Assyria
Assyria 𒆳𒀭𒊹𒆠 | |||||||||||
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| c. 2025 BC[a]–609 BC[b] | |||||||||||
 Symbol of Ashur, the ancient Assyrian national deity | |||||||||||
 The ancient Assyrian heartland (red) and the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BC (orange) | |||||||||||
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| Official languages | |||||||||||
| Religion | Ancient Mesopotamian religion | ||||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||||
| Notable kings | |||||||||||
• c. 2025 BC | Puzur-Ashur I (first) | ||||||||||
• c. 1974–1935 BC | Erishum I | ||||||||||
• c. 1808–1776 BC | Shamshi-Adad I | ||||||||||
• c. 1700–1691 BC | Bel-bani | ||||||||||
• c. 1363–1328 BC | Ashur-uballit I | ||||||||||
• c. 1243–1207 BC | Tukulti-Ninurta I | ||||||||||
• 1114–1076 BC | Tiglath-Pileser I | ||||||||||
• 883–859 BC | Ashurnasirpal II | ||||||||||
• 745–727 BC | Tiglath-Pileser III | ||||||||||
• 705–681 BC | Sennacherib | ||||||||||
• 681–669 BC | Esarhaddon | ||||||||||
• 669–631 BC | Ashurbanipal | ||||||||||
• 631–627 BC | Aššur-etil-ilāni | ||||||||||
• 627–612 BC | Sinsharishkun | ||||||||||
• 612–609 BC | Ashur-uballit II (last) | ||||||||||
| Historical era | Bronze Age to Iron Age | ||||||||||
• Foundation of Assur | c. 2600 BC | ||||||||||
• Assur becomes an independent city-state | c. 2025 BC[c] | ||||||||||
| c. 2025–1364 BC | |||||||||||
| c. 1363–912 BC | |||||||||||
| 911–609 BC | |||||||||||
| 609 BC[d] | |||||||||||
• Sack and destruction of Assur by the Sasanian Empire | c. AD 240 | ||||||||||
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| Periodization of ancient Assyria | ||||||||||
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See also: History of the Assyrians |
Assyria[e] was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed from the 21st to the 7th century BCE which conquered and administered most of West Asia from the Assyrian heartland in Upper Mesopotamia.[4] Assyria is called the first true military superpower in human history, and pioneered major inventions and advances in the first libraries and large-scale preservation and accumulation of knowledge, as well as in statecraft, centralised government, bureaucracy, warfare, military organisation, propaganda, art, and architecture.
Assyrian imperial history spans the early Bronze Age to the late Iron Age, from its beginning as small Akkadian settlements in northern Mesopotamia to its zenith and collapse as the largest empire to that time, and is typically divided into the Early Assyrian (c. 2600–2025 BCE), Old Assyrian (c. 2025–1364 BCE), Middle Assyrian (c. 1363–912 BCE), Neo-Assyrian (911–609 BCE), and post-imperial (609 BCE–c. 240 CE) periods.[5][6] The Assyrian people survive to this day and continue to live and practice their culture in their ancient heartland and in the diaspora.
Assur, the first Assyrian capital, was founded c. 2600 BCE, but there is no evidence that the city was independent until the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, in the 21st century BCE,[3] 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 BCE as the Middle Assyrian Empire. In 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[7] and the Assyrians ruled the largest empire then yet assembled in world history,[7][8][9] spanning from parts of modern-day Iran in the east to Egypt in the west.
In the late 7th century BCE the Neo-Assyrian Empire, weakened by a period of civil war, fell, conquered by a coalition of the ethno-linguistically near-identical Babylonians, who for some three centuries had lived under Assyrian rule or domination, and of Assyria's erstwhile vassels, the Medes and Scythians. Though Assyria's core urban territory was extensively devastated in the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire and though the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire invested few resources in rebuilding it until the reign of the Assyrian originating Nabonidus, ancient Assyrian culture and traditions survived for centuries through the post-imperial period. Assyria experienced a recovery under the Seleucid and Parthian empires (the latter of which saw a number of Assyrian kingdoms arise between the 2nd century BCE and the mid-3rd century CE), it declined again under the Sasanian Empire centuries later, which sacked numerous cities and semi-independent Assyrian territories in the region, including Assur itself.
The remaining Assyrian people, who had survived and preserved their native culture in northern Mesopotamia, were among the first people to accept Christianity in the 1st century CE, traditionally having been evangelized by St. Thomas the Apostle, one of the Twelve Disciples of Jesus Christ, and by the disciples St. Addai and St. Mari, went on to develop a unique East Syriac rite and establish the Church of the East (which would go on to spread Christianity throughout western, central, southeastern, and eastern Asia). The Ancient Mesopotamian religion persisted at Assur until Assur's final sack in the 3rd century CE, and at certain other holdouts for centuries thereafter.[10] A number of religious and cultural symbols, practices, customs, and artistic styles and genres from ancient Mesopotamian religion and culture continue to be used and repurposed in Syriac Christianity to this day, such as the star of Shamash and the Easter Monday 'gayasa' (a play in the Sumerian disputation genre).
