Entire History of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-609 BC) // Ancient History Documentary

in 701 BC when the great king hezekiah ruler of the Israelite Kingdom of Judah looked out from the ramparts of his heavily fortified city of Jerusalem what he saw must have filled him with a sense of both horror and awe for there a raid in the fields surrounding him and his great city stood thousands of the most disciplined and highly trained warriors in the known world Elite cavalry man charioteers archers infantry and siege masters wielding the most cutting-edge military technology available at the time they were also reputed to have been fearless as well as infamous for the lack of mercy that they showed towards their enemies they were the Assyrians and their forces were led by the most powerful man of his day King Sanaa a harbor better known to history as Sennacherib king hezekiah must have heard the horrid tales of what the Assyrians did to their vanquished enemies if his city fell than any survivors both soldiers and non-combatants alike could expect to receive little clemency if they weren't executed on the spot sometimes after brutal hideous tortures then they'd most likely to be rounded up and deported to serve as forced laborers in other parts of the vast Assyrian Empire in those days stretching from the Zagros Mountains in Iran to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea from the highlands of southeastern Anatolia to the northern deserts of Arabia in time that Empire would also include the Great and ancient kingdoms of Egypt and Elam making the one who sat on the Assyrian throne the wealthiest and most powerful man on earth and yet barely a century later that same mighty Empire would be a distant memory its once magnificent cities of ash or Nineveh and Nimrod all but forgotten and in ruins for a good part of a thousand years Assyria had been not just one of the most powerful states in the ancient world but one of the most influential as well it's legacy carried on for centuries but who were these Assyrians where did they come from and how did they rise from relative obscurity to rule over the greatest empire the world had ever seen wielding arguably the first professional standing army in history in order to answer these questions and more let's go back to the time when Assyria ruled the world [Music] oh hi I didn't see you there Pete Kelly here I'm the one-man team behind history time having said that for the first time ever someone else has written a script for me for this one and he just so happens to have his own YouTube channel so a massive thank you to history with psy his is an epic channel all about ancient history all of the good stuff go subscribe like comment and watch his stuff now without further ado please allow me a moment to thank the sponsor for this video a longtime supporter of both my channel and my brother David at voices of the past of course it's Magellan TV quite simply one of the premier documentary streaming services in the world there's a huge amount of videos that you can watch on all manner of topics from ancient history to outer space it's all here many of them in beautiful 4k you can watch it wherever on your Smart TV your laptop or your phone this is the widest range of history content available anywhere my recommendation at the moment is the birth of planet Earth it's been a great reference for myself and David as we embark on our new channel the entire history of the earth just a shameless self plug there anyway click on the link in the description below or head on over to try Magellan tv.com forward slash history time for an exclusive month-long free trial what have you got to lose go and get yourself some free knowledge now back to the ancient world the history of Assyria and the Assyrian people stretches back deep into the mists of time to at least the year 2000 BC during this long bygone age what we currently identify as Assyria primarily consisted of a city-state called a shawl located along the Tigris River in what is now northern Iraq originally a shrine town dedicated to a god of the same name our shores location allowed it to become a regional hub of a trade network encompassing the resource-rich cities of Central and southwestern Anatolia along with those of southern Babylonia as well as the lands between the Zagros Mountains [Music] primarily trading tin and textiles for silver over time the city state of assur became extremely wealthy [Music] thus attracting the attention of neighboring kings and warlords one of these was sham she added an amirite warlord of a small Kingdom called eckle Atem around the year 1808 BC the warlike ruler sham she added acquired the city of Usher assuming the title of King though he would eventually go on to rule the fairly large state that scholars today called the kingdom of upper Mesopotamia the residents of assur considered him to be one of their own and his domain is also known as the old Assyrian Empire I've previously made a documentary about shamshir dot and the old Assyrian Empire that I recommend watching after this one [Music] though like many such kingdoms burning brightly and going out just as quickly sham Shia dad's Kingdom collapsed shortly after his death though it would continue to serve as an inspiration for future Assyrian Kings in their own quests to make Assyria a great power once again such a dream was finally realized between the years thirteen sixty five and ten seventy six BC during the last flourishing of the Bronze Age an era which Nasiri ologists called the middle assyrian period it was during this span of time that the Assyrians overthrew their mitanni overlords who had dominated them for centuries charting their own path to becoming a regional power once more great Kings during this era such as a denier re assured an and tiglath-pileser corresponded with the great kings of Egypt the hit