title: Dominion of India

text: Another study by Hill and colleagues suggested that migrants preferred to settle in districts with a high proportion of co-religionists, leading to more religiously homogeneous populations on either side of the newly drawn borders after Partition. In the Indian Punjab, districts that were 66% Hindu in 1941 became 80% Hindu in 1951; those that were 20% Sikh became 50% Sikh in 1951. In Pakistani Punjab, the districts became exclusively Muslim by 1951.


title: Dominion of India

text: As for mortality, Bharadwaj and his colleagues divide the 3.4 million missing people by assigning 2.1 million to the northwest and 1.3 million to the east. Hill and colleagues suggested a mortality range of 2.3–3.2 million people. However, according to Dyson, the population losses may have also resulted in part because of reduced birth rates and also by the inadequacies in the 1951 census (especially in Pakistan).


title: Dominion of India

text: Summing up Tim Dyson says, The sudden refugee flows related to Partition may at the time have been unsurpassed in modern world history. It is likely that at least 14–18 million people moved. Previous assessments of the mortality associated with Partition have varied between 200,000 and 1 million. The first figure, attributed to Mountbatten (the last Viceroy) smacks of a number that—conveniently from an official perspective—minimises the loss of life. However, the figure of 1 million may also be too low. The data, however, do not allow for a firmer judgement.


title: Dominion of India

text: The two main concerns of the new Indian government in 1947 were the economic foundations of the country and the poverty of a large segment of its population. Although the British Raj had also been concerned about poverty, its basic justification and the scale of the problem meant that it expended resources on poverty alleviation only when the distress seemed to be threatening civic order. The new government apprehended clearly that a low level of income and therefore also of demand and prospective investment considerably slowed down development in all areas of the economy, including agriculture, industry, and the service sector.


title: Dominion of India

text: A National Income Committee was set up in 1949 to measure Indian poverty; its report published in 1950/1951 computed the average annual income per person in India to be Rs. 260 or $55. Some Indians earned less, especially among those who worked as domestic help, tenant farmers, or agricultural labourers.


title: Dominion of India

text: According to historian Judith M. Brown, such poverty meant "almost perpetual hunger, a monotonous and unbalanced diet at the best of times, cramped and squalid housing, perhaps one change of meagre clothes, insufficient bedding to prevent deaths from cold in the northern Indian winter, children's absence from school for lack of clothes or books or the need to earn to feed the family and no money for doctors or medicines." The patriarchy widely prevalent in Indian society ensured that males had more access to food, medicine, and education than females.


title: Dominion of India

text: In the agricultural sector in the 1940s, most farmers were engaged in subsistence farming; only a small fraction had access to tractors or tube wells; fertilizer use per acre was less than any other country. An India-wide survey soon after independence gave evidence of the high inequality in rural India. 14–15 million rural households (constituting 22% of the total) owned no land at all. Just under 50% of rural households owned 1.5% of the cultivated land. At the other extreme, the top 25% owned 83% of the cultivated land. Such magnitude of income inequality implied unequal access to education and health care. To meet the needs of those with the least access, the provision of physicians, nurses, rural clinics, hospitals, schools, and colleges also required special attention from the new government.


title: Dominion of India

text: India did have a firmly founded industrial sector at the time of independence, with financial networks to sustain it. India's participation in the Second World War had the effect of expanding its industries, though their increased output was not generally for civilian consumption. In some instances such as woolen textiles produced in wool mills, leather and footwear produced in factories, almost three-fourths of the cement and steel, the output was siphoned off from the civilian economy for military use. A few industries such as steel, chemicals, paper, paint, and cement did advance vigorously, but a shortage of capital goods and skilled human resources thwarted any significant new industrial undertakings. Sociologically, industrial growth in wartime had the effect of increasing the share of the urban population in India from 13% in 1941 to 16% in 1951.


title: Dominion of India

text: The levels of education and evaluation criteria varied from region to region, depending on each region's history, its urbanization, and average per-person income. In 1951 literacy in India was still very low, especially among rural women (Table). Improving the economy, changing social attitudes, and reducing economic deprivation among the landless labouring classes depended crucially upon improving education standards.


title: Dominion of India

text: The new government had inherited problems arising from uneven opportunity in a society of great want. Most deprived were groups whose status in Hindu society was low. Despite progress in women's education and the rise of some women in politics through Gandhi's civil disobedience movement, the vast majority of women, who happened to be from rural areas, spent their lives attending to their husbands to whom they had been married at an early age in arranged marriages, their children, and the crops. If a Hindu woman's marriage was unhappy, neither divorce nor even separation was an option legally or culturally. Patrilineal inheritance meant that women had no right to property; their only avenue to prosperity lay through dependence on their husbands. Little or no education, for the most part, barred them from becoming secretaries, teachers or nurses.


title: Dominion of India

text: Similarly, despite Gandhi's anti-untouchability campaigns of the 1930s, the vast majority of Untouchables remained in a state of ritual pollution and self-abasing poverty—land ownership, education, or skilled work was out of reach. According to Judith M. Brown, "The new government recognised the burden of its inheritance in these areas of society and the 1950 constitution stated its commitment to fundamental change and a denial of Hindu conventions which an alien government had not dared to initiate." Although Untouchability was abolished in the new constitution, it was soon evident that the yoke of culture bore down so oppressively on Untouchables, that more legislation, administrative reform, and economic change were needed for them to assume their constitutional rights; the same was true of women. However, in urban areas, economic changes in the 1940s had demonstrated that belief and ritual status in Hinduism had hindered neither industrialisation, nor workers responding quickly to market forces, and changing occupations or locations of work.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Echo (Maya Lopez) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The adoptive daughter of the Kingpin, the character has been depicted as a supporting character of Daredevil. A Native American (of the Cheyenne Nation) and one of the few deaf comic characters, her "Echo" guise includes a white handprint that covers most of her face.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Alaqua Cox portrays Maya Lopez in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, debuting in "Hawkeye" (2021), and will be starring in her own upcoming spin-off series "Echo" (2023), both on Disney+.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Echo first appeared in "Daredevil" #9 (Dec. 1999), created by writer David Mack and artist Joe Quesada. She first appeared as Ronin in "The New Avengers" #11 (Nov. 2005), created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist David Finch. The Ronin identity was an attempt by Bendis to create a mystery after the apparently male character was depicted on several comic book covers, including issues of "The New Avengers" and one "The Pulse" issue. Fan speculation was high, with the most common guess that Ronin was Matt Murdock; Bendis eventually revealed this to be the original intention despite initially denying that this was the case. However, "Avengers: The Ultimate Guide" revealed Ronin to be Maya Lopez weeks before the slightly delayed release of "The New Avengers" #13, where Ronin's true identity was belatedly revealed.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Maya Lopez was a young girl when her father Willie "Crazy Horse" Lincoln was killed by the Kingpin (Wilson Fisk). Crazy Horse dies, leaving a bloody handprint on Maya's face and a last dying wish: that the Kingpin raise Maya well. Kingpin honors his dying wish, caring for her as his own daughter. Believed to be mentally disabled, Maya is sent to an expensive school for people with learning disabilities. There, she manages to completely replicate a song on the piano. She is subsequently sent to another expensive school for prodigies.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Maya is sent by the Kingpin to prove Matt Murdock's weakness, telling her that Matt believes Fisk is a bad person and that she is the only way to prove him wrong. As Maya believes Fisk, it would not appear to be a lie when she tells Matt.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Murdock and Maya soon fall in love. She later takes on the "Echo" guise to hunt down Daredevil. On her face, she paints a white handprint, similar to the bloody handprint left by her dying father. Maya proves more than a match for Daredevil, having watched videos of Daredevil and Bullseye fighting. After several failed attempts, noticing that Daredevil can easily move through the dark, Maya easily figures out Daredevil's weakness and exploits this by having a fight in a place where Daredevil's heightened senses are useless. Maya easily takes down Daredevil and nearly kills the vigilante, refusing only when she finds out Matt and Daredevil are one and the same. Matt manages to expose the Kingpin's lies. In revenge, Maya confronts and shoots Fisk in the face, blinding Fisk and starting the chain of events that lead to the man's eventual downfall (Kingpin later partially recovered eyesight through reconstructive eye surgery).


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: After realizing the horror of her actions and the lies with which she has grown up, Maya flees the United States to do some soul-searching. When she comes back, she tries reuniting with Murdock, only to find out Matt is now with a blind woman and that the Kingpin is still alive (despite Maya's attempts). Leaving Matt, Maya visits the Kingpin in prison who tells her that she doesn't get blamed for what she did, and (that despite all that had happened) the Kingpin still loves her like a daughter. Unsatisfied and still needing peace, Maya turns to the Chief (her father's old friend) noted for wisdom. The Chief sends Maya on a vision quest to calm her soul. On her quest, she meets and befriends Wolverine who helps her recover and passes on knowledge of Japanese culture and Japanese organized crime. Soon enough, Maya makes peace with her past and is back doing performance art.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: After a recent identity crisis and feeling unable to join the New Avengers due to a refusal to tarnish the reputations of heroes by working alongside them, Maya dons a suit that conceals her identity as well as her gender and rechristens herself Ronin (Japanese for "wanderer", a class of masterless samurai).


