Rise and fall of Assyria
Channel: BH Audiobooks
Date: 09/03/2022

Assyria was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and then as a territorial state and eventually an empire from the 14th century BC to the 7th century BC.

Spanning from the early Bronze Age to the late Iron Age, modern historians typically divide ancient Assyrian history into the Early Assyrian (c. 2600–2025 BC), Old Assyrian (c. 2025–1364 BC), Middle Assyrian (c. 1363–912 BC), Neo-Assyrian (911–609 BC) and post-imperial (609 BC–c. AD 240) periods, based on political events and gradual changes in language.[4][5] Assur, the first Assyrian capital, was founded c. 2600 BC but there is no evidence that the city was independent until the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur in the 21st century BC,[3] when a line of independent kings beginning with Puzur-Ashur I began ruling the city. Centered in the Assyrian heartland in northern Mesopotamia, Assyrian power fluctuated over time. The city underwent several periods of foreign rule and domination before Assyria rose under Ashur-uballit I in the 14th century BC as the Middle Assyrian Empire. In the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods Assyria was one of the two major Mesopotamian kingdoms, alongside Babylonia in the south, and at times became the dominant power in the ancient Near East. Assyria was at its strongest in the Neo-Assyrian period, when the Assyrian army was the strongest military power in the world[6] and the Assyrians ruled the largest empire then yet assembled in world history, spanning from parts of modern-day Iran in the east to Egypt in the west.

The Assyrian Empire fell in the late 7th century BC, conquered by Babylonians, who had lived under Assyrian rule for about a century, and the Medes. Though the core territory of Assyria was extensively devastated in the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire and the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire invested little resources in rebuilding it, ancient Assyrian culture and traditions continued to survive for centuries throughout the post-imperial period. Assyria experienced a recovery under the Seleucid and Parthian empires, though declined again under the Sasanian Empire, which sacked numerous cities in the region, including Assur itself. The remaining Assyrian people, who have survived in northern Mesopotamia to modern times, were gradually Christianized from the 1st century AD onwards.

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Audio:
https://librivox.org
Text:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyria

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