first attested use is during the time of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC). The Greeks called the Levant " Syria " and Mesopotamia "Assyria", even though the local population, both at that time and well into the later Christian period, used both terms interchangeably to refer to

8800-513: The Assyrian lands adopted distinct appellations for the region, with a significant portion of these names also being rooted in Aššur . The Achaemenid Empire referred to Assyria as Aθūrā ("Athura"). The Sasanian Empire inexplicably referred to Lower Mesopotamia as Asoristan ("land of the Assyrians"), though the northern province of Nōdšīragān , which included much of the old Assyrian heartland,

8976-467: The Assyrian national deity Ashur. Ashur probably originated in the Early Assyrian period as a deified personification of Assur itself. In the Old Assyrian period the deity was considered the formal king of Assur; the actual rulers only used the style Išši'ak ("governor"). From the time of Assyria's rise as a territorial state, Ashur began to be regarded as an embodiment of the entire land ruled by

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9152-598: The Great Royal Palace was built, and the temple of Assur was expanded and enlarged with a ziggurat . However, this empire met its end when Hammurabi , the Amorite king of Babylon conquered and incorporated the city into the First Babylonian dynasty empire following the death of Ishme-Dagan I around 1756 BC, while the next three Assyrian kings were viewed as vassals of Babylon. Not long after,

9328-601: The Greek ones, the shortened form "Syria" is attested as a synonym for Assyria, notably in Luwian and Aramaic texts from the time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, modern scholars overwhelmingly support the conclusion that the names are connected. Both "Assyria" and the contraction, "Syria," are ultimately derived from the Akkadian Aššur . Following the decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the subsequent empires that held dominion over

9504-407: The Middle Assyrian Empire, there were several groups among the lower classes, the highest of which were 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 the free men were the unfree men ( šiluhlu̮ ). The unfree men had given up their freedom and entered

9680-506: The Middle Assyrian Empire. The success of Assyria was not only due to energetic kings who expanded its borders but more importantly due to its ability to efficiently incorporate and govern conquered lands. From the rise of Assyria as a territorial state at the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period onward, Assyrian territory was divided into a set of provinces or districts ( pāḫutu ). The total number and size of these provinces varied and changed as Assyria expanded and contracted. Every province

9856-399: The Middle Assyrian period, foot soldiers were divided into the sạ bū ša kakkē ("weapon troops") and the sạ bū ša arâtē ("shield-bearing troops") but surviving records are not detailed enough to determine what the differences were. 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 in the army composed

10032-622: The Middle Chronology and mid-20th century according to the Short Chronology following increasing raids by Gutians and Amorites . The native Akkadian-speaking Assyrian kings were now free while Sumer fell under the yoke of the Amorites . The historically unverified king Ushpia is credited with dedicating the first temple of the god Ashur in his home city, although this comes from a later inscription from Shalmaneser I in

10208-626: The Middle East, particularly in Iraq , Iran , Syria , Turkey , and the Diaspora in the western world. Assur is also the origin of the names Syria and terms for Syriac Christians , these being originally Indo-European derivations of Assyria, and for many centuries applying only to Assyria and the Assyrians (see Etymology of Syria ) before also being applied to the Levant and its inhabitants by

10384-445: The Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods, Assyria was one of the two major Mesopotamian kingdoms, alongside Babylonia in the south, and at times became the dominant power in the ancient Near East . Assyria was at its strongest in the Neo-Assyrian period, when the Assyrian army was the strongest military power in the world and the Assyrians ruled the largest empire then yet assembled in world history, spanning from parts of modern-day Iran in

10560-553: The Near East. In his ninth campaign, Ashurnasirpal II marched to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea , collecting tribute from various kingdoms on the way. A significant development during Ashurnasirpal II's reign was the second attempt to transfer the Assyrian capital away from Assur. Ashurnasirpal restored the ancient and ruined town of Nimrud , also located in the Assyrian heartland, and in 879 BC designated that city as

10736-621: The Neo-Assyrian Empire was expanded and included several different offices. The Neo-Assyrian inner elite is typically divided by modern scholars into the "magnates", a set of high-ranking offices, and the "scholars" ( ummânī ), tasked with advising and guiding the kings through interpreting omens. The magnates included the offices masennu (treasurer), nāgir ekalli (palace herald), rab šāqê (chief cupbearer), rab ša-rēši (chief officer/eunuch), sartinnu (chief judge), sukkallu (grand vizier) and turtanu (commander-in-chief), which at times continued to be occupied by royal family members. Some of

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10912-611: The Neo-Assyrian army was likely several hundred thousand. The Neo-Assyrian army was subdivided into kiṣru , composed of perhaps 1,000 soldiers, most of whom would have been infantry soldiers ( zūk , zukkû or raksūte ). The infantry was divided into three types: light, medium and heavy, with varying weapons, level of armor and responsibilities. While on campaign, the Assyrian army made heavy use of both interpreters/translators ( targumannu ) and guides ( rādi kibsi ), both probably being drawn from foreigners resettled in Assyra. The majority of

11088-405: The Old Assyrian period, it is evident that women were free to learn how to read and write. Both men and women paid the same fines, could inherit property, participated in trade, bought, owned, and sold houses and slaves, made their own last wills, and were allowed to divorce their partners. Records of Old Assyrian marriages confirm that the dowry to the bride belonged to her, not the husband, and it

11264-812: The Old Palace while some queens were buried in the other capitals such as the wife of Sargon, Ataliya. The city was sacked and largely destroyed during the decisive battle of Assur , a major confrontation between the Assyrian and Median armies. 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 ). The Assyrians of Mada ( Media ) and Athura (Assyria) had been responsible for gold and glazing works of