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Daredevil recommends Maya to Captain America to aid the Avengers in seizing the Silver Samurai in Japan. After joining the Avengers, Maya returns to Japan to keep an eye on dangerous assassin Elektra Natchios rumored to be leading the Hand, check on the Silver Samurai from time to time, and hopefully solve the conflict between The Hand and Clan Yashida. Around the conclusion of the Civil War between the pro-registration and anti-registration factions in America, Maya fights Elektra and is killed, but is soon resurrected by the Hand with the same process used to raise Elektra. Maya is taken captive with the intent of turning her into an assassin for The Hand. Luke Cage, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Doctor Strange, Spider-Woman, Iron Fist, and the new Ronin rescue her and escape, leaving Elektra to furiously send the Hand after them. During a brief lull in the fight with the Hand in which Luke tries to negotiate with Elektra to buy time, it is revealed that the Hand has been successful in brainwashing Maya, as she subsequently stabs Dr. Strange with a sword given to her by one of the Hand. She continues to fight the New Avengers until Dr. Strange is able to release an astral form with Wong's help, and frees Maya from the brainwashing. Maya then charges straight for Elektra (who is fighting Luke) and stabs her, revealing that Elektra is a Skrull warrior in disguise. They return to New York, after Spider-Woman's apparent betrayal of stealing Elektra's Skrull impersonator's corpse. The Avengers hide in a hotel room (Strange's magic making it appear that Maya is the only person in the room) before returning to Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. Maya officially hands the Ronin identity over to Clint Barton after they arrive. After Strange confirms their identities by casting a spell that shows everyone their true nature - Maya appearing dressed in a female variation of Daredevil's costume - the team heads to Stark Tower to stop the Hood's attack on the building. There, they encounter the Mighty Avengers locked in battle with an army of invading symbiotes, one of which latches on to Maya before Iron Man manages to cure those infected.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Echo attempts to defend Rick Jones from Hiroim and Elloe of the Hulk's Warbound during their attack on the Sanctum Sanctorum to capture Doctor Strange. She, along with Iron Fist and Barton, is defeated and captured.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: During the Invaders' appearance in the present due to D'Spayre's manipulations acquiring a Cosmic Cube, Echo proved vital in defeating the villain as her deafness meant that D'Spayre was unable to manipulate her emotions.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: After the defeat of the Hood's criminal organization, Echo remains on the team as Doctor Strange departs to the astral plane to heal himself, setting up base in a building owned by Iron Fist's company but technically leased to Samuel Sterns for the year. After a brief run-in with a Skrull disguised as Daredevil, Barton admits being attracted to her, and the two sleep together.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Echo goes with the rest of the New Avengers to the Savage Land when a Skrull ship crash lands. When the ship opens, it reveals various superheroes in outdated outfits. Echo joins with the Mighty Avengers and New Avengers to fight the "old" heroes from the Skrull ship. The battle is then broken up by a dinosaur causing everyone to split up. Later, she encounters "Spider-Woman" who is actually the Skrull Queen and the force behind the Skrull Invasion. "Spider-Woman" incapacitates Echo by repeatedly blasting her with venom blasts and then slams her into a nearby tree trunk. Echo helps the other Avengers kill all the other Skrull impostors, then heads to New York and confronts an army of Super Skrulls along with various other heroes and villains. She is invited back to Captain America's apartment by Iron Fist but does not show up.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Following the reformation of the New Avengers during the "Heroic Age", Cage and Jessica Jones seek a nanny for their child; Echo is one of several respondents to the offer, but declines and then angrily asks if Cage even remembers that she used to be a member of the Avengers.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Echo appears in the fourth "Moon Knight" series, where she worked undercover in a strip club in L.A., until she blew the cover saving Marc Spector. Moon Knight later proposes that they join forces against the West Coast Kingpin, and invites her to dinner. Moon Knight is obviously attracted to Echo and it is suggested that Echo feels the same, despite punching Moon Knight in the face for kissing her. When she meets up with Moon Knight, they are attacked by the Night Shift. Although Echo and Moon Knight beat them, the police arrive, and attempt to apprehend the duo as well. Echo is killed by Count Nefaria, the man trying to be the new West Coast Kingpin.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Mysterious circumstances later lead to Maya's resurrection. During her first team-up with Daredevil since her return, she helps save New York from a sonic virus created by Klaw.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: During the "Enter the Phoenix" crossover, Echo is chosen by the Phoenix Force to participate in her tournament alongside many other heroes and villains to decide her next host. Along with the other champions, Echo is empowered by a spark of the Phoenix's cosmic fire and is pitted against Namor in an underwater match. Due to the vast disadvantage, Echo is soundly defeated by Namor, presumably eliminating her from the tournament and losing her portion of the Phoenix's power. However, despite her loss, Echo's despair and refusal to die draws the Phoenix to her, making her the new host of the entity. After taking the Phoenix's power from the remaining participants and brutally beating Namor as payback for her earlier defeat, Maya declares herself as the new Thunderbird and fully bonds with the entity. Maya is telepathically congratulated by the Phoenix's previous host, Jean Grey, who also gives her words of advice on controlling the entity's power.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Maya Lopez is an Olympic-level athlete possessing "photographic reflexes" or the uncanny ability to perfectly copy other people's movements, similar to that of the Taskmaster. Just by watching other people, she has become a concert-level pianist, a strong martial artist, a highly skilled acrobat, and a gifted ballerina (and on one occasion even piloted a Quinjet for a few minutes). In addition, she has also gained Daredevil's acrobatic abilities and Bullseye's uncanny aim after watching tapes of their fights. Along with great potential, deafness gives great drawbacks. Her absolute reliance on visual cues renders her helpless in the dark, and her ability to communicate by reading lips prevents her from taking oral commands and communicating with people who are wearing masks or are not in direct visual contact; when she initially meets the Avengers, Captain America has to repeat all of Iron Man's questions for her. However, she has been incorrectly depicted as being able to hear and respond to voices despite not seeing the person's mouth due to standing away from them or the person talking right behind her. It has since been established that Echo actually can read lips from some distance or with the corner of her eye even if the talker is wearing a mask if the mask is thin enough (as the rather simple fabric masks used by Clint Barton and Spider-Man), and relay their conversation to closer individuals. She still retains her inability to communicate with people wearing sturdier or thicker masks or fully covering their mouths.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: As Thunderbird, Maya gains the abilities offered to her as a host of the Phoenix Force, which includes telepathy, flight, superhuman strength, and the ability to generate flames of cosmic energy.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: According to Diamond Comic Distributors, "Phoenix Song: Echo" #1 was the 59th best selling comic book in October 2021.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Dustin Hilland of "CBR.com" called "Phoenix Song: Echo" #1 an "enthralling first issue that sets the stage for a thrilling and complex new series," stating, ""Phoenix Song: Echo" #1 introduces several sources of tension in Echo's life and hints at the beginnings of a few different confrontations of epic proportions. But this comic's strength lies in the intimidating and fascinating character that Roanhorse and Maresca are developing in Echo. Her struggle to maintain her identity while harnessing the power of the Phoenix Force seems to be propelling this series into new and exciting directions." Matthew Aguilar of "Comicbook.com" gave "Phoenix Song: Echo" #1 a grade of 3.5 out of 5, writing, "If Phoenix Song: Echo continues the momentum of this issue's second half and delivers on the promise it holds, we could have an amazing series on our hands. If it stays at the surface, it could still be enjoyable, but it won't come near to what it could be. Here's hoping the former is true because all of the elements are here for Phoenix Song: Echo to be something truly special."


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: An older Maya Lopez appears in the miniseries "", now retired from the Avengers and working as a college professor. She is later interviewed by Ben Urich for a story about Matt Murdock's death.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: In an alternate reality depicted in the 2021 miniseries "Heroes Reborn", Maya Lopez was empowered by the Phoenix Force and imprisoned in Ravencroft Asylum before Blade and Captain America break her out to help them restore their reality. She later recruits Thor to help them further before the Avengers confront the Squadron Supreme of America. After eventually defeating the Squadron, Lopez and Star Brand use their powers in conjunction with the Pandemonium Cube to restore reality to how it was previously.


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: The Ultimate Marvel version of Echo makes a cameo in "Ultimate Spider-Man" #122, appearing in a police station shouting "Who can you trust? WHO CAN YOU TRUST?!", referencing Brian Bendis' frequent use of the character in "New Avengers" and "Secret Invasion".


title: Echo (Marvel Comics)

