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| Country of Aššūr 𒆳𒀭𒊹𒆠 𐡀𐡕𐡅𐡓 | |
|---|---|
| 911 BCE–609 BCE | |
 Assyria (blue) in 700 BCE, with its farthest extent surrounded by dashed lines | |
| Capital | Aššūr |
| Largest city | Ninua |
| Official languages | Akkadian Aramaic |
| Dominant mode of production | Slavery |
| Government | Monarchy |
| History | |
• Established | 911 BCE |
• Dissolution | 609 BCE |
| Area | |
• Total | 1,400,000 km² |
The Country of Aššūr, commonly known as the Neo-Assyrian Empire, was an Iron Age kingdom based in northern Mesopotamia. It was the dominant state in Western Asia and had a larger and better organized army than other countries at the time.[1]
History[edit | edit source]
Wars in Syria[edit | edit source]
Aššurnāṣirapli II (ruled 883–859 BCE) led campaigns in Babylonia and Syria. He killed and tortured any civilians who resisted and enslaved the rest. In 876 BCE, his army reached the Phoenician coast. His successor Salmānuašarēd III led an invasion of Syria and was defeated by an alliance of cities led by Damascus. He attacked again in 845 BCE with an army of 120,000 but failed. After the Syrian alliance broke up, Assyria was briefly able to rule Syria.[1]
The Chaldeans, a group of nomadic Aramaic-speaking tribes, took control of southern Babylonia by the ninth century BCE and began to advance to the north. King Šamšiadad V (ruled 823–811 BCE) of Assyria invaded and conquered the northern part of Babylonia. At the same time, the Chaldeans occupied the rest of Babylonia. Adadnīrārī III succeeded Šamšiadad as a child and maintained peaceful relations with Babylon while resuming the wars against Syria. His mother Sammurāmat ruled on his behalf for the first years of his reign.[1]
At the end of the ninth century BCE, a civil war began when the priests and merchants of the cities fought against the royal army. The Syrian states allied with Urartu and broke away from Assyrian control, and Urartu annexed some Assyrian territory.[1]
Military reforms[edit | edit source]
Tukultīapilešarra III (ruled 745–727 BCE) reorganized the military and administration of Assyria and established a standing army. He made provinces smaller and limited governors' power to collecting taxes, organizing labor conscription, and leading provincial troops. He began the practice of settling conquered areas with Assyrians and deporting the native inhabitants to other parts of the empire.[1]
In 744 BCE, King Nabûnāṣir of Babylon asked Tukultīapilešarra to help him fight the Chaldeans. Assyria defeated the Chaldeans and made them pay tribute, and Nabûnāṣir recognized Assyrian sovereignty over Babylon. Tukultīapilešarra was crowned as king of Babylon in 729 BCE and made Babylon an autonomous kingdom with control over its internal affairs.[1]
Tukultīapilešarra went to war with Urartu in 743 BCE and drove it out of Syria. The Assyrians reached Tushpa, the capital of Urartu, but were not able to capture it. They captured Damascus and took over Phoenicia in 732 BCE. In 722 BCE, they annexed the Kingdom of Israel.[1]
Wars with Babylon[edit | edit source]
An alliance between the Chaldean chieftain Mardukaplaiddina and the Elamite king Humbannikaš I defeated Šarrukīn II of Assyria in 720 BCE. Mardukaplaiddina protected the rights of the Babylonians, and Babylon's economy prospered under his rule. Ten years later, Šarrukīn defeated Elam and forced the Chaldeans to retreat to the south. He crowned himself in Babylon in 709 BCE and gave gifts to the Babylonian temples to try to gain the support of their nobles. He also defeated king Rusa I of Urartu in 714 BCE. He died in 705 BCE and was succeeded by Sînaḥḥīerība.[1]