11440-548: The Old Persian text. Because Elamite is unlike its neighboring Semitic languages , the script's decipherment was delayed until the 1840s. Elamite cuneiform appears to have used far fewer signs than its Akkadian prototype and initially relied primarily on syllabograms, but logograms became more common in later texts. Many signs soon acquired highly distinctive local shape variants that are often difficult to recognise as related to their Akkadian prototypes. Hittite cuneiform

11616-566: The Puzur-Ashur dynasty, came to an end c. 1808 BC when the city was conquered by the Amorite ruler of Ekallatum , Shamshi-Adad I . 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 ". The survival of this realm relied chiefly on Shamshi-Adad's own strength and charisma and it thus collapsed shortly after his death c. 1776 BC. After Shamshi-Adad's death,

11792-599: The Roman provinces of Mesopotamia and the Neo-Assyrian kingdom of Osroene . Assur was captured and sacked by Ardashir I of the Sasanian Empire c. 240 AD, whereafter the city was largely destroyed and much of its population was dispersed. The site was put on UNESCO 's List of World Heritage in Danger in 2003, at which time the site was threatened by a looming large-scale dam project that would have submerged

11968-471: The Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "logographic" fashion. The first inscribed tablets were purely pictographic, which makes it technically difficult to know in which language they were written. Different languages have been proposed, though usually Sumerian is assumed. Later tablets dating after c.  2900 BC start to use syllabic elements, which clearly show

12144-399: The Sumerians was not intuitive to Semitic speakers. From the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (20th century BC), the script evolved to accommodate the various dialects of Akkadian: Old Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian. At this stage, the former pictograms were reduced to a high level of abstraction, and were composed of only five basic wedge shapes: horizontal, vertical, two diagonals and

12320-423: The ancient archaeological site. The dam project was put on hold shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq . The territory around the ancient site was occupied by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in 2015. Since ISIL had destroyed a number of ancient historical sites, including the cities of Hatra , Khorsabad , and Nimrud , fears rose that Assur would be destroyed too. According to some sources,

12496-410: The beginning of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BC). Through decades of conquests, the early Neo-Assyrian kings worked to retake the lands of the Middle Assyrian Empire. Since this reconquista had to begin nearly from scratch, its eventual success was an extraordinary achievement. Under Ashurnasirpal II ( r.   883–859 BC), the Neo-Assyrian Empire became the dominant political power in

12672-439: The beginning of the end of Hittite influence in northern Mesopotamia, and his temporary conquest of Babylonia, which became an Assyrian vassal c. 1225–1216 BC. Tukulti-Ninurta was also the first Assyrian king to try to move the capital away from Assur, inaugurating the new city Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta as capital c. 1233 BC. The capital was returned to Assur after his death. Tukulti-Ninurta I's assassination c. 1207 BC

12848-414: The beginning, similar-sounding words such as "life" [til] and "arrow" [ti] were written with the same symbol (𒋾). As a result, many signs gradually changed from being logograms to also functioning as syllabograms , so that for example, the sign for the word "arrow" would become the sign for the sound "ti". Syllabograms were used in Sumerian writing especially to express grammatical elements, and their use

13024-475: The bottom of this hierarchy were lower officials, such as village managers ( rab ālāni ) who oversaw one or more villages, collecting taxes in the form of labor and goods and keeping the administration informed of the conditions of their settlements, and corvée officers ( ša bēt-kūdini ) who kept tallies on the labor performed by forced laborers and the remaining time owed. Individual cities had their own administrations, headed by mayors ( ḫazi’ānu ), responsible for

13200-407: The capital to the new city of Dur-Sharrukin in 706 BC and the year after, Sennacherib transferred the capital to Nineveh, which he ambitiously expanded and renovated, and might even have built the hanging gardens there, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The 671 BC conquest of Egypt under Esarhaddon ( r.   681–669 BC) brought Assyria to its greatest ever extent. After

13376-559: The citadel of Assur was destroyed or badly damaged in May 2015 by members of ISIL using improvised explosive devices . An AP report from December 2016 after the Iraqi forces had retaken the area, said that the militants tried to destroy the city's grand entrance arches, but they remained standing and a local historian described the damage as "minor". As of February 2023, a German archaeological team from Munich has resumed work at Assur. The work

13552-402: The city assembly had disappeared by the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period. Though the traditional iššiak Aššur continued to be used at times, the Middle Assyrian kings were autocrats, in terms of power having little in common with the rulers of the Old Assyrian period. As the Assyrian Empire grew, the kings began to employ an increasingly sophisticated array of royal titles. Ashur-uballit I

13728-567: The city of Ashur greatly benefited from its strategic location. Merchants would dispatch their merchandise via caravan into Anatolia and trade primarily at Assyrian colonies in Anatolia, the primary one being at Karum Kanesh ( Kültepe ). Shamshi-Adad I 's (1813–1781 BC), Amorite ruler of the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia, conquered Assur and made it his religious capital (his primary capital being Ekallatum and later Shubat-Enlil ). In this era,

13904-655: The city were discovered in the foundations of the Ishtar temple, as well as at the Old Palace. In the subsequent period, the city was ruled by kings from the Akkadian Empire . During the Third Dynasty of Ur , the city was ruled by Assyrian governors subject to the Sumerians . By the time the Neo-Sumerian Ur-III dynasty collapsed at the hands of the Elamites around the end of the 21st century BC according to

14080-399: The city's formal king. That the populace of Assur in the Old Assyrian period often referred to the king as rubā’um ("great one") clearly indicates that the kings, despite their limited executive power, were seen as royal figures and as being primus inter pares (first among equals) among the powerful individuals of the city. Assur first experienced a more autocratic form of kingship under

