An outline, era by era

Neo-Assyrian Empire

Iron Age · ~1200 – ~500 BCE

The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the last and largest phase of Assyrian power. It grew from the old Assyrian heartland on the upper Tigris, around the cities of Ashur, Nimrud, Nineveh and Khorsabad in northern Iraq. Its expansion began under Ashurnasirpal II in the ninth century BCE and, after a period of strength under Tiglath-pileser III from 745 BCE, reached across Mesopotamia, Syria, the Levant and for a time Egypt. It ended when Nineveh fell to a Babylonian and Median alliance in 612 BCE, and the last Assyrian forces were defeated a few years later.

Assyria ran a standing army with iron weapons, cavalry, siege engines and an efficient road and messenger system. It governed by moving conquered peoples to new lands and by dividing territory into provinces under royal officials. Its kings left vast palace reliefs and inscriptions, and Ashurbanipal gathered a great library of cuneiform tablets at Nineveh. The empire matters for its political methods, its record of conquest and its lasting influence on neighbouring peoples and later memory.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Queen Semiramis, the warrior builder of Babylon

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    Semiramis is born to a goddess and raised by doves. She becomes queen of Assyria, builds the walls and wonders of Babylon, and leads great armies as far as India. When she dies, she turns into a dove and flies away.

    The rest is history

    The story comes from Greek writers, above all Ctesias of Cnidus in the fourth century BCE, retold by Diodorus Siculus. It rests on a real woman, Shammuramat, wife of Shamshi-Adad V, who acted as regent for her son Adad-nirari III around 811 to 806 BCE. She is named on a stele from Ashur and in royal inscriptions, which is unusual for an Assyrian queen. The Greek tale of her conquests and of Babylon's walls has no support in Assyrian sources. The real queen governed for a few years, but the legend grew over the centuries.

    Sources

    1. BookDiodorus Siculus. Library of History, Book 2. Greek history, 1st century BCE. Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Preserves Ctesias' account of Semiramis.
    2. BookRadner, Karen. Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.Covers the regency of Shammuramat.
    3. BookDalley, Stephanie. The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Discusses Semiramis and the classical traditions about her.

  2. The Hanging Gardens at Nineveh

    Popular belief

    The legend

    One of the Seven Wonders, the Hanging Gardens, is said to have been built at Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar for his homesick wife. In a newer version, the gardens are really at Nineveh, built by King Sennacherib and watered by a lifting device.

    The rest is history

    No Babylonian text mentions hanging gardens, and excavations at Babylon have found no clear trace of them. Stephanie Dalley argued in 2013 that the gardens were Sennacherib's, at Nineveh, and that Greek writers confused the cities. Sennacherib's inscriptions boast of a great park with exotic plants, and an aqueduct he built at Jerwan carried water to Nineveh. Reliefs from the palace of Ashurbanipal show a leafy garden on arches. Many scholars remain unconvinced, and the question is still debated.

    Sources

    1. BookDalley, Stephanie. The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
    2. BookGrayson, A. Kirk, and Jamie Novotny. The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704-681 BC), Part 1. The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period 3/1. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012.Sennacherib's own descriptions of his palace and gardens.

  3. The angel who struck down Sennacherib's army

    Myth

    The legend

    Sennacherib's army besieges Jerusalem under King Hezekiah. In one night the angel of the Lord strikes down a huge host of the Assyrians in their camp. Sennacherib breaks camp, goes home to Nineveh, and is later murdered by his sons.

    The rest is history

    The story is told in 2 Kings 18 and 19 and Isaiah 36 and 37, and a version of it was known to Herodotus, who tells of mice gnawing the Assyrian bowstrings. Sennacherib's own prism says he shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage in 701 BCE, took 46 walled towns, and received heavy tribute. Jerusalem was not taken, but the prism does not claim it was. The lachish reliefs from Nineveh show the fall of the nearby city of Lachish in detail. Sennacherib was killed in 681 BCE, and the Babylonian Chronicle and Esarhaddon's inscriptions suggest a son was responsible.

    Sources

    1. PrimarySennacherib Prism (Taylor Prism). Akkadian royal inscription, Nineveh, 691 BCE. British Museum.Sennacherib's account of the 701 BCE campaign and Hezekiah.
    2. BookMayer, Walter. Assyria's Campaign against Judah. Not cited further.Not for use.
    3. BookGrabbe, Lester L., ed. 'Like a Bird in a Cage': The Invasion of Sennacherib in 701 BCE. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 363. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003.Essays on the biblical and Assyrian evidence.

  4. Ashurbanipal, the scholar king who read it all

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Ashurbanipal is remembered as a gentle, bookish king who built the first great library in the world at Nineveh. He is said to have gathered every book of his age out of love of learning alone.

    The rest is history

    Ashurbanipal, who ruled about 669 to 631 BCE, did say that he could read cuneiform and had learned the scribal arts. His collection at Nineveh, found by Austen Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam in the 1850s, held tens of thousands of tablets and fragments, including the Epic of Gilgamesh. But it was not the first library, since earlier kings kept archives. Some texts were taken by force from Babylonian scholars and temples, and the collection was meant to serve royal rituals, omens and rule. The same king shows his enemies being tortured in his palace reliefs, so the gentle picture is only partly true.

    Sources

    1. BookParpola, Simo. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. State Archives of Assyria 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1993.Letters of royal scholars who served the kings and gathered texts.
    2. BookRadner, Karen. Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

  5. The Lost Ten Tribes of Israel

    Popular belief

    The legend

    When Assyria conquers the northern kingdom of Israel, ten of the twelve tribes are carried off and vanish. They are said to live on somewhere in the world, hidden from history, and many peoples have been claimed as their descendants.

    The rest is history

    The conquest is real. Assyrian kings, Tiglath-pileser III and then Shalmaneser V and Sargon II, took Samaria about 722 to 720 BCE and deported people from the kingdom. Sargon II's inscriptions claim 27,290 deportees from Samaria, and the Bible in 2 Kings 17 says Israelites were settled in Halah, on the Khabur, and in the cities of the Medes. Deportees were mixed into the empire's provinces, and many Israelites also fled south to Judah. The Bible does not speak of ten tribes vanishing, and the idea of tribes living on in hiding arose in later tradition, such as 2 Esdras, and in modern speculation.

    Sources

    1. BookBecking, Bob. The Fall of Samaria: An Historical and Archaeological Study. Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East 2. Leiden: Brill, 1992.Examines the Assyrian and biblical accounts of Samaria's fall.
    2. Primary2 Kings 17. Hebrew Bible, account of the fall of Samaria and the deportations.

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