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.[7] Ancient Assyria also left a legacy of great cultural significance,[11] particularly through the Neo-Assyrian Empire, making a prominent impression in later Assyrian, Greco-Roman, and Hebrew literary and religious traditions.[12][13][f]
Nomenclature
[edit]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 ("the city of Ashur"). From the time of its rise as a territorial state in the 14th century BCE and onward, Assyria was referred to in official documents as māt Aššur ("the 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 BCE), who was the first king of the Middle Assyrian Empire.[14] Both ālu Aššur and māt Aššur derive from the name of the Assyrian national deity Ashur.[15] Ashur probably originated in the Early Assyrian period as a deified personification of Assur itself.[2] In the Old Assyrian period the deity was considered the formal king of Assur; the actual rulers only used the style Išši'ak ("governor").[16][17] 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 the Assyrian kings.[15]
The modern name "Assyria" is of Greek origin,[18] 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 the entire region.[18] 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.[19] 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 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.[20]
Both "Assyria" and the contraction, "Syria," are ultimately derived from the Akkadian Aššur.[21] Following the decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the subsequent empires that held dominion over 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").[22] The Sasanian Empire inexplicably referred to Lower Mesopotamia as Asoristan ("land of the Assyrians"),[23] though the northern province of Nōdšīragān, which included much of the old Assyrian heartland, was also sometimes called Atūria or Āthōr.[24] In Syriac, Assyria was and is referred to as ʾĀthor.[25]
History
[edit]
Early history
[edit]
Agricultural villages in the region that would later become Assyria are known to have existed by the time of the Hassuna culture,[26] c. 6300–5800 BC.[27] 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 the Neolithic,[28] the earliest archaeological evidence from Assur dates to the Early Dynastic Period, c. 2600 BC.[29] During this time, the surrounding region was already relatively urbanized.[26] There is no evidence that early Assur was an independent settlement,[3] 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.[30]
The name "Assur" is first attested for the site in documents of the Akkadian period in the 24th century BC.[31] Through most of the Early Assyrian period (c. 2600–2025 BC), Assur was dominated by states and polities from southern Mesopotamia.[32] Early on, Assur for a time fell under the loose hegemony of the Sumerian city of Kish[33] and it was later occupied by both the Akkadian Empire and then the Third Dynasty of Ur.[3] In c. 2025 BC, due to the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Assur became an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I.[34]
Under the Puzur-Ashur dynasty, Assur was 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.[35] The city was still influential in other ways; under Erishum I (r. c. 1974–1934 BC), Assur experimented with free trade, 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.[36]
Royal encouragement of trade led to Assur quickly establishing itself as a prominent trading city in northern Mesopotamia[37] and soon thereafter establishing an extensive long-distance trade network,[38] the first notable impression Assyria left in the historical record.[32] 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.[38]
As trade declined, perhaps due to increased warfare and conflict between the growing states of the Near East,[39] Assur was frequently threatened by larger foreign states and kingdoms.[40] The original Assur city-state, and 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.[41] Shamshi-Adad's extensive conquests in northern Mesopotamia eventually made him the ruler of the entire region,[39] founding what some scholars have termed the "Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia".[42] The survival of this realm relied chiefly on Shamshi-Adad's own strength and charisma and thus collapsed shortly after his death c. 1776 BC.[43]
After Shamshi-Adad's death, the political situation in northern Mesopotamia was highly volatile, with Assur at times coming under the brief control of Eshnunna,[44] Elam[45][46] and the Old Babylonian Empire.[45][46] At some point, the city returned to being an independent city-state,[47] 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.[48] The infighting came to an end after the rise of Bel-bani as king c. 1700 BC.[49][50] Bel-bani founded the Adaside dynasty, which after his reign ruled Assyria for about a thousand years.[51]
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 the smaller kingdoms of Mitanni and Kassite Babylonia to rise in the north and south, respectively.[52] Around c. 1430 BC, Assur was subjugated by Mitanni, an arrangement that lasted for about 70 years, until c. 1360 BC.[53] 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 the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire (c. 1363–912 BC).[54]
Assyrian Empire
[edit]
Ashur-uballit I was the first native Assyrian ruler to claim the royal title šar ("king").[40] Shortly after achieving independence, he further claimed the dignity of a great king on the level of the Egyptian pharaohs and the Hittite kings.[54] Assyria's rise was intertwined with the decline and fall of the Mitanni kingdom, its former suzerain, which allowed the early Middle Assyrian kings to expand and consolidate territories in northern Mesopotamia.[55] 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.[56]
