The first Assyrians were a nomadic people who settled along the Tigris River in northern Mesopotamia around 2500 BCE. By 1850 BCE this region was very prosperous because of its key position on the trade routes between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. Assyrian merchants in Ashur and other city-states grew rich on the profits of the tin and copper trade. Their caravans carried these valuable metals to distant cities in Anatolia, Phoenicia, and Egypt.
Early Assyria was swept away after 1750 BCE by attacks from Babylonian and Mitanni invaders. After enduring several centuries of foreign rule, Assyria became independent again around 1350 BCE. Assyrian kings learned to use fear and terror to help hold back their foes. They boasted of their severe cruelty to rebels, who were beheaded, impaled on stakes, or thrust into the city ovens alive. Thousands of prisoners of war were slaughtered in tribute to the Assyrian supreme god, Ashur. Whole peoples were uprooted from their cities and deported or marched at sword point to other parts of the kingdom. By 900 BCE the Assyrians were the most feared people in the region.
Period of Domination
The great age of Assyria began in 911 BCE, when Adad-nirari II defeated Babylon and the other smaller kingdoms of Mesopotamia, such as that of the Aramaeans. For most of the next three hundred years, Assyria was the strongest military power in western Asia.
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The first Assyrians were desert nomads who worshiped Ashur as their god. When they built their first large settlement, Ashur became the god of the city that took his name. Assyrians believed that Ashur had the power to defeat the legions of demons and evil spirits that tormented the human world. The god’s great temple of Ekur in the citadel at Ashur was the holiest place in Assyria. However, Ashur was a cruel god and many prisoners of war were tortured, mutilated, and executed at Ekur to calm his anger. The kings of Assyria were also the high priests of Ashur. Many kings, such as Ashurbanipal, used the name of the god in their own royal name.
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Warrior kings such as Ashurnasirpal II and Sargon II built vast new cities at Calah and Dur Sharrukin (near modern Khorsabad) with the stream of riches and plunder that poured into Assyria. The Assyrian city of Nineveh was probably the largest city in the world in the seventh century BCE.
Art and Sculpture
The Assyrians were not simply fearsome warriors. The library at Nineveh brought together, and preserved, much of the learning of the ancient world. Assyrian artists were talented sculptors who decorated the walls of their public buildings with a great number of magnificent sculptures and carvings. Assyrian sculpture reached a high point between the ninth and seventh centuries, when bas-reliefs (shallow relief carvings) lined the walls of the royal palaces at cities such as Calah and Nineveh.
