Which city was the capital of the ancient nation of Assyria?
"city of Nineveh (extant since approximately 3000 BC) which at the end of the Bronze Age had a population of 35,000, was transformed into the capital of Assyria, growing at its height to be the largest city in the world at the time, with a population of up to 150,000 people. Sennacherib was murdered by his sons (according to the Bible the sons were named Adrammelech, Abimelech and Sharezer) in a palace revolt, apparently in revenge for the destruction of Babylon, a city sacred to all Mesopotamians, including the Assyrians. To the west, the kings of Judah, Edom, Moab, Israel,"
"of technological, scientific and cultural achievements for its time. At its peak, the Neo-Assyrian Empire stretched from Cyprus and the East Mediterranean to Iran, and from what is now Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, to the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and eastern Libya. Assyria is named after its original capital, the ancient city of Aššur, which dates to c. 2600 BC, originally one of a number of Akkadian-speaking city states in Mesopotamia. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders. From the late 24th century BC, the Assyrians became subject to Sargon of Akkad, who united"
"of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea, and even further to the west in Egypt and eastern Libya. Assyria is named for its original capital, the ancient city of Aššur, which dates to c. 2600 BC, originally one of a number of Akkadian city states in Mesopotamia. Assyria was also sometimes known as Subartu and Azuhinum prior to the rise of the city-state of Aššūr, after which it was Aššūrāyu, and after its fall. Ushpia (2050–2030 BC) appears to have been the first fully urbanised independent king of Assyria, and is traditionally held to have dedicated temples to the god Ashur"
"Assyria proper along the Tigris river and further upriver into Upper Mesopotamia, although there are various other theories placing it sometimes a little further out to the north, west, and/or east within the Tigris–Euphrates river system. Assur was the capital city of Assyria c. 2025 BC – c. 1754 BC and c. 1681 BC – c. 1379 BC. The oldest remains of the city were discovered in the foundations of the Ishtar temple, as well as at the Old Palace. In around 2025 BC, Puzur-Ashur I founded a new dynasty, and his successors such as Ilu-shuma, Erishum I and Sargon"
"a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur (Akkadian """"). Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is positively known. In the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. He was a contemporary of Ibrium of Ebla who appears to have lived in the late 25th or early 24th century BC, according to the king list. The foundation of the first true urbanised Assyrian monarchy was traditionally ascribed to Ushpia a contemporary of Ishbi-Erra of Isin and Naplanum of Larsa. c. 2030 BC. Assyria had"
"Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC). However, the ancient city of Assur remained the capital of Assyria, as it had been since c. 3500 BC. The city gained fame when king Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC) of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) made it his capital at the expense of Assur. He built a large palace and temples in the city, which had fallen into a degree of disrepair during the Bronze Age Collapse of the mid-11th to mid-10th centuries BC. Thousands of men worked to build an wall surrounding the city and a grand palace. There were many inscriptions carved into limestone"
"at its peak. At its peak, the Assyrian empire ruled over what the ancient Mesopotamian religion referred to as the ""four corners of the world"": as far north as the Caucasus Mountains within the lands of what is today called Armenia and Azerbaijan, as far east as the Zagros Mountains within the territory of present-day Iran, as far south as the Arabian Desert of today's Saudi Arabia, as far west as the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea, and even further to the west in Egypt and eastern Libya. Assyria is named for its original capital, the ancient city"
"to a geographic area or to the area ruled under the Old Assyrian Empire. The word ""Assyria"" comes from its first capital city, Assur (Aššūrāyu). Assur was named after its patron deity, Ashur and prior to its rise to a city-state was known as ""Azuhinum"". The rise of Assur to the status of city-state was preceded by its being an outpost for Sumerian or Akkadian rulers. The earliest known king of the Assyrian Early Period according to the Assyrian King List was Tudiya who ruled from about 2450 BCE to about 2400 BCE. Tudiya was succeeded by Adamu. Following Adamu,"
