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Neo-Assyrian Empire: A Visual History

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Visual history of an empire

The first true empire: iron armies, mass deportations, the great library of Nineveh, and a fall so total that Xenophon marched past its ruins without knowing what they were.

Existed
911 BC to 609 BC
Duration
302 years
Existed
911 to 609 BC
Peak area
About 1.4 million km2 (670 BC)
Capitals
Ashur, Nimrud (Kalhu), Dur-Sharrukin, Nineveh
Peak population
Perhaps 5 to 8 million
Notable kings
Tiglath-Pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Ashurbanipal

The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the phase of Assyrian history from about 911 to 609 BC in which the kingdom of Ashur, Nimrud and Nineveh conquered the entire Fertile Crescent, from Egypt and Cyprus to Elam and the Zagros. Its kings, Ashurnasirpal II, Tiglath-Pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, built a professional army, a provincial system, roads and relay posts, and deported millions to break resistance. Ashurbanipal's library preserved Mesopotamian literature. Civil war after 631 let the Babylonians and Medes destroy Nineveh in 612 and the last Assyrian army in 609.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Neo-Assyrian Empire. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

2,750 BC2,500 BC2,250 BC2,000 BC1,750 BC1,500 BC1,250 BC1,000 BC750 BC500 BCNeo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 609 BC)Open: Elamite EmpireElamite Empire (2,700 BC to 539 BC)Open: Old Assyrian periodOld Assyrian period (2,025 BC to 1,364 BC)Open: Middle Assyrian EmpireMiddle Assyrian Empire (1,365 BC to 1,050 BC)Open: PhrygiaPhrygia (1,200 BC to 700 BC)Open: UrartuUrartu (860 BC to 590 BC)Open: Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt (Kushite)Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt (Kushite) (744 BC to 656 BC)Open: LydiaLydia (680 BC to 546 BC)Open: Median EmpireMedian Empire (678 BC to 549 BC)Open: Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (Saite period)Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (Saite period) (664 BC to 525 BC)Open: Neo-Babylonian EmpireNeo-Babylonian Empire (626 BC to 539 BC)

Neo-Assyrian territory

00.380.751.131.5911 BC: 0.1850 BC: 0.5745 BC: 0.5700 BC: 1670 BC: 1.4640 BC: 1.3620 BC: 0.6609 BC: 0900 BC850 BC800 BC750 BC700 BC650 BC609 BCmillion km2 (approximate)

Timeline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire

  1. 911 BC
    Adad-nirari IIThe Neo-Assyrian revival begins.
  2. 879 BC
    Nimrud rebuiltAshurnasirpal's inaugural feast for 69,574 guests.
  3. 853 BC
    Qarqar
  4. 745 BC
    Tiglath-Pileser IIIThe empire reorganised.
  5. 722 BC
    Samaria fallsThe lost tribes deported.
  6. 701 BC
    Sennacherib besieges Jerusalem
  7. 689 BC
    Babylon destroyed
  8. 671 BC
    Egypt conquered
  9. 612 BC
    Nineveh falls
  10. 609 BC
    Harran; end of Assyria

Recovery and terror

After the Bronze Age collapse Assyria shrank to its heartland; from Adad-nirari II (911) its kings campaigned yearly to recover lost lands. Ashurnasirpal II (883-859) rebuilt Nimrud and boasted in inscriptions of flaying, impaling and burning rebels, a deliberate policy of terror. Shalmaneser III fought the coalition of Damascus and Israel at Qarqar (853).

The imperial system

Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727) turned conquests into provinces under Assyrian governors, made the army a standing force with cavalry and siege engines, and deported conquered peoples on a vast scale, an estimated 4.5 million over three centuries. Sargon II conquered Israel's Samaria; Sennacherib destroyed Babylon in 689 and made Nineveh the greatest city in the world; Esarhaddon conquered Egypt in 671; Ashurbanipal sacked Thebes and Susa and gathered 30,000 tablets in his library.

Sudden collapse

Ashurbanipal's death around 631 was followed by civil war between his sons. Babylon under Nabopolassar rebelled in 626 and allied with the Medes under Cyaxares; Ashur fell in 614 and Nineveh in 612 after a three-month siege, its king dying in the flames. The last king Ashur-uballit II fell at Harran in 609 despite Egyptian help. Assyria's cities were abandoned and its name became a byword for cruelty in the Bible.

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

8 surprising things about the Neo-Assyrian Empire

  1. Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh, found in the 1840s, gave us the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Babylonian flood story.
  2. Ashurnasirpal II's dedication feast for Nimrud lasted ten days and its guest list of 69,574 is recorded on a stone stele.
  3. Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem in 701 BC ended mysteriously; the Bible says an angel killed 185,000 Assyrians, Herodotus says mice ate their bowstrings.
  4. The Assyrians invented the first known relay postal system, and their royal roads inspired the Persians'.
  5. The palace reliefs of lion hunts and sieges in the British Museum are Assyrian propaganda of unmatched artistry.
  6. Xenophon's Ten Thousand marched past the ruins of Nimrud and Nineveh in 401 BC and had no idea what they had been.
  7. Assyrian kings appointed a 'substitute king' to absorb bad omens, then executed him.
  8. The Assyrian language died out but Aramaic, which the empire adopted for administration, spread across the Near East as a result.

Sources

  • Assyria Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • Neo-Assyrian Empire Wikipedia
  • Assyria World History Encyclopedia
  • Eckart Frahm, Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire (2023) Basic Books

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