14256-518: The city, choosing to magnify Nineveh as his royal capital. The city of Ashur remained the religious center of the empire and continued to be revered as the holy crown of the empire, due to its temple of the national god Ashur . In the reign of Sennacherib (705–682 BC), the House of the New Year, Akitu , was built, and the festivities celebrated in the city. Many of the kings were also buried beneath

14432-413: The civil administration and the army began to be occupied by eunuchs with deliberately obscure and lowly origins since this ensured that they would be loyal to the king. Eunuchs were trusted since they were believed to not be able to have any dynastic aspirations of their own. From the time of Erishum I in the early Old Assyrian period onward, a yearly office-holder, a limmu official, was elected from

14608-544: The collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Assur became an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I . Assur was under the Puzur-Ashur dynasty home to less than 10,000 people and likely held very limited military power; no military institutions at all are known from this time and no political influence was exerted on neighboring cities. The city was still influential in other ways; under Erishum I ( r.   c. 1974–1934 BC), Assur experimented with free trade ,

14784-416: The common meaning of the term. A number of wardum are however also recorded as being bought and sold. The main evidence concerning the lives of ordinary women in ancient Assyria is in administrative documents and law codes. There was no legal distinction between men and women in the Old Assyrian period and they had more or less the same rights in society. Since several letters written by women are known from

14960-431: The compound IGI.A (𒅆𒀀) – "eye" + "water" – has the reading imhur , meaning "foam"). Several symbols had too many meanings to permit clarity. Therefore, symbols were put together to indicate both the sound and the meaning of a symbol. For instance, the word 'raven' (UGA) had the same logogram (𒉀) as the word 'soap' (NAGA), the name of a city (EREŠ), and the patron goddess of Eresh (NISABA). To disambiguate and identify

15136-403: The country. Governors had to pay both taxes and offer gifts to the god Ashur, though such gifts were usually small and mainly symbolic. The channeling of taxes and gifts were not only a method of collecting profit but also served to connect the elite of the entire empire to the Assyrian heartland. In the Neo-Assyrian period, an extensive hierarchy within the provincial administration is attested. At

15312-548: The course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian. Akkadian texts are attested from the 24th century BC onward and make up the bulk of the cuneiform record. Akkadian cuneiform was itself adapted to write the Hittite language in the early second millennium BC . The other languages with significant cuneiform corpora are Eblaite , Elamite , Hurrian , Luwian , and Urartian . The Old Persian and Ugaritic alphabets feature cuneiform-style signs; however, they are unrelated to

15488-447: The cuneiform logo-syllabary proper. The latest known cuneiform tablet dates to 75 AD. Cuneiform was rediscovered in modern times in the early 17th century with the publication of the trilingual Achaemenid royal inscriptions at Persepolis ; these were first deciphered in the early 19th century. The modern study of cuneiform belongs to the ambiguously named field of Assyriology , as the earliest excavations of cuneiform libraries – in

15664-471: The death of Ashurbanipal ( r.   669–631 BC), the Neo-Assyrian Empire swiftly collapsed. One of the primary reasons was the inability of the Neo-Assyrian kings to resolve the "Babylonian problem"; despite many attempts to appease Babylonia in the south, revolts were frequent all throughout the Sargonid period. The revolt of Babylon under Nabopolassar in 626 BC, in combination with an invasion by

15840-514: The decipherment of Old Persian cuneiform in 1836. The first cuneiform inscriptions published in modern times were copied from the Achaemenid royal inscriptions in the ruins of Persepolis , with the first complete and accurate copy being published in 1778 by Carsten Niebuhr . Niebuhr's publication was used by Grotefend in 1802 to make the first breakthrough – the realization that Niebuhr had published three different languages side by side and

16016-411: The decline and made significant conquests, their conquests were ephemeral and shaky, quickly lost again. From the time of Eriba-Adad II ( r.   1056–1054 BC) onward, Assyrian decline intensified. The Assyrian heartland remained safe since it was protected by its geographical remoteness. Since Assyria was not the only state to undergo decline during these centuries, and the lands surrounding

16192-549: The development of Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the suggestion the former influenced the latter. But given the lack of direct evidence for the transfer of writing, "no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt". Others have held that "the evidence for such direct influence remains flimsy" and that "a very credible argument can also be made for the independent development of writing in Egypt..." Early cuneiform inscriptions were made by using

16368-418: The earliest known such experiment in world history, which left the initiative for trade and large-scale foreign transactions entirely to the populace rather than the state. Royal encouragement of trade led to Assur quickly establishing itself as a prominent trading city in northern Mesopotamia and soon thereafter establishing an extensive long-distance trade network, the first notable impression Assyria left in

16544-446: The early Achaemenid rulers from the 6th century BC down to the 4th century BC. Because of its simplicity and logical structure, the Old Persian cuneiform script was the first to be deciphered by modern scholars, starting with the accomplishments of Georg Friedrich Grotefend in 1802. Various ancient bilingual or trilingual inscriptions then permitted to decipher the other, much more complicated and more ancient scripts, as far back as to

16720-443: The early Middle Assyrian kings to expand and consolidate territories in northern Mesopotamia. 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 a significant regional power. These kings campaigned in all directions and incorporated

16896-563: The east to Egypt in the west. The Neo-Assyrian Empire fell in the late 7th century BC, conquered by a coalition of the Babylonians, who had lived under Assyrian rule for about a century, and the Medes . Though the core urban territory of Assyria was extensively devastated in the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire and the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire invested few resources in rebuilding it, ancient Assyrian culture and traditions continued to survive for centuries throughout

17072-474: The eastern portion of the Mitanni Empire, and later also annexing Hittite , Babylonian , Amorite and Hurrian territory. The following centuries witnessed the restoration of the old temples and palaces of Assur, and the city once more became the throne of an empire from 1365 BC to 1076 BC. Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1208 BC) also constructed a new temple to the goddess Ishtar . The Anu - Adad temple