While in exile, Mardukaplaiddina took control of the trading routes in his homeland of Bit-Yakin. He allied with king Ḥizqiyyāhū of Judah, who was a vassal of Assyria, as well as Elam and the Phoenician cities of Adad, Ašqalōn, and Ṣūr. In 703 BCE, Mardukaplaiddina again overthrew the Assyrian rule of Babylon, and another war began between Elam and Assyria. After the Assyrians defeated his Elamite allies, he escaped into the marshes in the south of Babylon. He renewed his alliance with Elamites in 700 BCE. When the Assyrian forces began advancing, he fled into the marshes of Elam and disappeared. The Assyrians were not able to conquer all of the Chaldean lands. In 694 BCE, Sînaḥḥīerība invaded and looted Elam. In response, the Elamites invaded Sippar and kidnapped Sînaḥḥīerība's son, who was the ruler of Babylon. The next year, Assyria defeated the Elamites and Babylonians at Nippur. In 692 BCE, Mušezibmarduk led a Babylonian revolt against Assyria with the support of Elam and the Aramaean tribes. The Elamite king Humbannumena III defeated Assyria at the battle of Halule and drove the Assyrians out of Babylon, but his army was too weak to pursue them back to Assyria.[1]
Sînaḥḥīerība began a siege of Babylon in 690 BCE after the Elamite king became paralyzed. He captured the city in April of 689 BCE and killed or enslaved most of its population before flooding the city with water from its canals. In 681 BCE, his two older sons assassinated him, but his third son Aššuraḫaiddina defeated them. Aššuraḫaiddina restored local self-government to the citizens of major cities such as Aššūr, Bābilim, Borsippa, Nippur, and Sippar and exempted them from labor conscription. He conquered Egypt in 671 BCE and took a massive tribute of gold and silver, but Pesmetjek restored Egyptian independence in 657 BCE. In 655 BCE, a long war with Elam began. The Assyrians eventually captured their capital of Susa and beheaded the Elamite king Teumman.[1]
Before his death, Aššuraḫaiddina divided his empire between his sons, giving Assyria to Aššurbāniapli and Babylon to Šamaššumaukin, who was his brother's vassal. In 652 BCE, Šamaššumaukin secretly allied with Egypt, Elam, and the Aramaean and Arab tribes and rebelled against Aššurbāniapli. In 651 BCE, the Assyrians organized a coup against king Humbannikaš II of Elam to prevent the Elamites from supporting Babylon. Babylon fell in mid-648 BCE after a three-year siege. The Assyrian Empire began to decline at the end of Aššurbāniapli's reign.[1]
Babylonian conquest[edit | edit source]
Sînšariškun succeeded Aššurbāniapli in 629 BCE. Nabûaplauṣur, a Chaldean chieftain, began a rebellion and took control of northern Babylon in 626 BCE. He tried to ally with Elam to capture Uruk and led a failed siege of Nippur, which the Assyrians lifted. During the siege, he gained the support of Babylon and crowned himself king of a new dynasty. He captured Uruk in 616 BCE and Nippur the next year but failed to take Aššūr.[1]
In 614 BCE, the Medes surrounded Ninua, the largest city in Assyria, and destroyed Aššūr. After the battle, Nabûaplauṣur formed an alliance with the Medes and married his son Nabûkudurriuṣur to Humati, the daughter of the Median king Huvaxšthra. Sînšariškun resumed the war in 612 BCE, and the combined Chaldean and Median forces captured Ninua after a three-month siege. Part of the Assyrian army retreated north to Harran and continued to fight under the leadership of Aššuruballiṭ II. Two years later, the Medes drove the Assyrians out of Harran, and the Chaldeans occupied the city. The Egyptian pharaoh Nekau II sent an army to support the Assyrians and helped them recapture Harran. However, Nabûaplauṣur's army soon arrived and destroyed the Assyrian army once and for all.[1]
Military[edit | edit source]
The core of the Assyrian army was the king's regiment, which included chariots, cavalry, and infantry. Soldiers had iron or bronze armor and fought with spears, swords, and bows. The Assyrians also used rams and incendiary weapons.[1]
Writing[edit | edit source]
In the eighth century BCE, Aramaic replaced Akkadian as the dominant language in Mesopotamia. Aramaic scribes wrote on leather and papyrus instead of the clay used by Akkadian speakers. Schools using cuneiform gradually disappeared.[1]