text: Maya Lopez appears in "Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover", a prequel novel to the video game "Spider-Man". This version is raised to believe Spider-Man killed her father and plots with the Kingpin and Blood Spider to seek revenge. However, Spider-Man proves that Kingpin killed her father, which leads to her allying with Spider-Man. She provides evidence to incriminate the Kingpin, enabling a prosecution and leading into the video game's events.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East throughout much of the 8th and 7th centuries BC, becoming the largest empire in history up to that point. Because of its geopolitical dominance and ideology based in world domination, the Neo-Assyrian Empire is by many researchers regarded to have been the first world empire in history. At its height, the empire was the strongest military power in the world and ruled over all of Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt, as well as portions of Anatolia, Arabia and modern-day Iran and Armenia.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: The early Neo-Assyrian kings were chiefly concerned with restoring Assyrian control over much of northern Mesopotamia and Syria, since significant portions of the preceding Middle Assyrian Empire had been lost during a long period of decline. Under Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC), Assyria once more became the dominant power of the Near East, ruling the north undisputed. Ashurnasirpal's campaigns reached as far as the Mediterranean and he also oversaw the transfer of the imperial capital from the traditional city of Assur to the more centrally located Nimrud. The empire grew even more under Ashurnasirpal II's successor Shalmaneser III (859–824 BC), though it entered a period of stagnation after his death, referred to as the "age of the magnates". During this time, the chief wielders of political power were prominent generals and officials and central control was unusually weak. This age came to an end with the rule of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC), who re-asserted Assyrian royal power once again and more than doubled the size of the empire through wide-ranging conquests. His most notable conquests were Babylonia in the south and large parts of the Levant. Under the Sargonid dynasty, which ruled from 722 BC to the fall of the empire, Assyria reached its apex. Under the Sargonid king Sennacherib (705–681 BC), the capital was transferred to Nineveh and under Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) the empire reached its largest extent through the conquest of Egypt. Despite being at the peak of its power, the Neo-Assyrian Empire experienced a swift and violent fall in the late 7th century BC, destroyed by a Babylonian uprising and an invasion by the Medes. The causes behind how Assyria could be destroyed so quickly continue to be debated among scholars.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: The unprecedented success of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was not only due to the ability of Assyria to expand but also, and perhaps more importantly, its ability to efficiently incorporate conquered lands into its administrative system. As the first empire of its scale, the Neo-Assyrian Empire saw various military, civic and administrative innovations. In the military, important innovations included a large-scale use of cavalry and new siege warfare techniques. Techniques first adopted by the Neo-Assyrian army would be used in later warfare for millennia. To solve the issue of communicating over vast distances, the Neo-Assyrian Empire developed a sophisticated state communication system, using relay stations and well-maintained roads. The communication speed of official messages in the Neo-Assyrian Empire was not surpassed in the Middle East until the 19th century AD. The Neo-Assyrian Empire also made use of a resettlement policy, wherein some portions of the populations from conquered lands were resettled in the Assyrian heartland and in underdeveloped provinces. This policy served to both disintegrate local identities (making local regions less likely to revolt) and to introduce Assyrian-developed agricultural techniques to all parts of the empire. A consequence was the dilution of the cultural diversity of the Near East, forever changing the ethnolinguistic composition of the region and facilitating the rise of Aramaic as the regional lingua franca, a position the language retained until the 14th century AD.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: The Neo-Assyrian Empire left a legacy of great cultural significance. The political structures established by the Neo-Assyrian Empire became the model for the later empires that succeeded it and the ideology of universal rule promulgated by the Neo-Assyrian kings inspired, through the concept of , similar ideas of rights to world domination in later empires as late as the early modern period. The Neo-Assyrian Empire became an important part of later folklore and literary traditions in northern Mesopotamia through the subsequent post-imperial period and beyond. Judaism, and thus in turn also Christianity and Islam, was profoundly affected by the period of Neo-Assyrian rule; numerous Biblical stories appear to draw on earlier Assyrian mythology and history and the Assyrian impact on early Jewish theology was immense. Although the Neo-Assyrian Empire is prominently remembered today for the supposed excessive brutality of the Neo-Assyrian army, the Assyrians were not excessively brutal when compared to other civilizations of their time, nor when compared to other civilizations throughout human history.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Imperialism and the ambition of establishing a universal, all-encompassing empire was a long-established aspect of royal ideology in the ancient Near East prior to the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia ( 2900–2350 BC), the Sumerian rulers of the various city-states (the most prominent being Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Umma and Kish) in the region often fought with each other in order to establish small hegemonic empires and to gain a superior position relative to the other city-states. Eventually, these small conflicts evolved into a general ambition to achieve universal rule. Reaching a position of world domination was not seen as a wholly impossible task in this early time since Mesopotamia was believed to correspond to the entire world. One of the earliest Mesopotamian "world conquerors" was Lugalzaggesi, king of Uruk, who conquered all of Lower Mesopotamia in the 24th century BC. The first great Mesopotamian empire is generally regarded to have been the Akkadian Empire, founded 2334 BC by Sargon of Akkad.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Numerous imperialist states rose and fell in Mesopotamia and the rest of the Near East after the time of the Akkadian Empire. Most early empires and kingdoms, the Akkadian Empire included, were limited to some core territories, with most of their subjects only nominally recognizing the authority of the central government. Still, the general desire for universal rule dominated the royal ideologies of Mesopotamian kings for thousands of years, bolstered by the memory of the Akkadian Empire and exemplified in titles such as "king of the Universe" or "king of the Four Corners of the World". This desire was also manifested in the kings of Assyria, who ruled in what had once been the northern part of the Akkadian Empire. Assyria experienced its first period of ascendancy with the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BC, previously only having been a city-state centered around the city of Assur. From the time of the Assyrian king Adad-nirari I ( 1305–1274 BC) onwards, Assyria became one of the great powers of the ancient Near East and under Tukulti-Ninurta I ( 1243–1207 BC), the empire reached its greatest extent and became the dominant force in Mesopotamia, for a time even subjugating Babylonia in the south. After Tukulti-Ninurta's assassination, the Middle Assyrian Empire went into a long period of decline, becoming increasingly restricted to just the Assyrian heartland itself. Though this period of decline was broken up by Tiglath-Pileser I (1114–1076 BC), who once more expanded Assyrian power, his conquests overstretched Assyria and could not be maintained by his successors. The trend of decline was only substantially reversed in the reign of the last Middle Assyrian king, Ashur-dan II (934–912 BC) who campaigned in the northeast and northwest.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Through decades of military conquests, the early Neo-Assyrian kings worked to reverse the long age of Assyrian decline and retake the former lands of their empire. Though the Neo-Assyrian Empire has sometimes in the past been considered a completely new phenomenon only loosely connected to earlier Assyrian history, it is now considered more probable, due to evidence from royal inscriptions and the nature and extent of the campaigns undertaken, that the early Neo-Assyrian kings chiefly sought to re-establish the position of Assyria at the height of the Middle Assyrian Empire. Any notion of the two empires being distinct entities can also be dispelled through the line of kings being part of the same continuous family line. Another justification for expansion was casting the campaigns as wars of liberation, meant to liberate those Assyrians who no longer lived within Assyrian territory from their new foreign rulers; material evidence from numerous sites reconquered under the early Neo-Assyrian Empire demonstrate an endurance of Assyrian culture outside of the Assyrian borders during the decline of the Middle Assyrian Empire. The early Neo-Assyrian efforts at reconquest were mostly focused on the region up to the Khabur river in the west. One of the first conquests of Ashur-dan II had been Katmuḫu in this region, which he made a vassal kingdom rather than annexed outright; this suggests that the resources available to the early Neo-Assyrian kings were very limited and that the imperial project had to begin nearly from scratch. In this context, the successful expansion conducted under the early Neo-Assyrian kings was an extraordinary achievement. The initial phase of the Assyrian , beginning under Ashur-dan II near the end of the Middle Assyrian period and covering the reigns of the first two Neo-Assyrian kings, Adad-nirari II (911–891 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta II (890–884 BC), saw the slow beginning of this project. Ashur-dan's efforts mostly worked to pave the way for the more sustained work under Adad-nirari and Tukulti-Ninurta.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Among the conquests of Adad-nirari, the most strategically important campaigns were the wars directed to the southeast, beyond the Little Zab river. These lands had previously been under Babylonian rule. One of Adad-nirari's wars brought the Assyrian army as far south as the city of Der, close to the border of the southwestern kingdom of Elam. Though Adad-nirari did not manage to incorporate territories so far away from the Assyrian heartland into the empire, he secured the city of Arrapha (modern-day Kirkuk). Arrapha in later times served as the launching point of innumerable Assyrian campaigns toward lands in the east. A testament to Adad-nirari's power was that he managed to secure a border agreement with the Babylonian king Nabu-shuma-ukin I (900–887 BC), sealed through both kings marrying a daughter of the other. Adad-nirari also continued Ashur-dan's efforts in the west; in his wars, he defeated numerous small western kingdoms. Several small states, such as Guzana, were made into vassals and others, such as Nisibis, were placed under pro-Assyrian puppet-kings. After his successful wars in the region, Adad-nirari was able to go on a long march along the Khabur river and the Euphrates, collecting tribute from all the local rulers without being met with any military opposition. In addition to his wars, he also conducted important building projects; the city of Apku, located between Nineveh and Sinjar and destroyed around 1000 BC, was rebuilt and became an important administrative center.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Though he reigned only briefly, Adad-nirari's son Tukulti-Ninurta continued the policies of his father. In 885 BC, Tukulti-Ninurta repeated his father's march along the Euphrates and Khabur, though he went in the opposite direction, beginning in the south at Dur-Kurigalzu and then collecting tribute while he travelled north. Some of the southern cities that sent tribute to Tukulti-Ninurta during this march were historically more closely aligned with Babylon. In terms of military matters, Tukulti-Ninurta also fought against small states in the east, aimed to strengthen Assyrian control in this direction. Among the lands he defeated were Kirruri, Hubushkia and Gilzanu. In later times, Gilzanu often supplied Assyria with horses.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: The second phase of the Assyrian was initiated in the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta's son and successor Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC). Under his rule, Assyria rose to become the dominant political power in the Near East, though it would not yet achieve power comparable to that under its complete dominion in later centuries. In terms of personality, Ashurnasirpal was a complex figure; he was a relentless warrior and one of the most brutal kings in Assyrian history, but he also cared about the people, working to increase the prosperity and comfort of his subjects and being recorded as establishing extensive water reserves and food depots in times of crisis. As a result of the successful campaigns of his predecessors, Ashurnasirpal inherited an impressive amount of resources with which he could work to re-establish Assyrian dominance. Ashurnasirpal's first campaign, in 883 BC, was against the revolting cities of Suru and Tela along the northern portion of the Tigris river. At Tela he brutally repressed the citizens, among other punishments cutting off noses, ears, fingers and limbs, gouging out eyes and overseeing impalements and decapitations.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Ashurnasirpal's later campaigns included three wars against the kingdom of Zamua in the eastern Zagros Mountains, repeated campaigns against Nairi and Urartu in the north, and, most prominently, near continuous conflict with Aramean and Neo-Hittite kingdoms in the west. The Arameans and Neo-Hittites had by the time of Ashurnasirpal's rise to the throne evolved into well-organized kingdoms, possibly in response to pressure from Assyria. One of Ashurnasirpal's most persistent enemies was the Aramean king Ahuni, who ruled the city or region Bit Adini. Ahuni's forces broke through across the Khabur and Euphrates several times and it was only after years of war that he at last accepted Ashurnasirpal as his suzerain. Ahuni's defeat was highly important as it marked the first time since Ashur-bel-kala (1073–1056 BC), two centuries prior, that Assyrian forces had the opportunity to campaign further west than the Euphrates. Ashurnasirpal made use of this opportunity. In his ninth campaign, he marched to Lebanon and then to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Though few of them became formally incorporated into the empire at this point, many kingdoms on the way paid tribute to Ashurnasirpal to avoid being attacked, including Carchemish and Patina, as well as Phoenician cities such as Sidon, Byblos, Tyre and Arwad. Ashurnasirpal's royal inscriptions proudly proclaim that he and his army symbolically cleaned their weapons in the water of the Mediterranean.