17248-419: The eldest daughter of a family was consecrated as a priestess. She was not allowed to marry and became economically independent. Wives were expected to provide their husbands with garments and food. Although marriages were typically monogamous , husbands were allowed to buy a female slave in order to produce an heir if his wife was infertile . The wife was allowed to choose that slave and the slave never gained

17424-413: The end of the 2nd century BC, the city may have become the capital of its own small semi-autonomous Assyrian realm, either under the suzerainty of Hatra, or under direct Parthian suzerainty. On account of the resemblance between the stelae by the local rulers and those of the ancient Assyrian kings, they may have seen themselves as the restorers and continuators of the old royal line. The ancient Ashur temple

17600-510: The entire region. It is not known whether the Greeks began referring to Mesopotamia as "Assyria" because they equated the region with the Assyrian Empire, long fallen by the time the term is first attested, or because they named the region after the people who lived there, the Assyrians. Because the term is so " similar to Syria ", scholars have been examining since the 17th century whether the two terms are connected. And because, in sources predating

17776-410: The geographical and ethnic origin of slaves, there is only a single known such reference in Old Assyrian texts (whereas there are many describing slaves in a general sense), a slave girl explicitly being referred to as Subaraean , indicating that ethnicity was not seen as very important in terms of slavery. The surviving evidence suggests that the number of slaves in Assyria never reached a large share of

17952-481: The gods Ashur , Nergal , Nanna , Ishtar , Tammuz and Shamash , as well as mentions of citizens having compound names that refer to Assyrian gods, such as ʾAssur-ḥēl (Ashur [is] my strength), ʾAssur-emar (Ashur decreed/commanded), ʾAssur-ntan (Ashur gave [a son]), and ʾAssur-šma' (Ashur has heard; cf. Esarhaddon ). The Roman historian Festus wrote in about 370 that in AD 116 Trajan formed from his conquests east of

18128-427: The greatest artworks in the form of colossal lamassu statues and low-relief depictions of the royal court as well as battles. With the reign of Sargon II (722–705 BC), a new capital began to rise: Dur-Sharrukin (Fortress of Sargon ). Dur-Sharrukin was originally planned to be built on a scale set to surpass that of Ashurnasirpal's. He died in battle and his son and successor Sennacherib (705–682 BC) abandoned

18304-551: The historical record. Among the evidence left from this trade network are large collections of Old Assyrian cuneiform tablets from Assyrian trade colonies, the most notable of which is a set of 22,000 clay tablets found at Kültepe , near the modern city of Kayseri in Turkey. As trade declined, perhaps due to increased warfare and conflict between the growing states of the Near East, Assur was frequently threatened by larger foreign states and kingdoms. The original Assur city-state, and

18480-622: The ideological status of Assur was never fully superseded and it remained a ceremonial center in the empire even when it was governed from elsewhere. The transfer of the royal seat of power to other cities was ideologically possible since the king was Ashur's representative on Earth. The king, like the deity embodied Assyria itself, and so the capital of Assyria was in a sense wherever the king happened to have his residence. The first transfer of administrative power away from Assur occurred under Tukulti-Ninurta I, who c. 1233 BC inaugurated Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta as capital. Tukulti-Ninurta I's foundation of

18656-413: The influence of the latter", and that it is "probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia". There are many instances of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations at the time of the invention of writing, and standard reconstructions of the development of writing generally place the development of the Sumerian proto-cuneiform script before

18832-401: The influential men of Assyria. The limmu official gave their name to the year, meaning that their name appeared in all administrative documents signed that year. Kings were typically the limmu officials in their first regnal years. In the Old Assyrian period, the limmu officials also held substantial executive power, though this aspect of the office had disappeared by the time of the rise of

19008-431: The intermediaries between Ashur and mankind. This position and role was used to justify imperial expansion: the Assyrians saw their empire as being the part of the world overseen and administered by Ashur through his human agents. In their ideology, the outer realm outside of Assyria was characterized by chaos and the people there were uncivilized, with unfamiliar cultural practices and strange languages. The mere existence of

19184-592: The late 19th and early 20th century, when the Ottomans grew increasingly nationalistic, further persecutions and massacres were enacted against the Assyrians, most notably the Sayfo (Assyrian genocide), which resulted in the deaths of as many as 250,000 Assyrians. Throughout the 20th century, many unsuccessful proposals have been made by the Assyrians for autonomy or independence. Further massacres and persecutions, enacted both by governments and by terrorist groups such as

19360-419: The late 4th to mid-2nd century BC, Assyrian sites such as Assur, Nimrud and Nineveh were resettled and a large number of villages were rebuilt and expanded. After the Parthian Empire conquered the region in the 2nd century BC, the recovery of Assyria continued, culminating in an unprecedented return to prosperity and revival in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. The region was resettled and restored so intensely that

19536-407: The ligature KAxGUR 7 consists of 31 strokes. Most later adaptations of Sumerian cuneiform preserved at least some aspects of the Sumerian script. Written Akkadian included phonetic symbols from the Sumerian syllabary , together with logograms that were read as whole words. Many signs in the script were polyvalent, having both a syllabic and logographic meaning. The complexity of the system bears

19712-413: The local economy and production. Some regions of the Assyrian Empire were not incorporated into the provincial system but were still subjected to the rule of the Assyrian kings. Such vassal states could be ruled indirectly through allowing established local lines of kings to continue ruling in exchange for tribute or through the Assyrian kings appointing their own vassal rulers. Through the ilku system ,

