Once again, Naqia arranged the succession, placing her youngest grandson, Ashurbanipal (ruled c. 668—627 BCE), on the throne and appointing one of his older brothers viceroy of Babylon. Ashurbanipal continued his father’s Egyptian campaign, putting down revolts and conquering as far south as Thebes. However, later in Ashurbanipal’s reign, the Egyptians succeeded in regaining their independence and driving out the Assyrian garrisons.
In southern Babylonia, the Elamites continued their attacks. Ashurbanipal dispatched an army to defeat them, but his brother, the Babylonian viceroy, rebelled and a protracted war ensued.
This relief sculpture depicts the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal riding in a chariot. Ashurbanipal was one of the last kings of the Assyrian Empire.
The Assyrians laid siege to Babylon for three years. The city was taken in 648 BCE, and the palace was burned to the ground with the viceroy inside.
Determined to subdue the Elamites once and for all, Ashurbanipal invaded their territory and attacked the capital, Susa. The city fell in 646 BCE, after which the Assyrians totally destroyed it and annexed the whole state. This victory was to be the Assyrians’ last great military success; thereafter, the empire went into rapid decline.
Ashurbanipal was a man of many talents. Besides being an able military commander and an enthusiastic hunter of big game, he was a mathematician and scientist and was able to read both Sumerian and Akkadian. At his palace at Nineveh, he founded a library in which several copies of the more important works were kept. The library consisted of approximately 25,000 clay tablets, which included new copies of a large number of old texts. This remarkable archive has been a valuable source of Assyrian history for archaeologists.
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