page_title: Phoenicia under Assyrian rule
section_title: Ashurbanipal 668–627 BC
hierarchical_section_title: Phoenicia under Assyrian rule / Ashurbanipal 668–627 BC
context_page_description: During the Middle Assyrian Empire and the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Phoenicia, what is today known as Lebanon and coastal Syria, came under Assyrian rule on several occasions.
  Southern Canaan was inhabited by a number of Semitic states speaking Canaanite languages, these being Israel, Judah, Samarra, Ammon, Edom, Moab, the Suteans and Amalekites. In addition, the Philistines migrated into this region from the Aegean, a non-Semitic Indo-European speaking people. Northern Canaan was also inhabited by Canaanite speaking peoples, coalesced into city states such as Tyre, Sidon, Berytus, Arvad, Simyra, Onoba and Tarshish. The term Phoenicia was applied to this region, but it is a later Greek application which was not used during the Assyrian period.
  To the east, in modern terms the interior of modern Syria, the region had since the 24th century BC been inhabited by the Canaanite speaking Amorites and for a time the East Semitic speaking Eblaites also, thus much of this region had been known as the Land of the Amurru.
context_section_description: Ashurbanipal would be the last Assyrian King to have the ability to campaign in Phoenicia and much of Aram. Marching his army into Egypt (in order to safeguard Syria) he defeated the rebellious opponents there and installed puppet princes on the throne. Egyptian attempts at taking Memphis ended miserably with Ashurbanipal marching south into Upper Egypt and taking Thebes "like a floodstorm". His campaigning against Egypt coincided with another attempt to stop Tyre and Arvad from rebelling without being punished for it afterwards. With the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC, Aramea and Phoenicia gradually fell from Assyrian rule as Assyria was engulfed in bitter civil war which would see its downfall by 605 BC. Ironically, it would be the Assyrians former vassals, the Egyptians, who would attempt to aid the Assyrians as they moved the capital of their collapsing kingdom to Harran.
  The destruction of the Assyrian Empire meant that Babylon and then Persia would rule Phoenicia, Canaan and Aramea until Alexander the Great of Macedon would initiate the Hellenistic Age.
caption: Ashurbanipal, a palace relief from Nineveh.
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