19888-629: The loss of political power, the Assyrians continued to constitute a significant portion of the population in northern Mesopotamia until religiously motivated suppression and massacres under the Ilkhanate and the Timurid Empire in the 14th century, which relegated them to a local ethnic and religious minority. The Assyrians lived largely in peace under the rule of the Ottoman Empire , which gained control of Assyria in 16th century. In

20064-421: The magnates also acted as governors of important provinces and all of them were deeply involved with the Assyrian military, controlling significant forces. They also owned large tax-free estates, scattered throughout the empire. In the late Neo-Assyrian Empire, there was a growing disconnect between the traditional Assyrian elite and the kings due to eunuchs growing unprecedently powerful. The highest offices both in

20240-464: The magnates", when powerful officials and generals were the principal wielders of political power rather than the king. This time of stagnation came to an end with the rise of Tiglath-Pileser III ( r.   745–727 BC), who reduced the power of the magnates, consolidated and centralized the holdings of the empire, and through his military campaigns and conquests more than doubled the extent of Assyrian territory. The most significant conquests were

20416-443: The meaning and the other the pronunciation (e.g. 𒅗 ka 'mouth' was combined with the sign 𒉣 nun 'prince' to express the word 𒅻 nundum , meaning 'lip', formally KA×NUN; cf. Chinese phono-semantic compounds ). Another way of expressing words that had no sign of their own was by so-called 'Diri compounds' – sign sequences that have, in combination, a reading different from the sum of the individual constituent signs (for example,

20592-548: The meetings of the city assembly, the main Assyrian administrative body during this time. The composition of the city assembly is not known, but it is generally believed to have been made up of members of the most powerful families of the city, many of whom were merchants. The king acted as the main executive officer and chairman of this group of influential individuals and also contributed with legal knowledge and expertise. The Old Assyrian kings were styled as iššiak Aššur ("governor [on behalf] of Ashur "), with Ashur being considered

20768-567: The mid-19th century – were in the area of ancient Assyria . An estimated half a million tablets are held in museums across the world, but comparatively few of these are published . The largest collections belong to the British Museum ( approx. 130,000 tablets), the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin , the Louvre , the Istanbul Archaeology Museums , the National Museum of Iraq , the Yale Babylonian Collection ( approx. 40,000 tablets), and Penn Museum . Writing began after pottery

20944-487: The native king Adasi expelled the Babylonians and Amorites from Assur and Assyria as a whole around 1720 BC, although little is known of his successors. Evidence of further building activity is known from a few centuries later, during the reign of a native king Puzur-Ashur III , when the city was refortified and the southern districts incorporated into the main city defenses. Temples to the moon god Sin ( Nanna ) and

21120-468: The near eastern token system used for accounting. The meaning and usage of these tokens is still a matter of debate. These tokens were in use from the 9th millennium BC and remained in occasional use even late in the 2nd millennium BC. Early tokens with pictographic shapes of animals, associated with numbers, were discovered in Tell Brak , and date to the mid-4th millennium BC. It has been suggested that

21296-437: The nearest being the idea of a "city of kingship", i.e. an administrative center used by the king, but there are several examples of kingdoms having multiple "cities of kingship". Due to Assyria growing out of the Assur city-state of the Old Assyrian period, and due to the city's religious importance, Assur was the administrative center of Assyria through most of its history. Though the royal administration at times moved elsewhere,

21472-403: The new capital of the empire. Though no longer the political capital, Assur remained the ceremonial and religious center of Assyria. Ashurnasirpal II's son Shalmaneser III ( r.   859–824 BC) also went on wide-ranging wars of conquest, expanding the empire in all directions. After Shalmaneser III's death, the Neo-Assyrian Empire entered into a period of stagnation dubbed the "age of

21648-572: The old city, and a palace to the south. The old temple dedicated to the national god of the Assyrians Assur ( Ashur ) was rebuilt, as were temples to other Assyrian gods. Assyrian Eastern Aramaic inscriptions from the remains of Ashur have yielded insight into the Parthian-era city with Assyria having its own Mesopotamian Aramaic Syriac script, which was the same in terms of grammar and syntax as that found at Edessa and elsewhere in

21824-477: The ones that ultimately led to its decipherment are the ones found in the trilingual Behistun inscriptions , commissioned by the Achaemenid kings. The inscriptions, similar to that of the Rosetta Stone 's, were written in three different writing systems. The first was Old Persian , which was deciphered in 1802 by Georg Friedrich Grotefend . The second, Babylonian cuneiform, was deciphered shortly after

22000-555: The palace and for providing Lebanese cedar timber, respectively. The city and region of Ashur had once more gained a degree of militaristic and economic strength. Along with the Assyrians in Mada, a revolt took place in 520 BC but ultimately failed. 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

22176-400: The people who followed those gods should be subjected to the representative of Ashur, the Assyrian king. The kings also had religious and judicial duties. Kings were responsible for performing various rituals in support of the cult of Ashur and the Assyrian priesthood. They were expected, together with the Assyrian people, to provide offerings to not only Ashur but also all the other gods. From

22352-512: The political situation in northern Mesopotamia was highly volatile, with Assur at times coming under the brief control of Eshnunna , Elam and the Old Babylonian Empire . At some point, the city returned to being an independent city-state, though the politics of Assur itself were volatile as well, with fighting between members of Shamshi-Adad's dynasty, native Assyrians and Hurrians for control. The infighting came to an end after

22528-418: The population and settlement density reached heights not seen since the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The region was under the Parthians primarily ruled by a group of vassal kingdoms, including Osroene , Adiabene and Hatra . Though in some aspects influenced by Assyrian culture, these states were for the most part not ruled by Assyrian rulers. Assur itself flourished under Parthian rule. From around or shortly after