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Through the tribute and booty collected through the campaigns of his predecessors and his own wars, Ashurnasirpal financed several large-scale building projects at cities like Assur, Nineveh and Balawat. The most impressive and important project conducted was the restoration of the ruined town of Nimrud, located on the eastern bank of the Tigris in the Assyrian heartland. In 879 BC, Ashurnasirpal made Nimrud the new capital of the empire and employed thousands of workers to construct new fortifications, palaces and temples in the city. The construction of the new capital left Assur, still the empire's religious center, as a purely ceremonial city. In addition to enormous city walls 7.5 kilometers (4.6 miles) long, palaces, temples, royal offices and various residential buildings, Ashurnasirpal also established botanical gardens, filled with foreign plants brought back from his wide-ranging campaigns, and a zoo, perhaps the first large zoo ever constructed. Ashurnasirpal's inscriptions offer no motive for changing the capital. Various explanations have been proposed by modern scholars, including that he might have gotten disenchanted with Assur since there was little room left in the ancient capital to leave a mark, the important position of Nimrud in regard to local trade networks, that Nimrud was more centrally located in the empire, or that Ashurnasirpal hoped for greater independence from the influential great families of Assur. To celebrate the completion of his work in Nimrud in 864 BC, Ashurnasirpal hosted a grand celebration, which some scholars have described as perhaps the greatest party in world history; the event hosted 69,574 guests, including 16,000 citizens of the new capital and 5,000 foreign dignitaries, and lasted for ten days. Among the food and beverage used, Ashurnasirpal's inscriptions record 10,000 pigeons, 10,000 jugs of beer, and 10,000 skins of wine, among countless other items.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Ashurnasirpal's aggressive military politics were continued under his son Shalmaneser III (859–824 BC), whose reign saw a considerable expansion of Assyrian territory. In Shalmaneser's reign, the lands along the Khabur and Euphrates rivers in the west were consolidated under Assyrian control. Ahuni of Bit Adini resisted for several years, but he eventually surrendered to Shalmaneser in the winter of 857/856 BC. When Shalmaneser visited the city in the summer of the next year, he renamed it Kar-Salmanu‐ašared ("fortress of Shalmaneser"), settled a substantial number of Assyrians there, and made it the administrative center of a new province, placed under the (commander in chief). Shalmaneser also placed other powerful officials, so-called "magnates", in charge of other vulnerable provinces and regions of the empire. The most powerful and threatening enemy of Assyria at this point was Urartu in the north; following in the footsteps of the Assyrians, the Urartian administration, culture, writing system and religion closely followed those of Assyria. The Urartian kings were also autocrats highly similar to the Assyrian kings. The Assyrians also took some inspiration from Urartu. For instance, Assyrian irrigation technology and cavalry units, introduced by Shalmaneser, may have been derived from encounters with Urartu. The imperialist expansionism undertaken by the kings of both Urartu and Assyria led to frequent military clashes between the two, despite being separated by the Taurus Mountains. In 856 BC, Shalmaneser conducted one of the most ambitious military campaigns in Assyrian history, marching through mountainous territory to the source of the Euphrates and then attacking Urartu from the west. The Urartian king Arame was forced to flee as Shalmaneser's forces sacked the Urartian capital of Arzashkun, devastated the Urartian heartland, and then marched into what today is western Iran before returning to Arbela in Assyria.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Although Shalmaneser's impressive campaign against Urartu compelled many of the small states in northern Syria to pay tribute to him, he was unable to fully utilize the situation. In 853 BC, a massive coalition of western states assembled at Tell Qarqur in Syria to work together against Assyrian expansion. The coalition, included numerous kings of various peoples, including the earliest historically verifiable Israelite and Arab rulers, and was led by Hadadezer, the king of Aram-Damascus. Shalmaneser engaged the coalition in the same year that it was formed. Though Assyrian records claim that he scored a great victory at the subsequent Battle of Qarqar it is more likely that the battle was indecisive since no substantial political or territorial gains were achieved. After Qarqar, Shalmaneser focused much on the south and in 851–850 BC aided the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi I to defeat a revolt by his brother Marduk-bel-ushati. After defeating the rebel, Shalmaneser spent some time visiting cities in Babylon and further helping Marduk-zakir-shumi through fighting against the Chaldeans in the far south of Mesopotamia. As Babylonian culture was greatly appreciated in Assyria, Shalmaneser was proud of his alliance to the Babylonian king; a famous surviving piece of artwork shows the two rulers shaking hands. In the 840s and 830s BC, Shalmaneser again campaigned in Syria and succeeding in receiving tribute from numerous western states after the coalition against him collapsed with Hadadezer's death in 841 BC. Assyrian forces thrice tried to capture Damascus itself but were not successful. Shalmaneser's failed attempts to properly impose Assyrian rule in Syria was a result of his energetic campaigns overextending the empire too quickly. In the 830s BC, his armies reached into Cilicia in Anatolia and in 836 BC, Shalmaneser reached Ḫubušna (near modern-day Ereğli), one of the westernmost places ever reached by Assyrian forces. Though Shalmaneser's conquests were wide-ranging and inspired fear among the other kings of the Near East, he lacked the means to stabilize and consolidate his new lands and imperial control in many places remained shaky.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: In the latter years of Shalmaneser's reign, Urartu rose again as a powerful adversary. Though the Assyrians campaigned against them in 830 BC, they failed to fully neutralize the threat the restored kingdom posed. Unlike the vast majority of Assyrian campaigns, the 830 BC campaign against Urartu was not led by the king, but by the long-serving and prominent Dayyan-Assur, indicating not only that Shalmaneser might have been very old and no longer properly capable of being a strong leader but also that Dayyan-Assur had grown unprecedently powerful for an Assyrian official, otherwise rarely mentioned by name in documents. In later years, Dayyan-Assur led further campaigns on behalf of the kings. Shalmaneser's final years became preoccupied by an internal crisis when one of his sons, Ashur-danin-pal, rebelled in an attempt to seize the throne, possibly because the younger son Shamshi-Adad had been designated as heir instead of himself. When Shalmaneser died in 824 BC, Ashur-danin-pal was still in revolt, supported by a significant portion of the country, most notably including the former capital of Assur. Shamshi-Adad acceded to the throne as Shamshi-Adad V, perhaps initially a minor and a puppet of Dayyan-Assur. Though Dayyan-Assur died during the early stages of the civil war, Shamshi-Adad was eventually victorious, apparently due to help from the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi or his successor Marduk-balassu-iqbi.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Shamshi-Adad V's accession marked the beginning of a new age of Neo-Assyrian history, sometimes dubbed the "age of the magnates". This time was marked by the number of royal inscriptions being much smaller than in preceding and succeeding times and Assyrian magnates, such as Dayyan-Assur and other prominent generals and officials, being the dominant political actors, with the kings wielding significantly less power and influence. Though the consequences of this shift in power remain debated, the age of the magnates has often been characterized as a period of decline. Assyria endured through this timespan largely unscathed but there was little to no territorial expansion and central power grew unusually weak. Some developments were good for the longevity of the empire, since many magnates took the opportunity to develop stronger military and economic structures and institutions in their own lands throughout the empire. Shamshi-Adad's earliest campaigns were against a series of Urartian fortresses and western Iran and quite limited in scope. One of the campaigns was led by the chief eunuch (), a position created under Shamshi-Adad, and not the king himself. Most of Shamshi-Adad's early reign was relatively unsuccessful; the king's third campaign, against the small states in the Zagros Mountains regino, might have been an Assyrian defeat and many of the small kingdoms in northern Syria ceased to pay tribute to Assyria. In 817 or 816 BC, there was a rebellion against the king at Tillê, within the Assyrian heartland.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: From 815 BC onwards, Shamshi-Adad's luck changed. During the last few years of his reign he directed his efforts mainly against Marduk-balassu-iqbi in Babylonia. In 813 BC, he defeated Marduk-balassu-iqbi and brought him to Assyria as a captive. A year later he defeated Marduk-balassu-iqbi's successor Baba-aha-iddina and annexed several territories in northern Babylonia. Southern Mesopotamia was left in disarray after Shamshi-Adad's victories. Though Babylonia nominally came under Assyrian control, Shamshi-Adad took the ancient Babylonian title "king of Sumer and Akkad" but not the conventional "king of Babylon". Due to Assyria's perhaps somewhat weakened state he was unable to fully exploit the victory and the Babylonian throne remained unoccupied for several years.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Shamshi-Adad's son Adad-nirari III (811–783 BC) was probably very young at the time of his father's death in 811 BC and real political power during his early reign was probably wielded by the Nergal‐ila'i and by Adad-nirari's mother Shammuramat. Shammuramat was one of the most powerful women in Assyrian history and perhaps for a time served as co-regent; she is recorded to have partaken in a military campaign, the only ancient Assyriain woman known to have done so, against Kummuh in Syria and is credited in inscriptions alongside her son for expanding Assyrian territory, usually only a royal privilege. After Shammuramat's death, Adad-nirari continued to be dominated by other figures, such as the eunuch Nergal-eresh. Despite his limited sole authority, Adad-nirari's reign saw some military successes and Assyrian armies campaigned in western Iran at least thirteen times. The western territories, now more or less autonomous, were only attacked four times, though Adad-nirari managed to defeat Aram-Damascus. In 790 BC, Adad-nirari conducted the first Assyrian campaign against the Aramaic tribes now living in the Assyro-Babylonian border regions. In 787 BC, Adad-nirari appointed the new Shamshi-ilu. Shamshi-ilu would occupy this position for about 40 years and was for most of that time likely the most powerful political actor in Assyria.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: After Adad-nirari's death in 783 BC, three of his sons ruled in succession: Shalmaneser IV (783–773 BC), Ashur-dan III (773–755 BC) and Ashur-nirari V (755–745 BC). Their reigns collectively form what appears to be the low point of Assyrian royal power since a remarkably small number of royal inscriptions are known from them. In Shalmaneser IV's reign, Shamshi-ilu eventually grew bold enough to stop crediting the king at all in his inscriptions and instead claimed to act completely on his own, more openly flaunting his power. Probably under Shamshi-ilu's leadership, the Assyrian army began to mainly focus on Urartu. In 774 BC, Shamshi-ilu scored an important victory against Argishti I of Urartu, though Urartu was not decisively beaten. There was however some significant succeses in the west since Shamshi-ilu captured Damascus in 773 BC and secured tribute from the city to the king. Another official who acted with usually royal privileges in Shalmaneser's time was the palace herald Bel-harran-beli-usur, who founded a city, Dur-Bel-harran-beli-usur (named after himself), and claimed in a stele that it was he, and not the king, who had established tax exemptions for the city. Though little information survives concerning Ashur-dan III's reign, it is clear that it was particularly difficult. Much of his reign was spent putting down revolts. These revolts were perhaps the result of the plague epidemics sweeping Assyria and the Bur-Sagale solar eclipse on 15 June 763 BC; both the epidemics and the eclipse could have been interpreted by the Assyrian populace as the gods withdrawing their divine support for Ashur-dan's rule. Though Assyria stabilized again under Ashur-dan's brother Ashur-nirari V, he appears to have been relatively idle. Ashur-nirari campaigned in only three of the ten years of his reign and is not recorded to have conducted any construction projects. The influential Shamshi-ilu passed away at some point in Ashur-nirari's reign. Though the Assyrian army under Ashur-nirari was successful against Arpad in northewestern Syria in 754 BC, they were also beaten at an important battle against Sarduri II of Urartu.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: In 745 BC, Ashur-nirari was succeeded by Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC), probably another son of Adad-nirari III. The nature of Tiglath-Pileser's rise to throne is not clear and the surviving evidence is too scant to come to a certain conclusion. Several pieces of evidence, including that there was a revolt in Nimrud in 746/745 BC, that ancient Assyrian sources give conflicting information in regards to Tiglath-Pileser's lineage, and that Tiglath-Pileser in his inscriptions attributes his rise to the throne solely to divine selection rather than both divine selection and his royal ancestry (typically done by Assyrian kings), have typically been interpreted as indicating that he usurped the throne from Ashur-nirari. His accession, which is marked by a once more abundant number of sources, ushered in an entirely new era of Neo-Assyrian history. While the conquests of earlier kings were impressive, they contributed little to Assyria's full rise as a consolidated empire. Through campaigns aimed at conquest and not just extraction of seasonal tribute, as well as reforms meant to efficiently organize the army and centralize the realm, Tiglath-Pileser is by some regarded as the first true initiator of Assyria's "imperial" phase. Tiglath-Pileser is the earliest Assyrian king mentioned in the Babylonian Chronicles and the Hebrew Bible, and thus the earliest king for which there exists important outside perspectives on his reign.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Early on, Tiglath-Pileser reduced the influence of the previously powerful magnates, dividing their territories into smaller provinces under the rule of royally appointed provincial governors and withdrawing their right to commission official building inscriptions in their own names. Shamshi-ilu appears to have been subjected to a , as his name and tiles were erased from some of his inscriptions.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: During his 18-year reign, Tiglath-Pileser campaigned in all directions. Already in his first year as king, Tiglath-Pileser warred against the Babylonian king Nabonassar and conquered territories on the eastern side of the Tigris river. In the year after that, Tiglath-Pileser conducted a successful campaign in the region around the Zagros Mountains, where he created two new Assyrian provinces. In 743–739 BC, Tiglath-Pileser focused his attention on the still strong Urartu in the north and the ever unsubmissive cities of northern Syria. Campaigns against both targets proved to be resoundingly successful; in 743, Sarduri II of Urartu was defeated and nearly killed in battle and in 740, the strategically placed city of Arpad in Syria was conquered after a three-year long siege. With the nearest threats dealt with, Tiglath-Pileser began to focus on lands that had never been under solid Assyrian rule. In 738 BC, the Neo-Hittite states of Pattin and Hatarikka, and the Phoenician city of Sumur were conquered and in 734 BC, the Assyrian army marched through the Levant all the way to the Egyptian border, forcing several of the states on the way, such as Ammon, Edom, Moab and Judah, to pay tribute and become Assyrian vassals. In 732 BC, the Assyrians captured Damascus and much of Transjordan and Galilee. Tiglath-Pileser's conquests are, in addition to their extent, also noteworthy because of the large scale in which he undertook resettlement policies; he settled tens, if not hundreds, of thousand foreigners in both the Assyrian heartland and in far-away underdeveloped provinces.