idem pyre and Babylonia as equals expanding a Syrian influence from the Zagros Mountains of Iran to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea unfortunately however these periods of prosperity and greatness that these charismatic and highly capable kings presided over were relatively short-lived the same pattern would happen over and over again a king arising to catapult Assyria to greatness only to have his achievements wither away due to inept successors or events beyond their control finally a break in the cycle occurred in the 10th century BC in the aftermath of the Late Bronze Age collapse they embarked on a path of sustained territorial and economic expansion that was to last over three centuries Assyria lodgest skal this span of time roughly from 9/11 to 610 BC the neo-assyrian period the greatest of all the Assyrian Empire and up until this point in history the most powerful ever yet seen in the known world whether due to the effects of invasions by the mysterious band of migrants and Marauders known as the Sea Peoples climate change or some other unforeseen circumstance the political order of the post late bronze age collapse was very different than that of just a few centuries prior the once great powers of Egypt the Hittites and the kassite kingdom of Babylon had either lost their imperial possessions or collapsed altogether trade and commerce had been greatly disrupted and entire populations displaced Assyria too had fallen on hard times though it was arguably in a better position than most other states being far away from the attacks of the Sea Peoples [Music] it's to had seen contraction both territorially and economically things finally began to change with the ascension of the Assyrian King assured an the second in 934 BC like other assyrian kings of the past assured an engaged in several campaigns to expand a serious territorial possessions and network of tributary states the backbone of the empire however he also instituted programs to make those territories that are Syria already possessed as productive as possible including the older Syrian centers of ashore and Nineveh [Music] in addition to renovating temples and public buildings funds were invested into income producing properties such as farms and mines in order to help them reach maximum efficiency streamlining and centralizing the economy in addition he reformed the Assyrian army transforming it into the most modern fighting force of its day especially its chariots divisions the tanks of the ancient world such reforms were what the Assyrian economy desperately needed in order to sustain itself and expand its influence into nearby regions thus setting into motion the juggernaut that would become the neo-assyrian empire though Asha dams immediate successors continued his policies of territorial expansion it was really the king Asha NASA pal who transformed the great kingdom of Assyria into a true Empire ruling from 883 to 859 BC a sure NASA pal claims to have undertaken at least 14 major military campaigns expanding a serious reach further north into the lands of nari and Urartu which today make up parts of southwestern Anatolia as well as west along the Euphrates River to the wealthy city of car commish deep in the heart of what is now northern Syria such expansion allowed him to control the lucrative trade routes that criss crossed this region as well as to exact tributes from the wealthy Phoenician city states along the Mediterranean coast as a result the coffers of the Assyrian Empire overflowed with search incalculable wealth that government officials had a difficult time allocating it all there were only so many temples public buildings and palaces that could have been constructed or renovated or were there in all those centuries of waxing and waning of empire building and consolidation whether it was during times of prosperity or scarcity for over a millennium the city of ashour had been the spiritual cultural and political capital of Assyria however what was now Assyria had grown tremendously to become the most powerful and stupendously wealthy state in the ancient world thus asha NASA pal decided to build a new capital city to reflect a serious place in the world he chose the small town of carl hoop as the location for this grand project situated in the center of the Assyrian Heartland within the triangle formed by the three important cities of ash or Nineveh and our Bella Cal who also known as Nimrod was the perfect choice for such a city it was both close to the traditional centers of Assyrian power whilst far enough away from their old aristocracy's and elites groups of people that ashen a Sippel loathed and whose own Jew influence he could now be rid of because Ashur NASA pals Assyrian Empire was like no other likewise kal who had to be a capital without rival everything about it was designed to be greater than any other city that had ever existed whether it was Sargon the great scapa's all of a guarde Hammurabi's Babylon the Memphis of ramasees the second or the core Assyrian cities of ashore and Nineveh Nimrod was not just to be the center of Assyria but the world assure NASA pal made sure that Nimrod at the most beautiful public buildings and Gardens lavish temples and the largest palaces of any place within his empire no expense was to be spared [Music] of course what good is having the most splendid capital in the world if you can't show it off according to what's known as the banquet stelae exactly 69 thousand five hundred and seventy four people participated in Emirates elaborate 10-day inaugural celebration along with people from all over the Empire there were five thousand foreign dignitaries all of whom were served generous courses of mutton beef venison fish large quantities of vegetables fruit spices and over ten thousand barrels or skins of beer and wine for all those in attendance there could be no doubt as to