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Assyria was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC, then to a territorial state, and eventually an empire from the 14th century BC to the 7th century BC.
Chaldea was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BC, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia. Semitic-speaking, it was located in the marshy land of the far southeastern corner of Mesopotamia and briefly came to rule Babylon. The Hebrew Bible uses the term כשדים (Kaśdim) and this is translated as Chaldaeans in the Greek Old Testament, although there is some dispute as to whether Kasdim in fact means Chaldean or refers to the south Mesopotamian Kaldu.
The 7th century BC began the first day of 700 BC and ended the last day of 601 BC.
Nebuchadnezzar II, also spelled Nebuchadrezzar II, was the second Neo-Babylonian emperor, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Historically known as Nebuchadnezzar the Great, he is typically regarded as the empire's greatest king. Nebuchadnezzar remains famous for his military campaigns in the Levant, for his construction projects in his capital, Babylon, including the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and for the role he plays in Jewish history. Ruling for 43 years, Nebuchadnezzar was the longest-reigning king of the Babylonian dynasty. By the time of his death, he was among the most powerful rulers in the world.
Nabopolassar was the founder and first king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from his coronation as king of Babylon in 626 BC to his death in 605 BC. Though initially only aimed at restoring and securing the independence of Babylonia, Nabopolassar's uprising against the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which had ruled Babylonia for more than a century, eventually led to the complete destruction of the Assyrian Empire and the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in its place.
The Battle of Carchemish was fought around 605 BC between the armies of Egypt allied with the remnants of the army of the former Assyrian Empire against the armies of Babylonia, allied with the Medes, Persians, and Scythians. This was while Nebuchadnezzar was commander-in-chief and Nabopolassar was still king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar became king right after this battle.
Sîn-šar-iškun was the penultimate king of Assyria, reigning from the death of his brother and predecessor Aššur-etil-ilāni in 627 BC to his own death at the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC.
Cyaxares was the third king of the Medes.
The Battle of Nineveh is conventionally dated between 613 and 611 BC, with 612 BC being the most supported date. Rebelling against the Assyrians, an allied army which combined the forces of Medes and the Babylonians besieged Nineveh and sacked 750 hectares of what was, at that time, one of the greatest cities in the world. The fall of Nineveh led to the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire over the next three years as the dominant state in the Ancient Near East. Archeological records show that the capital of the once mighty Assyrian Empire was extensively de-urbanized and depopulated in the decades and centuries following the battle. A garbled account of the fall of the city later led to the story of the legendary king Sardanapalus.
Athura, also called Assyria, was a geographical area within the Achaemenid Empire in Upper Mesopotamia from 539 to 330 BC as a military protectorate state. Although sometimes regarded as a satrapy, Achaemenid royal inscriptions list it as a dahyu, a concept generally interpreted as meaning either a group of people or both a country and its people, without any administrative implication.
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. 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. It influenced other empires of the ancient world culturally, governmentally, and militarily, including the Babylonians, the Achaemenids, and the Seleucids. 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 parts of Anatolia, Arabia and modern-day Iran and Armenia.
The Fall of Assur occurred when the first city and old capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire fell to Median, Babylonian, and other rebellion-led forces. The sack of the city that followed destroyed the city to some degree; however, it recovered during the Achaemenid Empire. The city remained occupied by Assyrians until the massacres of Tamurlane in the 14th century AD.
Aššur-uballiṭ II, also spelled Assur-uballit II and Ashuruballit II, was the final ruler of Assyria, ruling from his predecessor Sîn-šar-iškun's death at the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC to his own defeat at Harran in 609 BC. He was possibly the son of Sîn-šar-iškun and likely the same person as a crown prince mentioned in inscriptions at the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 626 and 623 BC.
The Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire was the last war fought by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, between 626 and 609 BC. Succeeding his brother Ashur-etil-ilani, the new king of Assyria, Sinsharishkun, immediately faced the revolt of one of his brother's chief generals, Sin-shumu-lishir, who attempted to usurp the throne for himself. Though this threat was dealt with relatively quickly, the instability caused by the brief civil war may have made it possible for another official or general, Nabopolassar, to rise up and seize power in Babylonia. Sinsharishkun's inability to defeat Nabopolassar, despite repeated attempts over the course of several years, allowed Nabopolassar to consolidate power and form the Neo-Babylonian Empire, restoring Babylonian independence after more than a century of Assyrian rule. The Neo-Babylonian Empire, and the newly-formed Median Empire under King Cyaxares, then invaded the Assyrian heartland. In 614 BC, the Medes captured and sacked Assur, the ceremonial and religious heart of the Assyrian Empire, and in 612 BC, their combined armies attacked and razed Nineveh, the Assyrian capital. Sinsharishkun's fate is unknown but it is assumed that he died in the defense of his capital. He was succeeded as king only by Ashur-uballit II, possibly his son, who rallied what remained of the Assyrian army at the city of Harran and, bolstered by an alliance with Egypt, ruled for three years, in a last attempt to resist the Medo-Babylonian invasion of his realm.
After the death of Assurbanipal in 631 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire entered a period of instability. This was the moment when the Babylonian ruler, Nabopolassar, led a revolt against Assyrian rule. After a few years of war, the Babylonians expelled the Assyrian forces from their territory.
After the death of Assurbanipal in 627 BC, the Neo-Assyrian empire entered a period of instability caused by fighting between Sin-shar-ishkun and his brother Assur-etil-ilani. In 626 BC, Nabopolassar, the Babylonian ruler revolted against the Assyrians. After a few years of war, the Babylonians expelled the Assyrian forces from their territory. However, Nabopolassar could not bring the fight to the heartland of the Assyrian empire. The situation changed drastically in 616 BC, when the Medes attacked the Assyrian empire. The fall of Tarbiṣu occurred when the Median army, led by Cyaxares, attacked and conquered the city. In the aftermath, the Medes went further and decisively defeated the Assyrians at the battle of Assur.
The Assyrian conquest of Egypt covered a relatively short period of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 673 to 663 BCE. The conquest of Egypt not only placed a land of great cultural prestige under Assyrian rule but also brought the Neo-Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent.
The Siege of Kimuhu is a siege launched by the Egyptian army led by Necho II on the city of Kimukho east of the Euphrates River, where the Egyptian army besieged the city for four months, and the siege ended with the surrender of the Babylonian garrison and the city under Egyptian control.
The post-imperial period was the final stage of ancient Assyrian history, covering the history of the Assyrian heartland from the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 609 BC to the final sack and destruction of Assur, Assyria's ancient religious capital, by the Sasanian Empire c. AD 240–250, though Assyria was to endure as the geopolitical entity of Asoristan until the mid 7th century AD. There was no single independent Assyrian state during this time, with Assur and other Assyrian cities instead falling under the control of the successive Median, Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian empires. The period was marked by the continuance of ancient Assyrian culture, traditions and religion, despite the lack of an Assyrian kingdom. The ancient Assyrian dialect of the Akkadian language went extinct however, completely replaced by Aramaic by the 5th century BC, a process that had begun during the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
Samerina was the province of the Neo-Assyrian Empire established following the c. 722 BCE Assyrian conquest of Samaria by Shalmaneser V, which resulted in the dissolution of the Kingdom of Israel and annexation of Samaria into the empire as a full imperial province administered by a governor.
References
- ↑ Lipschitz, Oded (2005). The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah Under Babylonian Rule. Eisenbrauns. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-57506-095-8.
- ↑ Liverani, Mario (2013-12-04). The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. Routledge. p. 539. ISBN 978-1-134-75084-9.
- ↑ Frahm, Eckart (2017-06-12). A Companion to Assyria. John Wiley & Sons. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-4443-3593-4.
- ↑ Oxford Bible Atlas "Ashuruballit assumed control over what remained of Assyria in Haran, but Haran too was captured by the Medes and the Babylonians in 610 and the might of Assyria was ended"
- 1 2 3 Stephen Bertman (14 July 2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. OUP USA. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-19-518364-1.
- ↑ Grant, R.G. (2005). Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat. London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 18.
- ↑ Liverani, Mario (2013-12-04). The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. Routledge. p. 539. ISBN 978-1-134-75084-9.
- ↑ Frahm, Eckart (2017-06-12). A Companion to Assyria. John Wiley & Sons. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-4443-3593-4.
- ↑ Oxford Bible Atlas "Ashuruballit assumed control over what remained of Assyria in Haran, but Haran too was captured by the Medes and the Babylonians in 610 and the might of Assyria was ended"
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