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Late in his reign, Tiglath-Pileser turned his eyes towards Babylon. For a long time, the political situation in the south had been highly volatile, with conflict between the traditional urban elites of the cities, Aramean tribes in the countryside and Chaldean warlords in the south. In 732 BC, the Chaldean warlord Nabu-mukin-zeri seized Babylon and became king, a development Tiglath-Pileser used as an excuse to invade Babylonia. In 729 BC, he succeeded in capturing Babylon and defeating Nabu-mukin-zeri and thus assumed the title "king of Babylon", alongside "king of Assyria". To increase the willingness of the Babyloninan populace to accept him as ruler, Tiglath-Pileser twice partook in the traditional Babylonian Akitu (New Year's) celebrations, held in honor of the Babylonian national deity Marduk. Control over Babylonia was secured through campaigns against the remaining Chaldean strongholds in the south. By the time of his death in 727 BC, Tiglath-Pileser had more than doubled the territory of the empire. Tiglath-Pileser's policy of direct rule rather than rule through vassal states brought important changes to the Assyrian state and its economy; rather than tribute, the empire grew more reliant on taxes collected by provincial governors, a development which increased administrative costs but also reduced the need for military intervention.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Tiglath-Pileser was succeeded by his son Ululayu, who took the regnal name Shalmaneser V (727–722 BC). Though little to no royal inscriptions and other sources survive from Shalmaneser's brief reign, the empire appears to have been largely stable under his rule. Shalmaneser managed to secure some lasting achievements; he was probably the Assyrian king responsible for conquering Samaria and thus bringing an end to the ancient Kingdom of Israel and he also appears to have annexed lands in northern Syria and Cilicia.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Shalmaneser was succeeded by Sargon II (722–705 BC), who in all likelihood was a usurper who deposed his predecessor in a palace coup. Like Tiglath-Pileser before him, Sargon in his inscriptions made no references to prior kings and instead ascribed his accession purely to divine selection. Though most scholars accept the claim made by the that Sargon was a son of Tiglath-Pileser and thus Shalmaneser's brother, he is not believed to have been the legitimate heir to the throne as next-in-line. It is also possible that he was wholly unconnected to the previous royal lineage, in which case Shalmaneser V would be the last king of the nearly thousand-year long Adaside dynasty. It is clear that Sargon's seizure of power, which marked the foundation of the Sargonid dynasty, led to considerable internal unrest. In his own inscriptions, Sargon claims to have deported 6,300 "guilty Assyrians", probably Assyrians from the heartland who opposed his accession. Several peripheral regions of the empire also revolted and regained their independence. The most significant of the revolts was the successful uprising of the Chaldean warlord Marduk-apla-iddina II, who took control of Babylon, restoring Babylonian independence, and allied with the Elamite king Ḫuban‐nikaš I.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Though Sargon tried early on to dislodge Marduk-apla-iddina, attacking Aramean tribes who supported Marduk-apla-iddina and marching out to fight the Elamites, his efforts were initially unsuccessful and in 720 BC the Elamites defeated Sargon's forces at Der. Sargon's early reign was more successful in the west. There, another movement, led by Yau-bi'di of Hamath and supported by Simirra, Damascus, Samaria and Arpad, also sought to regain independence and threatened to destroy the sophisticated provincial system imposed on the region under Tiglath-Pileser. While Sargon was campaigning in the east in 720 BC, his generals defeated Yau-bi'di and the others. Sargon continued to focus on both east and west, successfully warring against Šinuḫtu in Anatolia and Mannaya in western Iran. In 717 BC, Sargon retook the city of Carchemish and secured the city's substantial silver treasury. Perhaps it was the acquisition of these funds which inspired Sargon to in the same year begin the construction of another new capital of the empire, named Dur-Sharrukin ("Fort Sargon") after himself. Unlike Ashurnasirpal's project at Nimrud more than a century earlier, Sargon was not simply expanding an already existing city, but building a new one from scratch. Perhaps the motivating factor was that Sargon did not feel safe at Nimrud after the early conspiracies against him. As construction work progressed, Sargon continued to go on military campaigns, which ensured that Assyria's geopolitical dominance and influence expanded significantly in his reign. Just between 716 and 713, Sargon fought against Urartu, the Medes, Arab tribes, and Ionian pirates in the eastern Mediterranean. A significant victory was the 714 BC campaign against Urartu, in which the Urartian king Rusa I was defeated and much of the Urartian heartland was plundered.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: In 709 BC, Sargon won against seven kings in the land of Ia', in the district of Iadnana or Atnana. The land of Ia' is assumed to be the Assyrian name for Cyprus, and some scholars suggest that the latter may mean 'the islands of the Danaans', or Greece. There are other inscriptions referring to the land of Ia' in Sargon's palace at Khorsabad. Cyprus was thus absorbed into the Assyrian Empire, with the victory commemorated with a stele found near present-day Larnaca.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Late in his reign, Sargon again turned his attention to Babylon. The alliance between Babylon and Elam had at this point evaporated away. When Sargon marched south in 710 BC he encountered little resistance. After Marduk-apla-iddina fled to Dur-Yakin, the stronghold of his Chaldean tribe, the citizens of Babylon willingly opened the gates of Babylon to Sargon. The situation was somewhat uncertain until Sargon made peace with Marduk-apla-iddina after prolonged negotiations, which resulted in Marduk-apla-iddina and his family being given the right to escape to Elam in exchange for Sargon being allowed to dismantle the walls of Dur-Yakin. Between 710 and 707 BC, Sargon resided in Babylon, receiving foreign delegations there and participating in local traditions, such as the Akitu festival. Some later Assyrian kings, such as Sargon's son Sennacherib (705–681 BC) and grandson Esarhaddon (681–669 BC), found the extent of Sargon's pro-Babylonian leanings to be somewhat questionable. In 707 BC, Sargon returned to Nimrud and in 706 BC, Dur-Sharrukin was inaugurated as the empire's new capital. Sargon did not get to enjoy his new city for long; in 705 BC he embarked on his final campaign, directed against Tabal in Anatolia. To the shock of the Assyrians, Sargon was in this campaign killed in battle with the army being unable to recover his body.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Shocked and frightened by the manner of his father's death and its theological implications, Sargon's son Sennacherib distanced himself from him. Sennacherib never mentioned Sargon in his inscriptions and abandoned Dur-Sharrukin, instead moving the capital to Nineveh, previously the residence of the crown prince. One of the first building projects he undertook was restoring a temple dedicated to the death-god Nergal, likely due to worries concerning his father's fate. It was not only Sennacherib and the elites of Assyria who were unsettled by Sargon's death; the theological implications led some of the conquered regions around the imperial periphery to once more assert their independence. Most prominently, several of the vassal states in the Levant stopped paying tribute and Marduk-apla-iddina, deposed by Sargon, retook Babylon with the aid of the Elamites.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Sennacherib was thus faced with numerous enemies almost immediately upon his accession and it took years to defeat them all. In 704 BC, he sent the Assyrian army, led by officials rather than the king himself, to Anatolia to avenge Sargon's death and towards the end of the same year, he began warring against Marduk-apla-iddina in the south. After fighting against Babylonia for nearly two years, Sennacherib succeeded in recapturing Babylonia, though Marduk-apla-iddina fled to Elam once again, and Bel-ibni, a Babylonian noble who had been raised at the Assyrian court, was installed as vassal king of Babylon. In 701 BC, Sennacherib undertook the most famous campaign of his reign, invading the Levant to force the states there to pay tribute again. This conflict is the first Assyrian war to be recorded in great detail not only in Assyrian inscriptions but also in classical sources and in the Hebrew Bible. The Assyrian account diverges somewhat from the Biblical one; whereas the Assyrian inscriptions describes the campaign as a resounding success, in which tribute was regained, some states were annexed outright and Sennacherib even managed to stop Egyptian ambitions in the region, the Bible describes Sennacherib suffering a crushing defeat outside Jerusalem. Since Hezekiah, the king of Judah (who ruled Jerusalem), paid a heavy tribute to Sennacherib after the campaign, modern scholars consider it more likely that the Biblical account, motivated by theological concerns, is highly distorted and that Sennacherib succeeded in his goals of the campaign and re-imposed Assyrian authority in the region. However, the biblical account does include the fact the Hezekiah paid a very large tribute to Sennacherib; it was only the siege and the attempt to entirely absorb Judah that was reported as ending in failure, according to 2 Chronicles 32.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Bel-ibni's tenure as Babylonian vassal ruler did not last long and he was continually opposed by Marduk-apla-iddina and another Chaldean warlord, Mushezib-Marduk, who hoped to seize power for themselves. In 700 BC, Sennacherib invaded Babylonia again and drove Marduk-apla-iddina and Mushezib-Marduk away. Needing a vassal ruler with stronger authority, he placed his eldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi, on the throne of Babylon. For a few years, internal peace was restored and Sennacherib kept the army busy with a few minor campaigns. During this time, Sennacherib focused his attention mainly on building projects; between 699 and 695 BC he ambitiously rebuilt and renovated Nineveh, constructing among other works a new gigantic palace, the Southwest Palace, and a great 12 kilometer (7.5-mile) long and 25 meter (82 feet) tall wall. It is possible that a large park constructed near the Southwest Palace served as the inspiration for the later legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Sennacherib's choice of making Nineveh capital probably resulted not only from him having long lived in the city as crown prince, but also because of its ideal location, being an important point in the established road and trade systems and also located close to an important ford across the Tigris river.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: In 694 BC, Sennacherib invaded Elam, with the explicit goal to root out Marduk-apla-iddina and his supporters. Sennacherib sailed across the Persian Gulf with a fleet built by Phoenician and Greek shipwrights and captured and sacked countless Elamite cities. He never got his revenge on Marduk-apla-iddina, who died of natural causes before the Assyrian army landed, and the campaign instead significantly escalated the conflict with the anti-Assyrian faction in Babylonia and with the Elamites. The Elamite king Hallushu-Inshushinak took revenge on Sennacherib by marching on Babylonia while the Assyrians were busy in his lands. During this campaign, Ashur-nadin-shumi was captured through some means and taken to Elam, where he was probably executed. In his place, the Elamites and Babylonians crowned the Babylonian noble Nergal-ushezib as king of Babylon. Though Senacherib just a few months later defeated and captured Nergal-ushezib in battle, the war dragged on as the Chaldean warlord Mushezib-Marduk took control of Babylon late in 693 BC and assembled a large coalition of Chaldeans, Arameans, Arabs and Elamites to resist Assyrian retribution. After a series of battles, Sennacherib finally recaptured Babylon in 689 BC. Mushezib-Marduk was captured and Babylon was destroyed nearly completely in an effort to eradicate Babylonian political identity.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: The last years of Sennacherib's reign were relatively peaceful in the empire, but problems began to arise within the royal court itself. Though Sennacherib's next eldest son, Arda-Mulissu, had replaced Ashur-nadin-shumi as heir after the latter's death, around 684 BC the younger son Esarhaddon was proclaimed heir instead. Perhaps Sennacherib was influenced by Esarhaddon's mother Naqi'a, who in later times became increasingly prominent and powerful. Disappointed, Arda-Mulissu and his supporters pressured Sennacherib to reinstate him as heir. Though they succeeded in forcing Esarhaddon into exile in the west for his own protection, Sennacherib never accepted Arda-Mulissu as heir again. In late 681 BC, Arda-Mulissu killed his father in a temple in Nineveh. Because of the regicide, Arda-Mulissu lost some of his previous support and was unable to undergo a coronation before Esarhaddon returned with an army. A mere two months after Sennacherib was murdered, Esarhaddon captured Nineveh and became king, Arda-Mulissu and his supporters fleeing from the empire.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Esarhaddon sought to establish a new and lasting balance of power between the northern and southern parts of his empire. Thus, he rebuilt Babylon in the south, viewing Sennacherib's destruction of the city as excessively brutal, but also made sure not to neglect the temples and cults of Assyria. Esarhaddon was a deeply troubled man. As a result of his tumultuous rise to the throne he was deeply distrustful of his officials and family members; something which also had the side effect of an increased prominence of women in his reign, whom he trusted more. Esarhaddon's mother Naqi'a, his queen Esharra-hammat and his daughter Serua-eterat were all more powerful and prominent than most women in earlier Assyrian history. The king was also frequently ill and sickly and also appears to have suffered from depression, which intensified after the deaths of his queen and several of his children.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Despite his physical and mental health, Esarhaddon led many successful military campaigns, several of them farther away from the Assyrian heartland than those of any previous king. He defeated the Cimmerians who plagued the northwestern part of the empire, conquered the cities of Kundu and Sissû in Anatolia, and conquered the Phoenician city of Sidon, which was renamed Kar-Aššur‐aḫu‐iddina ("fortress of Esarhaddon"). After fighting the Medes in the Zagros Mountains, Esarhaddon campaigned further to the east than any king before him, reaching as far into modern-day Iran as Dasht-e Kavir, in the Assyrian conquest of Elam. Esarhaddon also invaded the eastern Arabian peninsula where he conquered a large number of cities, including Diḫranu (modern Dhahran).


