ASSYRIANS

Tiglath-pileser III unites Assyria and Babylonia under one rule.

C.6l2 BCE Nineveh falls to Babylonians; Assyrian Empire comes to end three years later.

Known for their ruthlessness in subjugating their enemies, the Assyrians dominated large sections of western Asia for much of the second and first millenniums BCE. A visual record of their conquests can be found at their ancient capital of Nimrud.

Assyria was one of the earliest empires to be established in western Asia. The core of the Assyrian heartland lay to the north of Babylonia, between the Tigris River to the west and the Zagros Mountains to the east. The discovery of two Neanderthal skulls in the area showed that the area has been inhabited since Paleolithic times. There is also evidence that early farmers settled in this fertile area around the ninth millennium BCE. They grew wheat and barley, kept domesticated animals, and built houses of clay. They are also known to have baked bread in clay ovens, spun thread using hand spindles, woven cloth, and made tools, ornaments, and seals out of stone.

During the third millennium BCE, the region came under the influence of the Akkadian civilization, and the inhabitants adopted the Akkadian language and cuneiform script. When the southern empires of Sumer and Akkad collapsed around 2000 BCE, a distinct Assyrian culture began to emerge. However, nothing was known of this culture until the 19th century CE, when two outstanding archaeologists—Paul Emile Botta and Austen Henry Layard— excavated the cities of Nineveh, Nimrud, and Dur Sharrukin (Khorsabad). The spectacular finds that Botta and Layard made unravelled the story of one of the great lost civilizations of western Asia.

Historians usually divide the history of the Assyrian Empire into three periods: the Old Empire (c. 2000—1760 BCE), the Middle Empire (c. 1363—1000 BCE), and the New Empire (c. 1000612 BCE). During the period of the Old Empire, the Assyrians established a number of city-states, including Ashur, Nineveh, and Arbela. Each city consisted of a palace, temples, and a maze of houses, all enclosed within a city wall. Ashur, named after the god of the same name, was the center of a remarkable trading network. A merchant colony was set up in the city of Kanesh in Anatolia, and pottery vessels full of cuneiform texts discovered there give a picture of a flourishing trade in copper and textiles, carried by caravans of donkeys. This lucrative enterprise was controlled by just 10 or 15 Assyrian families, and their burial sites discovered in Ashur attest to their great wealth.