"Egypt and much of Anatolia, the term ""Assyria proper"" referred to roughly the northern half of Mesopotamia (the southern half being Babylonia), with Nineveh as its capital. The Assyrian kings controlled a large kingdom at three different times in history. These are called the ""Old"" (20th to 15th centuries BC), ""Middle"" (15th to 10th centuries BC), and ""Neo-Assyrian"" (911–612 BC) kingdoms, or periods, of which the last is the most well known and best documented. Assyrians invented excavation to undermine city walls, battering rams to knock down gates, as well as the concept of a corps of engineers, who bridged"
"of eastern Anatolia. The Hurrians spoke a language isolate, i.e. neither Semitic nor Indo-European. ""Assyria"" is named after its first capital city, Assur. The city Assur is itself named after its patron deity, Ashur. Assyria was also sometimes known as ""Azuhinum"", prior to the rise of the city-state of Assur, after which it was referred to as ""Aššūrāyu""."" “Assyria” can also refer to the geographic region of the Assyrian homeland, roughly equivalent to the territory of the Old Assyrian Empire, and the land of the modern Christian Aramaic-speaking Assyrians. Scholars suggest that Subartu may have been an early name for"
"Assur Aššur (; Akkadian; ""Āšūr""; Old Persian ""Aθur"", : ""Āšūr""; : ', ), also known as Ashur and Qal'at Sherqat, was an Assyrian city, capital of the Old Assyrian Empire (2025–1750 BC), of the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC), and for a time, of the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911–608 BC. The remains of the city lie on the western bank of the Tigris River, north of the confluence with the tributary Little Zab River, in modern-day Iraq, more precisely in the Al-Shirqat District of the Saladin Governorate. Occupation of the city itself continued for approximately 4,000 years, from the mid-3rd"
"the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, following the conquests of king Sargon of Akkad. Because of the policies of the Akkadian Empire toward linguistic assimilation, Akkad also gave its name to the predominant Semitic dialect: the Akkadian language, reflecting use of ""akkadû"" (""in the language of Akkad"") in the Old Babylonian period to denote the Semitic version of a Sumerian text. Assyria was originally (in the Middle Bronze Age) a region on the Upper Tigris, named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur. Later, as a nation and empire that came to control all of the Fertile Crescent,"
"Assyria to various dates between 2284 BC and 2057 BC, listing the earliest king as Belus or Ninus. According to the Biblical generations of Noah, which appears to have been largely compiled between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, the city of Aššur was allegedly founded by a biblical Ashur the son of Shem, who was deified by later generations as the city's patron god. However, the much older attested Assyrian tradition itself lists the first king of Assyria as the 25th century BC Tudiya, and an early urbanised Assyrian king named Ushpia (c. 2050 BC) as having dedicated the"
"the Assyrian cities of Arbela and Arrapha (modern Kirkuk), probably as a reward for their help in the capture of Nineveh. The Persian emperor Cyrus the Great occupied Assyria in 547 BC and established it as an Achaemenid satrapy called in Old Persian ""Aθurā (Athura)"", with Arbela as the capital. The Battle of Gaugamela, in which Alexander the Great defeated Darius III of Persia in 331 BC, took place approximately west of Erbil. After the battle, Darius managed to flee to the city, and, somewhat inaccurately, the confrontation is sometimes known as the ""Battle of Arbela"". Subsequently, Arbela was part"
"legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or even the actual Hanging Gardens. Assyria began as a Bronze Age city-state or small kingdom on the middle-Tigris. The kingdom collapsed at the end of the Bronze Age, but was reconstituted at the beginning of the Iron Age, and under Tiglath-Pileser III and his sons Shalmaneser V and Sargon II (combined reigns 744–705 BCE), Assyria extended its rule over Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Syria-Palestine, making its capital Nineveh, one of the richest cities of the ancient world. The empire's rise aroused the fear and hatred of its neighbours, notably Babylon, Elam and Egypt, and the"
"Assyria Assyria (), also called the Assyrian Empire, was a Mesopotamian kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant. It existed as a state from perhaps as early as the 25th century BC in the form of the Assur city-state, until its collapse between 612 BC and 609 BC, spanning the Early to Middle Bronze Age through to the late Iron Age. From the end of the seventh century BC (when the Neo-Assyrian state fell) to the mid-seventh century AD, it survived as a geopolitical entity, for the most part ruled by foreign powers such as the"