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Esarhaddon's greatest military achievement was his 671 BC conquest of Egypt. He had tried to conquer Egypt already in 674 BC but had then been driven back. Through logistic support from various Arab tribes, the 671 BC invasion took a difficult route through central Sinai and took the Egyptian armies by surprise. After a series of three large battles against Pharaoh Taharqa, Esarhaddon captured Memphis, the Egyptian capital. Taharqa fled south to Nubia and Esarhaddon allowed most of the local governors to remain in place, though he left some of his representatives to oversee them. The conquest of Egypt not only placed a land of great cultural prestige under Esarhaddon's rule but also brought the Neo-Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Though he was among the most successful kings in Assyrian history, Esarhaddon faced numerous conspiracies against his rule, perhaps because the king suffering from illness could be seen as the gods withdrawing their divine support for his rule. Around the time of the Egyptian campaigns, there were at least three major insurgencies against Esarhaddon within the Assyrian heartland itself; in Nineveh, the chief eunuch Ashur-nasir was prophetized by a Babylonian hostage to replace Esarhaddon as king, a prophetess in Harran proclaimed that Esarhaddon and his lineage would be "destroyed" and that a usurper named Sasî would become king, and in Assur, the local governor instigated a plot after receiving a prophetic dream in which a child rose from a tomb and handed him a staff. Through a well-developed network of spies and informants, Esarhaddon uncovered all of these coup attempts and in 670 BC had a large number of high-ranking officials put to death. In 672 BC, Esarhaddon decreed that his younger son Ashurbanipal (669–631 BC) would succeed him in Assyria and that the older son Shamash-shum-ukin would rule Babylon. To ensure that the succession to the throne after his own death would go more smoothly than his own accession, Esarhaddon forced everyone in the empire, not only the prominent officials but also far-away vassal rulers and members of the royal family, to swear oaths of allegiance to the successors and respect the arrangement. When Esarhaddon died of an illness while on his way to campaign in Egypt once again in 669 BC, his mother Naqi'a also forced similar oaths of allegiance to Ashurbanipal, who became king without incident. One year later, Ashurbanipal oversaw Shamash-shum-ukin's inauguration as (largely ceremonial) king of Babylon.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Ashurbanipal is often regarded to have been the last great king of Assyria. His reign saw the last time Assyrian troops marched in all directions of the Near East. In 667 BC and 664 BC, Ashurbanipal invaded Egypt in the wake of anti-Assyrian uprisings; both Pharaoh Taharqa and his nephew Tantamani were defeated and Ashurbanipal captured the southern Egyptian capital of Thebes, from which enormous amounts of plundered booty was sent back to Assyria. In 664 BC, after a prolonged period of peace, the Elamite king Urtak launched a surprise invasion of Babylonia which renewed hostilities. After indecisive campaigns for ten years, the Elamite king Teumman was in 653 BC defeated, captured and executed in a battle by the Ulai river. Teumman's head was brought back to Nineveh and displayed for the public. Elam itself however remained undefeated and continued to work against Assyria for some time.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: One of the growing problems in Ashurbanipal's early reign were disagreements between Ashurbanipal and his older brother Shamash-shum-ukin. While Esarhaddon's documents suggest that Shamash-shum-ukin was intended to inherit all of Babylonia, it appears that he only controlled the immediate vicinity of Babylon itself since numerous other Babylonian cities apparently ignored him and considered Ashurbanipal to be their king. Over time, it seems that Shamash-shum-ukin grew to resent his brother's overbearing control and in 652 BC, with the aid of several Elamite kings, he revolted. The war ended disastrously for Shamash-shum-ukin; in 648 BC, Ashurbanipal captured Babylon after a long siege and devastated the city. Shamash-shum-ukin might have died by setting himself on fire in his palace. Ashurbanipal replaced him as king of Babylon with the puppet ruler Kandalanu and then marched on Elam. The Elamite capital of Susa was captured and devastated and large numbers of Elamite prisoners were brought to Nineveh, tortured and humiliated. Ashurbanipal chose to not annex and integrate Elam into the Neo-Assyrian Empire, instead leaving it open and undefended. In the following decades, the Persians would migrate into the region and rebuild the ruined Elamite strongholds for their own use.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Though Ashurbanipal's inscriptions present Assyria as an uncontested and divinely supported hegemon over all the world, cracks were starting to form in the empire during his reign. At some point after 656 BC, the empire lost control of Egypt, which instead fell into the hands of the Pharaoh Psamtik I, founder of Egypt's twenty-sixth dynasty. Egyptian independence was achieved only slowly and relations remained peaceful; Psamtik was originally granted Egypt as a vassal by Ashurbanipal and with the Assyrian army occupied elsewhere, the region slowly receded from Ashurbanipal's grasp. Ashurbanipal went on numerous campaigns against various Arab tribes which failed to consolidate rule over their lands and wasted Assyrian resources. Perhaps most importantly, his devastation of Babylon after defeating Shamash-shum-ukin fanned anti-Assyrian sentiments in southern Mesopotamia, which soon after his death would have disastrous consequences. Ashurbanipal's reign also appears to have seen a growing disconnect between the king and the traditional elite of the empire; eunuchs grew unprecedently powerful in his time, being granted large tracts of lands and numerous tax exemptions.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: After Ashurbanipal's death in 631 BC, the throne was inherited by his son Ashur-etil-ilani. Though some historians have forwarded the idea that Ashur-etil-ilani was a minor upon his accession, this is unlikely given that he is attested to have had children during his brief reign. Ashur-etil-ilani, despite being his father's legitimate successor, appears to only have been installed against considerable opposition with the aid of the chief eunuch Sin-shumu-lishir. An Assyrian official by the name of Nabu-rihtu-usur appears to have attempted to usurp the throne but his conspiracy was swiftly crushed by Sin-shumu-lishir. Since excavated ruins at Nineveh from around the time of Ashurbanipal's death show evidence of fire damage, the plot might have resulted in violence and unrest within the capital itself. In comparison to his predecessors, Ashur-etil-ilani appears to have been a relatively idle ruler; no records of any military campaigns are known and his palace at Nimrud was much smaller than that of previous kings. It is possible that the government was more or less entirely run by Sin-shumu-lishir throughout his reign. After a reign of only four years, Ashur-etil-ilani died in unclear circumstances in 627 BC and was succeeded by his brother Sinsharishkun. It has historically frequently been assumed, without any supporting evidence, that Sinsharishkun fought with Ashur-etil-ilani for the throne. Although the exact circumstances of Ashur-etil-ilani's death are unknown, there is no evidence to suggest Sinsharishkun gaining the throne through any other means than legitimate inheritance after his brother's sudden death.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Sinsharishkun's accession did not go unchallenged. Immediately upon his rise to the throne, Sin-shumu-lishir rebelled and attempted to claim the throne for himself, despite the lack of any genealogical claim and as the only eunuch to ever do so in Assyrian history. Sin-shumu-lishir successfully seized several prominent cities in Babylonia, including Nippur and Babylon itself, but was defeated by Sinsharishkun after three months. This victory did little to alleviate Sinsharishkun's problems. Also dying in 627 BC was the long-reigning Babylonian vassal king Kandalanu. The swift regime changes and internal unrest bolstered Babylonian hopes to shake off Assyrian rule and regain independence, a movement which swiftly proclaimed Nabopolassar, probably a member of a prominent political family in Uruk, as its leader. Some months after Sin-shumu-lishir's defeat, Nabopolassar and his allies captured both Nippur and Babylon, though the Assyrian response was swift and Nippur was recaptured in October 626 BC. Sinsharishkun's attempts to retake Babylon and Uruk were unsuccessful, however, and in the aftermath Nabopolassar was formally invested as king of Babylon on November 22/23 626 BC, restoring Babylonia as an independent kingdom.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: In the years that followed Nabopolassar's coronation, Babylonia became a brutal battleground between Assyrian and Babylonian armies. Though cities often repeatedly changed hands, the Babylonians slowly but surely pushed Sinsharishkun's armies out of the south. Under Sinsharishkun's personal leadership, the Assyrian campaigns against Nabopolassar initially looked to be successful: in 625 BC, Sippar was retaken and Nabopolassar failed to take Nippur, in 623 BC the Assyrians recaptured Nabopolassar's ancestral home city Uruk. Sinsharishkun might ultimately have been victorious had it not been for a usurper, whose name is not known, from the empire's western territories rebelling in 622 BC, marching on Nineveh and seizing the capital. Though this usurper was defeated by Sinsharishkun after just 100 days, the absence of the Assyrian army allowed Nabopolassar's forces to capture all of Babylonia in 622–620 BC. Despite this loss, there was little reason for the Assyrians to suspect that Nabopolassar's consolidation of Babylonia was a significant event and not simply a temporary inconvenience; in previous Babylonian uprisings the Babylonians had at times gained the upper hand temporarily.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: More alarming was Nabopolassar's first forays into the Assyrian heartland in 616 BC, which amounted to capturing some border cities and defeating local Assyrian garrisons. The Assyrian heartland had not been invaded for five hundred years and the event illustrated that the situation was dire enough for Sinsharishkun's closest ally, Psamtik I of Egypt to enter the conflict on Assyria's side. Psamtik was probably primarily interested in Assyria remaining as a buffer between his own growing empire and the Babylonians and other powers in the east. In May 615 BC, Nabopolassar assaulted Assur, still the religious and ceremonial center of Assyria and by now the empire's southernmost remaining city. Sinsharishkun succeeded in defeating Nabopolassar's assault and, for a time, saving the old city. It is doubtful that Nabopolassar would ever have achieved a lasting victory without the entrance of the Median Empire into the conflict. Long fragmented into several tribes and often targets of Assyrian military campaigns, the Medes had been united under the king Cyaxares. In late 615 BC or in 614 BC, Cyaxares and his army entered Assyria and conquered the region around the city of Arrapha in preparation for a campaign against Sinsharishkun. Although there are plenty of earlier sources discussing Assyro-Median relations, none are preserved from the period leading up to Cyaxares's invasion and as such, the political context and reasons for the sudden attack are not known. Perhaps, the war between Babylonia and Assyria had disrupted the economy of the Medes and inspired a direct intervention. In July or August of 614 BC, the Medes mounted attacks on both Nimrud and Nineveh and captured Assur, leading to the ancient city being brutally plundered and its inhabitants being massacred. Nabopolassar arrived at Assur after the sack and upon his arrival met and allied with Cyaxares. The fall of Assur must have been devastating for Assyrian morale. Just two years later in 612 BC, after a siege lasting two months, the Medes and Babylonians captured Nineveh, Sinsharishkun dying in the city's defense. The capture of the city was followed by extensive looting and destruction and effectively meant the end of the Assyrian Empire.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: After the fall of Nineveh, an Assyrian general and prince, possibly Sinsharishkun's son, led the remnants of the Assyrian army and established himself at Harran in the west. The prince chose the regnal name Ashur-uballit II, likely a highly conscious choice since its etymology ("Ashur has kept alive") suggested that Assyria would ultimately be victorious and since it evoked the name of Ashur-uballit I, the 14th-century BC Assyrian ruler who had been the first to adopt the title ("king"). Due to the loss of Assur, Ashur-uballit could not undergo the traditional Assyrian coronation ritual and as such formally ruled under the title of "crown prince", though Babylonian documents considered him to be the new Assyrian king. Ashur-uballit's rule at Harran lasted until late 610 BC or early 609 BC, when the city was captured by the Babylonians and the Medes. Three months later, an attempt by Ashur-uballit and the Egyptians to retake the city failed disastrously and Ashur-uballit disappears from the sources, his ultimate fate unknown. The remnants of the Assyrian army continued to fight alongside the Egyptian forces against the Babylonians until a crushing defeat at Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC. Though Assyrian culture endured through the subsequent post-imperial period of Assyrian history and beyond, Ashur-uballit's final defeat at Harran in 609 BC marked the end of the ancient line of Assyrian kings and of Assyria as a state.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: The fall of Assyria was swift, dramatic and unexpected; still today modern scholars continue to grapple with what factors caused the empire's quick and violent downfall. One commonly cited possible explanation is the unrest and the civil wars that immediately preceded Nabopolassar's rise. Such civil conflict could have caused a crisis of legitimacy, and the members of the Assyrian elite may have felt increasingly disconnected from the Assyrian king. However, there is as mentioned no evidence that Ashur-etil-ilani and Sinsharishkun warred with each other, and other uprisings of Assyrian officials (the unrest upon Ashur-etil-ilani's accession, the rebellion of Sin-shumu-lishir, and the capture of Nineveh by a usurper in 622 BC) were dealt with relatively quickly. Protracted civil war is thus unlikely to have been the reason for the empire's fall.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Another proposed explanation was that Assyrian rule suffered from serious structural vulnerabilities; most importantly, Assyria appears to have had little to offer the regions it conquered other than order and freedom from strife; conquered lands were mostly kept in line through fear and terror, alienating local peoples. As such, people outside of the Assyrian heartland may have had little reason to remain loyal when the empire came under attack. Further explanations may lie in the actions and policies of the late Assyrian kings themselves. Under Esarhaddon's reign, many experienced and capable officials and generals had been killed as the result of the king's paranoia and under Ashurbanipal, many had lost their positions to eunuchs. Some historians have further deemed Ashurbanipal to have been an "irresponsible and self-indulgent king" since he at one point appointed his chief musician the name of the year. Though it would be easy to place the blame on Sinsharishkun, there is no evidence to suggest that he was an incompetent ruler. No defensive plan existed for the Assyrian heartland since it had not been invaded for centuries and Sinsharishkun was a capable military leader using well-established Mesopotamian military tactics. In a normal war, Sinsharishkun could have been victorious but he was wholly unprepared to go on the defensive against an enemy that was both numerically superior and that aimed to destroy his country rather than conquer it.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Yet another possible factor was environmental issues. The massive rise in population in the Assyrian heartland during the height of the Neo-Assyrian Empire might have led to a period of severe drought that affected Assyria to a much larger extent than nearby territories such as Babylonia. It is impossible to determine the severity of such demographic and climate-related effects.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: A large reason for Assyrian collapse was the failure to resolve the "Babylonian problem" which had plagued Assyrian kings since Assyria first conquered southern Mesopotamia. Despite the many attempts of the kings of the Sargonid dynasty to resolve the constant rebellions in the south in a variety of different ways; Sennacherib's destruction of Babylon and Esarhaddon's restoration of it, rebellions and insurrections remained common. This is despite Babylon for the most part being treated more leniently than other conquered regions. Babylonia was for instance not annexed directly into Assyria but preserved as a full kingdom, either ruled by an appointed client king or by the Assyrian king in a personal union. Despite the privileges the Assyrians saw themselves as extending to the Babylonians, Babylon refused to be passive in political matters, likely because the Babylonians might have seen the Assyrian kings, who only sometimes visited the city, as failing to undertake the traditional religious duties of the Babylonian kings. The strong appreciation of Babylonian culture in Assyria sometimes turned to hatred, which led to Babylon suffering several brutal acts of retribution from Assyrian kings after revolts. Nabopolassar's revolt was the last in a long line of Babylonian uprisings against the Assyrians and Sinsharishkun's failure to stop it, despite trying for years, doomed his empire. Despite all of these simultaneous factors, it is possible that the empire could have survived if the unexpected alliance between the Babylonians and Medes had not been sealed.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: In documents describing coronations of Assyrian kings from both the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods, it is specifically recorded that the king was commanded by Ashur, the Assyrian national deity, to "broaden the land of Ashur" and "extend the land at his feet". The Assyrians saw their empire as being the part of the world overseen and administered by Ashur, through his human agents. In their ideology, the outer realm outside of Assyria was characterized by chaos and the people there were uncivilized, with unfamiliar cultural practices and strange languages. The terrain was also unfamiliar and included environments not found in Assyria itself, such as seas, vast mountain ranges and giant deserts. The mere existence of the "outer realm" was regarded as a threat to the cosmic order within Assyria and as such, it was the king's duty to expand the realm of Ashur and incorporate these strange lands, converting chaos to civilization.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: The position of the king above all others was regarded as natural in ancient Assyria since he, though not divine himself, was seen as the divinely appointed representative of the god Ashur on earth. His power thus derived from his unique position among humanity and his obligation to extend Assyria to eventually cover the whole world was cast as a moral, humane and necessary duty rather than exploitative imperialism. Though their power was nearly limitless, the kings were not free from tradition and their obligations. The kings were obliged to campaign once a year to bring Ashur's rule and civilization to the "four corners of the world", if a king did not set out to campaign, their legitimacy was severely undermined. Campaigns were usually justified through an enemy having made some sort of (real or fabricated) affront against Ashur. The overwhelming force of the Assyrian army was used to instill the idea that it was invincible, thus further legitimizing the Assyrian king's rule. The king was also responsible for performing various rituals in support of the cult of Ashur and the Assyrian priesthood.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Because the rule and actions of the Assyrian king were seen as divinely sanctioned, resistance to Assyrian sovereignty in times of war was regarded to be resistance against divine will, which deserved punishment. Peoples and polities who revolted against Assyria were seen as criminals against the divine world order.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: The legitimacy of the Assyrian king hinged on acceptance among the imperial elite, and to a lesser extent the wider populace, of the idea that the king was both divinely chosen by Ashur and uniquely qualified for his position. There were various methods of legitimization employed by the Neo-Assyrian kings and their royal courts. One of the common methods, which appears to be a new innovation of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, was the manipulation and codifying of the king's own personal history in the form of annals. This genre of texts are believed to have been created to support the king's legitimacy through recording events of their reign, particularly their military exploits. The annals were copied by scribes and then disseminated throughout the empire for propagandistic purposes, adding to the perception of the king's power. In many cases, historical information was also inscribed on temples and other buildings. Kings also made use of genealogical legitimacy. Real (and in some cases perhaps fabricated) connections to past royalty established both uniqueness and authenticity since it established the monarch as a descendant of great ancestors who on Ashur's behalf were responsible for creating and expanding civilization. Nearly all Neo-Assyrian kings highlighted their royal lineage in their inscriptions. Genealogical qualification presented a problem for usurpers who did not belong to the direct genealogical lineage. The two Neo-Assyrian kings generally believed to have been usurpers, Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II, did for the most part not mention genealogical connections in their inscriptions but instead relied on direct divine appointment. Both of these kings claimed in several of their inscriptions that Ashur had "called my name" or "placed me on the throne".