These kings campaigned in all directions and incorporated 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.[56] The most successful of the Middle Assyrian kings was Tukulti-Ninurta I, who brought the Middle Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent.[56] His most notable military achievements were his victory at the Battle of Nihriya c. 1237 BC, which marked the beginning of the end of Hittite influence in northern Mesopotamia,[57] and his temporary conquest of Babylonia, which became an Assyrian vassal c. 1225–1216 BC.[58][59] 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[60] c. 1233 BC.[61] The capital was returned to Assur after his death.[60]
Tukulti-Ninurta I's assassination c. 1207 BC was followed by inter-dynastic conflict and a significant drop in Assyrian power.[62] Tukulti-Ninurta I's successors were unable to maintain Assyrian power and Assyria became increasingly restricted to just the Assyrian heartland,[62] a period of decline broadly coinciding with the Late Bronze Age collapse.[62] 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 the decline and made significant conquests,[63] their conquests were ephemeral and shaky, quickly lost again.[64] From the time of Eriba-Adad II (r. 1056–1054 BC) onward, Assyrian decline intensified.[65]
The Assyrian heartland remained safe due to its geographical remoteness.[66] Since Assyria was not the only state to undergo decline during these centuries, and the lands surrounding 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 the beginning of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BC).[67]
Through decades of conquests, the early Neo-Assyrian kings worked to retake the lands of the Middle Assyrian Empire.[9][68] Since this reconquista had to begin nearly from scratch, its eventual success was an extraordinary achievement.[69] Under Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BC), the Neo-Assyrian Empire became the dominant political power in the Near East.[70] In his ninth campaign, Ashurnasirpal II marched to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, collecting tribute from various kingdoms on the way.[71] 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 the new capital of the empire.[71] Though no longer the political capital, Assur remained the ceremonial and religious center of Assyria.[72]
Ashurnasirpal II's son Shalmaneser III (r. 859–824 BC) also went on wide-ranging wars of conquest, expanding the empire in all directions.[72] After Shalmaneser III's death, the Neo-Assyrian Empire entered into a period of stagnation dubbed the "age of the magnates", when powerful officials and generals were the principal wielders of political power rather than the king.[73] 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,[74] consolidated and centralized the holdings of the empire,[9][75] and through his military campaigns and conquests more than doubled the extent of Assyrian territory. The most significant conquests were the vassalization of the Levant all the way to the Egyptian border and the 729 BC conquest of Babylonia.[76]
The Neo-Assyrian Empire reached the height of its extent and power under the Sargonid dynasty,[77] 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. In 706 BC, Sargon II relocated the capital to the newly constructed city of Dur-Sharrukin.[78] The following year, Sennacherib transferred the capital to Nineveh, which he extensively expanded and renovated. He may even have been responsible for the construction of the Hanging Gardens there—one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.[79][80] The 671 BC conquest of Egypt under Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BC) brought Assyria to its greatest ever extent.[77]
After 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 the Medes under Cyaxares in 615/614 BC, led to the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire.[81] Assur was sacked in 614 BC and Nineveh fell in 612 BC.[82] 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.[83][84]
Later history
[edit]
Despite the violent downfall of the Assyrian Empire, Assyrian culture continued to survive through the subsequent post-imperial period (609 BC – c. AD 240) and beyond.[6] 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.[86] Throughout the time of the Neo-Babylonian and later Achaemenid Empire, Assyria remained a marginal and sparsely populated region.[87] 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.[88]
Under the empires succeeding the Neo-Babylonians, from the late 6th century BC onward, Assyria began to experience a recovery. Under the Achaemenids, most of the territory was organized into the province[g] Athura (Aθūrā).[22] The organization into a single large province,[90] the lack of interference of the Achaemenid rulers in local affairs,[22] and the return of the cult statue of Ashur to Assur soon after the Achaemenids conquered Babylon facilitated the survival of Assyrian culture.[91] Under the Seleucid Empire, which controlled Mesopotamia from 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.[92]
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 the population and settlement density reached heights not seen since the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[92] 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.[93][94]
Assur itself flourished under Parthian rule.[93][95] From around or shortly after the end of the 2nd century BC,[96] the city may have become the capital of its own small semi-autonomous Assyrian realm,[93] either under the suzerainty of Hatra,[97] or under direct Parthian suzerainty.[95] On account of the resemblance between the stelae by the local rulers and those of the ancient Assyrian kings,[93] they may have seen themselves as the restorers and continuators of the old royal line.[98] The ancient Ashur temple was restored in the 2nd century AD.[93][95] This last cultural golden age came to an end with the sack of Assur by the Sasanian Empire c. 240.[99] During the sack, the Ashur temple was destroyed again and the city's population was dispersed.[97]
Starting from the 1st century AD onward, many of the Assyrians became Christianized,[100] though holdouts of the old ancient Mesopotamian religion continued to survive for centuries.[10] Despite 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.[101] The Assyrians lived largely in peace under the rule of the