22704-438: The population of ancient Assyria were farmers who worked land owned by their families. Old Assyrian society was divided into two main groups: slaves ( subrum ) and free citizens, referred to as awīlum ("men") or DUMU Aššur ("sons of Ashur"). Among the free citizens there was also a division into rabi ("big") and ṣaher ("small") members of the city assembly. Assyrian society grew more complex and hierarchical over time. In

22880-467: The population. In the Akkadian language , several terms were used for slaves, commonly wardum , though this term could confusingly also be used for (free) official servants, retainers and followers, soldiers and subjects of the king. Because many individuals designated as wardum in Assyrian texts are described as handling property and carrying out administrative tasks on behalf of their masters, many may have in actuality been free servants and not slaves in

23056-550: The post-imperial period. Assyria experienced a recovery under the Seleucid and Parthian empires, though it declined again under the Sasanian Empire , which sacked numerous cities and semi-independent Assyrian territories in the region, including Assur itself. The remaining Assyrian people , who have survived in northern Mesopotamia to modern times, were gradually Christianized from the 1st century AD onward. Ancient Mesopotamian religion persisted at Assur until its final sack in

23232-400: The recognition of the word "king". Assur Occupation of the city itself continued for approximately 3,000 years, from the Early Dynastic Period to the mid-3rd century AD, when the city was sacked by the Sasanian Empire . The site is a World Heritage Site and was added to that organisation's list of sites in danger in 2003 as a result of a proposed dam, which would flood some of

23408-449: The relative position of the stylus to the tablet, the writer could use a single tool to make a variety of impressions. For numbers, a round-tipped stylus was initially used, until the wedge-tipped stylus was generalized. The direction of writing was from top-to-bottom and right-to-left. Cuneiform clay tablets could be fired in kilns to bake them hard, and so provide a permanent record, or they could be left moist and recycled if permanence

23584-577: The rise of Bel-bani as king c. 1700 BC. Bel-bani founded the Adaside dynasty , which after his reign ruled Assyria for about a thousand years. Assyria's rise as a territorial state in later times was in large part facilitated by two separate invasions of Mesopotamia by the Hittites . An invasion by the Hittite king Mursili I in c. 1595 BC destroyed the dominant Old Babylonian Empire, allowing

23760-477: The rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire ( c. 1363–912 BC). Ashur-uballit I was the first native Assyrian ruler to claim the royal title šar ("king"). Shortly after achieving independence, he further claimed the dignity of a great king on the level of the Egyptian pharaohs and the Hittite kings . Assyria's rise was intertwined with the decline and fall of the Mitanni kingdom, its former suzerain, which allowed

23936-525: The same period, in 1988 and 1989, the site was being worked by R. Dittmann on behalf of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft . Aššur is the name of the city, of the land ruled by the city, and of its tutelary deity from which the natives took their name, as did the entire nation of Assyria which encompassed what is today northern Iraq, north east Syria and south east Turkey. Today the Assyrians are still found throughout

24112-423: The services of others on their own accord, and were in turn provided with clothes and rations. Many of them probably originated as foreigners. Though similar to slavery, it was possible for an unfree person to regain their freedom by providing a replacement and they were during their service considered the property of the government rather than their employers. Other lower classes of the Middle Assyrian period included

24288-455: The site. It has been further threatened by the conflict that erupted following the US -led 2003 invasion of Iraq . Assur lies 65 kilometres (40 mi) south of the site of Nimrud and 100 km (60 mi) south of Nineveh . Exploration of the site of Assur began in 1898 by German archaeologists. Excavations began in 1900 by Friedrich Delitzsch , and were continued in 1903–1913 by a team from

24464-600: The smaller kingdoms of Mitanni and Kassite Babylonia to rise in the north and south, respectively. Around c. 1430 BC, Assur was subjugated by Mitanni, an arrangement that lasted for about 70 years, until c. 1360 BC. Another Hittite invasion by Šuppiluliuma I in the 14th century BC effectively crippled the Mitanni kingdom. After his invasion, Assyria succeeded in freeing itself from its suzerain, achieving independence once more under Ashur-uballit I ( r.   c. 1363–1328 BC) whose rise to power, independence, and conquests of neighboring territory traditionally marks

24640-488: The state of Osroene . German semiticist Klaus Beyer (1929-2014) published over 600 inscriptions from Mesopotamian towns and cities including Ashur, Dura-Europos , Hatra , Gaddala, Tikrit and Tur Abdin . Given that Christianity had begun to spread amongst the Assyrians throughout the Parthian era, the original Assyrian culture and religion persisted for some time, as proven by the inscriptions that include invocations to

24816-423: The status of a second wife. Husbands who were away on long trading journeys were allowed to take a second wife in one of the trading colonies, although with strict rules that must be followed: the second wife was not allowed to accompany him back to Assur and both wives had to be provided with a home to live in, food, and wood. Neo-Assyrian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo - syllabic writing system that

24992-431: The sun god Shamash were built and dedicated through the 15th century BC. The city was subsequently subjugated by the king of Mitanni , Shaushtatar in the late 15th century, taking the gold and silver doors of the temple to his capital, Washukanni , as spoils. Ashur-uballit I emulated his ancestor Adasi and overthrew the Mitanni empire in 1365 BC. The Assyrians reaped the benefits of this triumph by taking control of

25168-422: 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 expected to ensure the welfare and prosperity of the Assyria and its people, indicated by multiple inscriptions referring to the kings as "shepherds" ( re’û ). No word for the idea of a capital city existed in Akkadian,

25344-415: The syllable [ɡu] had fourteen different symbols. The inventory of signs was expanded by the combination of existing signs into compound signs. They could either derive their meaning from a combination of the meanings of both original signs (e.g. 𒅗 ka 'mouth' and 𒀀 a 'water' were combined to form the sign for 𒅘 nag̃ 'drink', formally KA×A; cf. Chinese compound ideographs ), or one sign could suggest