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: The queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire were titled , which could be abbreviated to , both terms meaning "Woman of the Palace". The feminine version of the word for "king" () was , but this term was only applied to goddesses and queens of foreign nations who ruled in their own right. Since the Assyrian consorts did not rule themselves, the Assyrians did not refer to them as . The difference in terminology does not necessarily mean that foreign queens, who often governed significantly smaller territories than the Neo-Assyrian Empire, were seen as having a higher status than the Assyrian queens. A frequently used symbol, apparently the royal symbol of the queens themselves, that was used in documents and on objects to designate the queens was a scorpion.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Though the queens, like all other female and male members of the royal court, ultimately derived their power and influence from their association with the king, they were not pawns without political power. The queens had their own say in financial affairs and while they ideally were supposed to produce an heir to the throne, they also had several other duties and responsibilities, often in very high levels of the government. The queens were involved in the arrangement of religious activities, dedicated gifts to the gods, and supported temples financially. They were in charge of their own often considerable financial resources, evidenced not only by surviving texts concerning their household and activities but also the treasures uncovered in the Queens' tombs at Nimrud. Under the Sargonid dynasty, military units subservient to the queen were created. Such units were not just an honor guard for the queen, but included commanders, cohorts of infantry and chariots and are sometimes known to have partaken alongside other units in military campaigns.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Perhaps the most powerful of the Neo-Assyrian queens was Shammuramat, queen of Shamshi-Adad V, who might have ruled as regent in the early reign of her son Adad-nirari III and participated in military campaigns. Also powerful was Esarhaddon's mother Naqi'a, though whether she held the status of queen is not certain. Naqi'a is the best documented woman of the Neo-Assyrian period, and was perhaps the most influential woman in Assyrian history, influencing politics in the reigns of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: The unprecedented success of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was not only due to the ability of Assyria to expand but also, and perhaps more importantly, its ability to efficiently incorporate conquered lands into its administrative system. It is clear that there was a strong sense of order in the Neo-Assyrian mindset, so much so that the Neo-Assyrians have sometimes been referred to as the "Prussians of the ancient Near East". This sense of order manifested in various parts of Neo-Assyrian society, including the more square and regular shape of the characters in Neo-Assyrian writing and in the organized administration of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which was divided into a set of provinces. The idea of imposing order by creating well-organized hierarchies of power was part of the justifications used by Neo-Assyrian kings for their expansionism: in one of his inscriptions, Sargon II explicitly pointed out that some of the Arab tribes he had defeated had previously "known no overseer or commander".


