Evidence of settlements in the area of the Upper Tigris river date back to at least 5000 BC, with Assyrian cities developing in the shadows of their more advanced Sumerian neighbours to the south east. Around 2300 BC Assyria was conquered by Sargon of Akkad and incorporated into the newly formed empire of Sumer and Akkad, but with the fall of Sargon's empire some one hundred years later, the independent Assyrian cities were once again free.
This freedom, though, quickly dissipated. As the Amorites moved from semi-arid regions of the Sinai peninsular they crowded the Assyrian cities, and by 2000 BC the Assyrian cities struggled for their own identity. For two hundred years they survived like this until in 1810 BC Shamshi-Adad I united the cities of Ashur, Nineveh and Arbel, who, along with the cities of Arrapkha and Nimrod, would form the core of the Assyrian empire.
Shamshi-Adad I extended Assyrian influence as far west as the Mediterranean Sea, but this brief period of power ended in 1760 BC when Assyria was annexed by the Babylonian king Hammurabi. With Hammurabi's death the Babylonian influence ceased, but the Assyrians still had to contend for many years with the Amorites, Kassites, Elamites and Hurrians.
The Hurrians, or Horites, were an Indo-European people who moved south to establish a home for themselves in the upper Euphrates and Tigris region. They brought with them horses and faster chariots, establishing the Mitanni empire and annexing Assyria around 1470 BC. Their empire was weakened around 1370 BC by their defeat by the Hittites, and the Assyrians under Ashur-uballit aided the Hurrian Artatama to gain the throne in the resulting civil war.
Ashur-uballit I declared himself the Great King of Assyria, and the Assyrians and Hurrians were allies until the Assyrians turned against the Hurrians and wiped them out by the end of Shalmaneser I's reign in 1244 BC.
During the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I (1243 - 1207 BC), Assyria captured the greatest prize in all of Mesopotamia, Babylon. As a trophy of war, Tukulti-Ninurta return to Assyria with the Babylonian king and the statue of the Babylonian chief god, Marduk. Marduk soon became a significant part of the Assyrian worship system, a fact that eventually lead to Tukulti-Ninurta's downfall when forces sympathetic to Marduk assassinate him, causing an instability in Assyria that stunted the growth of their empire.
In 1115 BC Tiglath-Pileser I became king of Assyria and set about rebuilding Assyria's agricultural economy, resulting in a strong, more unified Assyria. During his reign Tiglath-Pileser fought and defeated the Mushki from Anotalia and Naira tribes from the Zagros mountains, as well as fighting through the aggressive Aramaeans to the south-west to establish trade links with the Phoenician city-states on the shores of the Mediterranean. Tiglath-Pileser wrote that he "crossed the Euphrates twenty eight times...in pursuit of the Aramaeans," though after his death the Aramaeans quickly retook his hard won gains.
The Aramaean problem persisted during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser's successor and son, Ashur-bel-kala (1074-1057 BC), who tells of the Aramaeans penetrating deep into Assyrian territory, reaching the cities of Tur Abdin, Harran and Khabur. For the next century Assyria declined, the Aramean disruptions being the principal cause. It was not until 934 BC, by which time the Aramaeans had settled into a more stable kingdom in Syria, that Assyria began to re-emerge.
Ashur-dan II concentrated on rebuilding Assyria within its natural borders, from Tur Abdin to the foothills beyond Arbel. He invented the concept of the province and built government offices in each, and as an economic boost provided ploughs throughout the land which helped to yield record grain production. He was followed by four able kings who used the foundation Ashur-dan had laid to make Assyria the major power in the region at the time.
In 745 BC Tiglath-Pileser III finally put an end to the Aramaean threat by capturing their capital Damascus, opening the doors of both Syria and Palestine to the Assyrian armies. Tiglath-Pileser's successor, Sargon II, defeated the Urartu, a collection of former Naira tribes in the Zagros mountains, as well as totally obliterating the nation of Israel in 721 BC. Four years later Sargon began construction of his new capital at Khorsabad, but the city, despite its grandeur, was left abandoned for Nineveh after his death in 705 BC.
The Assyrians used a policy of removing the inhabitants of a conquered land and substituting them with peoples from other cultures. This had the effect of removing the link to the land that people felt, reducing the risk of rebellion. In this way the northern kingdom of Israel disappearing forever, dispersed throughout the Assyrian empire, leaving only the southern kingdom of Judah to carry on under the name of Israel.
Sennacherib, Sargon II's successor, moved the capital of the empire to Nineveh, where he set about strengthening Assyria. He layed siege to a number of cities in Judah, Israel's southern kingdom, in 701 BC, but he made a fatal mistake when he later sacked the city of Babylon and was subsequently murdered by two of his sons. Sennacherib's death was then avenged by another son, Esarhaddon, who became king around 680 BC.
Esarhaddon marched his armies for 15 days across the Sinai peninsular in 671 BC to capture the Egyptian capital of Memphis, but died 2 years later while returning to quell an uprising. On his death the kingdom is split between two of his sons, Shamash-Shumi-Ukin who ruled in Babylonia and Ashurbanipal who reconquered Egypt and ruled the rest of the Assyrian empire.
The dual-kingship was destined to fail, and in 652 BC Shamash-Shumi-Ukin, who had grow jealous of his brother, attacked his forces to start a civil war. Shamash-Shumi-Ukin proved unsuccessful in his attempt to gain full control the empire and died when he threw himself into the flames of his burning city of Babylon after an extended siege.
Ashurbanipal ruled from then on in relative peace until his death in 626 BC where the Assyrian empire started to fracture. A year later the Chaldean chief Nabopolassar seized control of the rebuilt Babylon, and in 612 BC a coalition of Chaldeans, Medes and Scythians lay a three month siege of Nineveh, bringing an end to the great but often brutal Assyrian empire.