25520-435: The temples but the situation was reversed in the new capitals. Sargon II transferred the capital in 706 BC to the city Dur-Sharrukin, which he built himself. Since the location of Dur-Sharrukin had no obvious practical or political merit, this move was probably an ideological statement. Immediately after Sargon II's death in 705 BC, his son Sennacherib transferred the capital to Nineveh, a far more natural seat of power. Though it

25696-476: The third century AD. The complexity of cuneiforms prompted the development of a number of simplified versions of the script. Old Persian cuneiform was developed with an independent and unrelated set of simple cuneiform characters, by Darius the Great in the 5th century BC. Most scholars consider this writing system to be an independent invention because it has no obvious connections with other writing systems at

25872-420: The time of Ashur-resh-ishi I onward, 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 emphasized the kings as powerful warriors. Developing from their role in the Old Assyrian period, the Middle and Neo-Assyrian kings were

26048-585: The time of the Neo-Babylonian and later Achaemenid Empire , Assyria remained a marginal and sparsely populated region. Toward the end of the 6th century BC, the Assyrian dialect of the Akkadian language went extinct, having toward the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire already largely been replaced by Aramaic as a vernacular language. Under the empires succeeding the Neo-Babylonians, from the late 6th century BC onward, Assyria began to experience

26224-432: The time, such as Elamite , Akkadian, Hurrian , and Hittite cuneiforms. It formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like "god" ( 𐏎 ), "king" ( 𐏋 ) or "country" ( 𐏌 ). This almost purely alphabetical form of the cuneiform script (36 phonetic characters and 8 logograms), was specially designed and used by

26400-669: The token shapes were the original basis for some of the Sumerian pictographs. Mesopotamia's "proto-literate" period spans roughly the 35th to 32nd centuries BC. The first unequivocal written documents start with the Uruk IV period, from circa 3,300 BC, followed by tablets found in Uruk III, Jemdet Nasr , Early Dynastic I Ur and Susa (in Proto-Elamite ) dating to the period until circa 2,900 BC. Originally, pictographs were either drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with

26576-601: The two languages are related, their writing systems seem to have been developed separately. For Hurrian, there were even different systems in different polities (in Mitanni , in Mari , in the Hittite Empire). The Hurrian orthographies were generally characterised by more extensive use of syllabograms and more limited use of logograms than Akkadian. Urartian, in comparison, retained a more significant role for logograms. In

26752-410: The upper classes of ancient Assyria survives than for the lower ones. At the top of Middle and Neo-Assyrian society were members of long-established and large families called "houses". Members of this aristocracy tended to occupy the most important offices within the government and they were likely descendants of the most prominent families of the Old Assyrian period. One of the most influential offices in

26928-507: The vassalization of the Levant all the way to the Egyptian border and the 729 BC conquest of Babylonia . The Neo-Assyrian Empire reached the height of its extent and power under the Sargonid dynasty , founded by Sargon II ( r.   722–705 BC). Under Sargon II and his son Sennacherib ( r.   705–681 BC), the empire was further expanded and the gains were consolidated. Both kings founded new capitals. Sargon II moved

27104-485: The western border province Quwê to the Assyrian heartland, a distance of 700 kilometers (430 miles) over a stretch of lands featuring many rivers without any bridges, could take less than five days to arrive. Such communication speed was unprecedented before the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and was not surpassed in the Middle East until the telegraph was introduced by the Ottoman Empire in 1865, nearly two and

27280-565: The word more precisely, two phonetic complements were added – Ú (𒌑) for the syllable [u] in front of the symbol and GA (𒂵) for the syllable [ga] behind. Finally, the symbol for 'bird', MUŠEN (𒄷) was added to ensure proper interpretation. As a result, the whole word could be spelt 𒌑𒉀𒂵𒄷, i.e. Ú.NAGA.GA (among the many variant spellings that the word could have). For unknown reasons, cuneiform pictographs, until then written vertically, were rotated 90° counterclockwise, in effect putting them on their side. This change first occurred slightly before

27456-561: Was adapted to writing Hittite, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings, also known as Akkadograms, was added to the script, in addition to the Sumerian logograms, or Sumerograms, which were already inherent in the Akkadian writing system and which Hittite also kept. Thus the pronunciations of many Hittite words which were conventionally written by logograms are now unknown. The Hurrian language (attested 2300–1000 BC) and Urartian language (attested 9th–6th century BC) were also written in adapted versions of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform. Although

27632-469: Was also sometimes called Atūria or Āthōr . In Syriac, Assyria was and is referred to as ʾĀthor . Agricultural villages in the region that would later become Assyria are known to have existed by the time of the Hassuna culture , c. 6300–5800 BC. Though the sites of some nearby cities that would later be incorporated into the Assyrian heartland, such as Nineveh , are known to have been inhabited since

27808-628: Was an intrinsic part of nearly every society in the ancient Near East. There were two main types of slaves in ancient Assyria: chattel slaves , primarily foreigners who were kidnapped or who were spoils of war, and debt slaves , formerly free men and women who had been unable to pay off their debts. In some cases, Assyrian children were seized by authorities due to the debts of their parents and sold off into slavery when their parents were unable to pay. Children born to slave women automatically became slaves themselves, unless some other arrangement had been agreed to. Though Old Babylonian texts frequently mention

27984-441: Was cast as a moral and necessary duty. Because the rule and actions of the Assyrian king were seen as divinely sanctioned, resistance to Assyrian sovereignty in times of war was regarded to be resistance against divine will, which deserved punishment. Peoples and polities who revolted against Assyria were seen as criminals against the divine world order. Since Ashur was the king of the gods, all other gods were subjected to him and thus