"Ninus Ninus (), according to Greek historians writing in the Hellenistic period and later, was accepted as the eponymous founder of Nineveh (also called Νίνου πόλις ""city of Ninus"" in Greek), ancient capital of Assyria. His name is not attested on the Assyrian King List or in any cuneiform literature; he does not seem to represent any one personage known to modern history, and is more likely a conflation of several real and/or fictional figures of antiquity, as seen to the Greeks through the mists of time. Many early accomplishments are attributed to Ninus, such as training the first hunting"
"capital of both the Parthian and Sasanian Empire, and was for some time the largest city in the world. The main language spoken by the Assyrian people was Eastern Aramaic, with the local Syriac language becoming an important vehicle for Syriac Christianity. The Church of the East was founded in Asōristān. Asōristān was largely identical with ancient Mesopotamia. The northern border is somewhat uncertain but probably went along a line from Anta to Takrīt. Ḥīra was probably the southernmost point, the border then following the northern part of the swamps of Wasit. The Parthians had exercised only loose control at"
"the new capital of Assyria. Immense building work was undertaken, and Nineveh eclipsed Babylon, Kalhu and Aššur in both size and importance, making it the largest city in the world. A number of scholars believe the true location of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were in fact at Nineveh. The mound of Kuyunjik in Mosul is the site of the palaces of King Sennacherib, and his successors Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal, (who established the Library of Ashurbanipal) and Ashur-etil-ilani. The Assyrian Empire began to unravel from 626 BC onwards, being consumed by a decade of brutal internal civil wars, greatly weakening it."
"had a gold statue made of his father Belus, which he worshipped. This claim was highly influential throughout the medieval period into the Early Modern. Ninus Ninus (), according to Greek historians writing in the Hellenistic period and later, was accepted as the eponymous founder of Nineveh (also called Νίνου πόλις ""city of Ninus"" in Greek), ancient capital of Assyria. His name is not attested on the Assyrian King List or in any cuneiform literature; he does not seem to represent any one personage known to modern history, and is more likely a conflation of several real and/or fictional figures"
"of Assur, which dates to c. 2600 BC, originally one of a number of Akkadian city states in Mesopotamia. Assyria was also sometimes known as Subartu and Azuhinum prior to the rise of the city-state of Assur, and during the Sasanian Empire as Asōristān. In the Old Assyrian Empire, Assyria established colonies in Anatolia and the Levant and, under king Ilu-shuma, it asserted itself over southern Mesopotamia (what was later to become Babylonia). The first written inscriptions by urbanized Assyrian kings appear c. 2450 BC, after they had shrugged off Sumerian domination. The land of Assyria as a whole then"
"as by the Assyrians. According to the Assyrian King List, the earliest king of Assyria was Tudiya. From the late 24th century BC it became a part of the Akkadian Empire, based in the city of Akkad, which united all of the Akkadian speaking Semites (including the Assyrians) under one rule. Assyria regained its independence in the early 21st century BC. Assyria became an imperial power with the Old Assyrian Empire (1975–1750 BC), and the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BC), the latter of which became the most powerful state in the region, eclipsing Egypt, the Hittites, Mitanni, Babylonia and Elam."
"the king of Assyria, according to Flavius Josephus in his record ""Antiquities of the Jews"" and various christian commentators, such as Matthew Henry and John Peter Lange. Such accounts render the battle as King Josiah either heroically trying to rescue the Assyrians from their enemies or attempting to avoid being surrounded by an enemy. Battle of Carchemish The Battle of Carchemish was fought about 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. When the Assyrian capital Nineveh"
"""-istān"" (""land of""). The name Assyria, in the form ""Asōristān"", was shifted to include ancient Babylonia by the Parthians, and this continued under the Sasanians. The historical country of Assyria (Athura), however, lay to the north of Babylonian Asoristan, in the independent frontier province of Osroene. During the Achaemenid (550–330 BCE) and Parthian Empires (150 BCE – 225 CE), this region had been known by the Old Persian name ""Athura"". Asōristān, Middle Persian ""land of Assyria"", was the capital province of the Sasanian Empire and was called ""Dil-ī Ērānshahr"", meaning ""Heart of Iran"". The city of Ctesiphon served as the"
"Sittace Sittace or Sittake or Sittakê (Greek: , Ptol. vi. 1. § 6; Akkadian Sattagū), was an ancient city, the capital of ancient Sittacene, in Assyria, at the southern end of this province, on the road between Artemita and Susa. (Strabo xvi. p. 744.) It is called Sitta () by Diodorus (xvii. 110). William Smith believed that Diodorus's Sambana also referred to Sittace. The origin of the city's name may be found in Babylonian tablets referring to the polity ""URU.Sattagû"" which may be a translation or approximation of ""people of Sattagydia"", a Persian satrapy. The district of Sittacene appears to"