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: In Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions, the creation of new provinces was usually expressed by writing "I annexed the land (into) the Assyrian border" () or "I re-organized" (). When lands were added to an existing province, this was usually expressed as "I added (the land) to the province X" (). At the top of the provincial administration was the provincial governor ( or ). Second-in-command was probably the (translated as "deputy" by modern historians, the title literally means "second") and at the bottom of the hierarchy were village managers (), in charge of one or more villages or other settlements with the primary duty to collect taxes in the form of labor and goods. Provincial governors were directly responsible for various aspects of provincial administration, including construction, taxation and security. Security concerns were often mostly relevant only in the frontier provinces, whose governors were also responsible for gathering intelligence about enemies across the border. To this end, a vast network of informants or spies () were employed to keep officials informed of events and developments in foreign lands.


title: Neo-Assyrian Empire

text: Provincial governors were also responsible for supplying offerings to temples, in particular to the temple of Ashur in Assur. This channeling of revenues from across the empire was not only meant as a method to collect profit but also as a way to connect the elites across the empire to the religious institutions in the Assyrian heartland. The royal administration kept close watch of institutions and individual officials across the empire through a system of officials responsible directly to the king, called (usually translated as "royal delegates"). Control was maintained locally through regularly deploying low-ranking officials to the smaller settlements, i.e. villages and towns, of the empire. Corvée officers () kept tallies on the labor performed by forced laborers and the remaining time owed and village managers kept provincial administrators informed of the conditions of the settlements in their provinces. As the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew and time went on, a number of its foreign subject peoples became incorporated into the Assyrian administration, with more and more high officials in the later times of the empire being of non-Assyrian origin.