28160-467: Was established in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, dubbed the kiṣir šarri ("king's unit"). Some professional (though not standing) troops are also attested in the Middle Assyrian period, dubbed ḫurādu or ṣābū ḫurādātu , though what their role was is not clear due to the scarcity of sources. Perhaps this category included archers and charioteers , who needed more extensive training than normal foot soldiers . The Assyrian army developed and evolved over time. In

28336-516: Was established later during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115–1075 BC). The walled area of the city in the Middle Assyrian period made up some 1.2 square kilometres (300 acres). In the Neo-Assyrian Empire (912–605 BC), the royal residence was transferred to other Assyrian cities. Ashur-nasir-pal II (884–859 BC) moved the capital from Assur to Kalhu ( Calah / Nimrud ) following a series of successful campaigns and produced some of

28512-605: Was followed by inter-dynastic conflict and a significant drop in Assyrian power. Tukulti-Ninurta I's successors were unable to maintain Assyrian power and Assyria became increasingly restricted to just the Assyrian heartland, a period of decline broadly coinciding with the Late Bronze Age collapse . Though some kings in this period of decline, such as Ashur-dan I ( r.   c. 1178–1133 BC), Ashur-resh-ishi I ( r.   1132–1115 BC) and Tiglath-Pileser I ( r.   1114–1076 BC) worked to reverse

28688-406: Was further developed and modified in the writing of the Akkadian language to express its sounds. Often, words that had a similar meaning but very different sounds were written with the same symbol. For instance the Sumerian words 'tooth' [zu], 'mouth' [ka] and 'voice' [gu] were all written with the original pictogram for mouth (𒅗). Words that sounded alike would have different signs; for instance,

28864-408: Was headed by a provincial governor ( bel pāḫete , bēl pīhāti or šaknu ) who was responsible for handling local order, public safety and economy. Governors also stored and distributed the goods produced in their province, which were inspected and collected by royal representatives once a year. Through these inspections, the central government could keep track of current stocks and production throughout

29040-418: Was however not maintained as capital after Tukulti-Ninurta I's death, with subsequent kings once more ruling from Assur. The Neo-Assyrian Empire underwent several different capitals. There is some evidence that Tukulti-Ninurta II ( r.   890–884 BC), perhaps inspired by his predecessor of the same name, made unfulfilled plans to transfer the capital to a city called Nemid Tukulti-Ninurta , either

29216-452: Was in use for more than three millennia, through several stages of development, from the 31st century BC down to the second century AD. The latest firmly dateable tablet, from Uruk, dates to 79/80 AD. Ultimately, it was completely replaced by alphabetic writing , in the general sense, in the course of the Roman era , and there are no cuneiform systems in current use. It had to be deciphered as

29392-419: Was inherited by her children after her death. Although they were equal legally, men and women in the Old Assyrian period were raised and socialized differently and had different social expectations and obligations. Typically, girls were raised by their mothers, taught to spin, weave, and help with daily tasks and boys were taught trades by masters, later often following their fathers on trade expeditions. Sometimes

29568-427: Was invented, during the Neolithic , when clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities. In recent years a contrarian view has arisen on the tokens being the precursor of writing. These tokens were initially impressed on the surface of round clay envelopes ( clay bullae ) and then stored in them. The tokens were then progressively replaced by flat tablets, on which signs were recorded with

29744-431: Was mainly used for escorting or message deliveries. Under the Neo-Assyrian Empire, important new developments in the military were the large-scale introduction of cavalry, the adoption of iron for armor and weapons, and the development of new and innovative siege warfare techniques. At the height of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian army was the strongest army yet assembled in world history. The number of soldiers in

29920-420: Was not meant as a permanent royal residence, Ashur-uballit II chose Harran as his seat of power after the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC. Harran is typically seen as the short-lived final Assyrian capital. No building projects were conducted during this time, but Harran had been long-established as a major religious center, dedicated to the god Sîn . Because of the nature of source preservation, more information about

30096-451: Was not needed. Most surviving cuneiform tablets were of the latter kind, accidentally preserved when fires destroyed the tablets' storage place and effectively baked them, unintentionally ensuring their longevity. The script was widely used on commemorative stelae and carved reliefs to record the achievements of the ruler in whose honor the monument had been erected. The spoken language included many homophones and near-homophones, and in

30272-473: Was possible through steady service to the Assyrian state bureaucracy for a family to move up the social ladder; in some cases stellar work conducted by a single individual enhanced the status of their family for generations to come. In many cases, Assyrian family groups, or "clans", formed large population groups within the empire referred to as tribes. Such tribes lived together in villages and other settlements near or adjacent to their agricultural lands. Slavery

30448-479: Was restored in the 2nd century AD. This last cultural 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. Starting from the 1st century AD onward, many of the Assyrians became Christianized , though holdouts of the old ancient Mesopotamian religion continued to survive for centuries. Despite

30624-406: Was retained, but was now pronounced immerum , rather than the Sumerian udu . Such retained individual signs or, sometimes, entire sign combinations with logographic value are known as Sumerograms , a type of heterogram . The East Semitic languages employed equivalents for many signs that were distorted or abbreviated to represent new values because the syllabic nature of the script as refined by

30800-452: Was the first to assume the style šar māt Aššur ("king of the land of Ashur") and his grandson Arik-den-ili ( r.   c. 1317–1306 BC) introduced the style šarru dannu ("strong king"). Adad-nirari I's inscriptions required 32 lines to be devoted just to his titles. This development peaked under Tukulti-Ninurta I, who assumed, among other titles, the styles "king of Assyria and Karduniash ", " king of Sumer and Akkad ", "king of

30976-591: Was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East . The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era . Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions ( Latin : cuneus ) which form their signs . Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system and was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq ). Over

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