"to 10th century BC), Assyria had been a minor kingdom of northern Mesopotamia (northern Iraq), competing for dominance with its southern Mesopotamian rival Babylonia. In 647 BC, the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal leveled the Elamite capital city of Susa during a war in which the inhabitants apparently participated on an opposing side. A tablet unearthed in 1854 by Austen Henry Layard in Nineveh reveals Ashurbanipal as an ""avenger"", seeking retribution for the humiliations the Elamites had inflicted on the Mesopotamians over the centuries. Assyrian rule succumbed to Babylonia with the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC. In the golden age of"
"that was to become known as Assyria (and Subartu) was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c. 7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, the centre of the ""Hassuna culture"", c. 6000 BC. The cities of Assur (also spelled Ashur or Aššur) and Nineveh, together with a number of other towns and cities, existed as early as the 25th century BC, although they appear to have been Sumerian-ruled administrative centres at this time, rather than independent states. The Assyrian king list records kings dating"
"cities of Hatra, Khorsabad, and Nimrud, fears rose that Assur would be destroyed too. According to some sources, the citadel of Assur was destroyed or badly damaged in May 2015 by members of IS using improvised explosive devices. As of February 2017, the group no longer controls the site, however it is not secure enough for archaeological experts to evaluate. Assur Aššur (; Akkadian; ""Āšūr""; Old Persian ""Aθur"", : ""Āšūr""; : ', ), also known as Ashur and Qal'at Sherqat, was an Assyrian city, capital of the Old Assyrian Empire (2025–1750 BC), of the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC), and"
"of Neo-Assyrian states arose; these included the ancient capital of Assur itself, Adiabene with its capital of Arbela (modern Irbil), Beth Nuhadra with its capital of Nohadra (modern Dohuk), Osroene, with its capitals of Edessa and Amid (modern Sanliurfa and Diyarbakir), Hatra, and ""ܒܝܬܓܪܡܝ"" (Beth Garmai) with its capital at Arrapha (modern Kirkuk). Adiabenian rulers converted to Judaism from paganism in the 1st century. After 115 AD, there are no historic traces of Jewish royalty in Adiabene. These freedoms were accompanied by a major Assyrian cultural revival, and temples to the Assyrian national gods Ashur, Sin, Hadad, Ishtar, Ninurta, Tammuz"
"of his enemies, the king displayed his mercy, political threats were removed from the empire's center, and the deportees were also beneficial in the reconstruction of the war-torn city. In other cases, Assyria also relocated people from newly conquered territories to its heartland. Typically, the elite section of the population was selected in a careful process. This group included highly skilled people: craftsmen, scholars and cultural elites, whose resettlement in the empire's heartland would bring knowledge and wealth. The empire's capitals, Nineveh, Kalhu and Assur were well-populated with people from throughout the empire, who were instrumental in the building of"
"Neanderthals such as the remains of those which have been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria belonged to the Jarmo culture c. 7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, the centre of the Hassuna culture, c. 6000 BC. The history of Assyria begins with the formation of the city of Assur perhaps as early as the 25th century BC. The Assyrian king list records kings dating from the 25th century BC onwards, the earliest being Tudiya, who was a contemporary of Ibrium of Ebla. However, many of these early kings would have been local rulers, and from"
"Dur-Sharrukin Dur-Sharrukin (""Fortress of Sargon""; ), present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Khorsabad is a village in northern Iraq, 15 km northeast of Mosul. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC. After the unexpected death of Sargon in battle, the capital was shifted 20 km south to Nineveh. Sargon II ruled from 722 to 705 BC. The demands for timber and other materials and craftsmen, who came from as far as coastal Phoenicia, are documented in contemporary Assyrian letters. The debts of construction workers were nullified"
"throughout the reigns of Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and Sinsharishkun. Eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. Under Nabopolassar, a previously unknown Chaldean chieftain, Babylon escaped Assyrian rule, and in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians, finally destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 612 BC and 605 BC. Babylon thus became the capital of"