which nation let alone ruler was the wealthiest and most powerful in the world [Music] despite having the ability to live in such splendor Assyrian Kings spent a great portion of time outside their extravagant residences in order to personally campaign against a serious many enemies both foreign and domestic assure NASA pals son shall Manas Air the third faced adversaries in all directions including a coalition of 11 Kings from the Levant who sought to expel a Syrian influence from their region led primarily by the kingdoms of Hamas Damascus and Israel forebears of King Hezekiah the coalition met the army of shall manusia the third in 853 near the town of car car though shall Manasseh claimed a great victory in reality the battle seems to be more of a stalemate [Music] since ultimately the kings of the opposing coalition were able to keep their Thrones however several years later some members of the same coalition resumed their fight against the Assyrians whilst others went their separate ways for example a decade after the Kingdom of Israel under a hab fought alongside the ante a Syrian coalition its new king yay who accepted shall Manasseh as his overlord becoming one of his vassals opposing Kings had adjusts to options during this age except a Syrian hegemony by paying tributes and supplying soldiers when commanded or opposed the Assyrians soon army and risk being wiped out forever for those kings who chose the latter the outcome rarely turned out in their favor in most cases though the kingdom's that joined Assyria as vassals or allies not only benefited economically due to their unfettered access to the Empire's commercial markets but militarily as well if one of their neighbors threatened them they could always call on the local of Syrian governor or even the king himself for protection and aid for ultimately this was the driving force of empire in the ancient world the powerful assyrian king tiglath-pileser the third was known for this while ruthless against his enemies he was extremely loyal to his allies and vassals there's an inscription by a king of a land called Yeti that reads my father grasped the hem oh is Lord the great king of Assyria then did he live and you D lived my father ran the wheel of his Lord tiglath-pileser king of Assyria in campaigns from east to west my father died at the feet of tea glass Palace a king of Assyria on campaign and all the campers Lord the king of Assyria wept for him and his Lord the king of Assyria erected an image of him by the roadside and brought my father across from Damascus then because of my father's loyalty and my own loyalty my Lord taketh police' set me on the throne another example comes from the book of Kings in the Old Testament which mentions that King Ahaz of Judah chose to side with tiglath-pileser and become one of his vassals though the Bible chides a has for taking help from the pagan Assyrians and not God he ultimately is able to keep his throne and is honored by taketh palasa in Damascus while this narrative is from a religious and not contemporary historical source it's more or less consistent with what we know of the Assyrian Kings steadfast support for his allies the reign of TIG laughs palasa is notable not only because it commenced a century of a Syrian territorial expansion in all directions but also because it further strengthened and resent relized the authority of the king but that was in the future many more Wars would be fought to reach that stage back in the 9th century BC during the last days of shall manases reign a struggle for who would succeed him broke out between two of his sons ultimately leading to a civil war when it was over the son that won the conflict ascended the throne in 8 23 BC a sham Shia dad v however the war had been extremely costly and weakened the central authority of the king allowing many of the Empire's governess field marshals and other high-ranking individuals to obtain power in commensurate with their rank many of them began running their own private fiefdom within the Empire ultimately we can in get and leading to stagnation across the realm scholars call this period from 823 to 744 BC the age of the magnates [Music] though this all changed in 745 BC when tiglath-pileser took the throne fed up of the Empire's recent decentralization and divisive politics he clamped down on the power of the magnates taking an extremely hardline approach towards his opponents either terminating them or replacing them with those he knew were personally loyal to him after consolidating his power he went on a series of campaigns to reconquer territories that have Syria had been forced to withdraw from a few decades prior kingdoms and cities that opposed him were brutally suppressed with any surviving civilian populations often being deported from their homelands and resettled in other distant regions of the Empire a policy of divide and rule that would continue to be a mainstay in imperial rule for thousands of years to come all over the world in their place new settlers from Assyria moved into their lands and reoccupied or rebuilt their cities it's believed that the vast majority of these deported peoples were our main speakers and their settlement throughout the Assyrian Empire may have led to Aramaic becoming the lingua franca of the region for centuries it's precisely the memory of such brutal policies and actions that have given the ancient Assyrians such a reputation for being a warlike bloodthirsty people however in reality the aim of the Assyrian King was not to kill or disrupt the lives of his enemies or rebellious subjects but to maintain a sense of order as well as security from those who would do a Syria harm seeing the best way to do this is through fear make an example of one city and others will fall in line much like the Romans used crucifixion on mass to put down rebels public shows of power to all enemies into submission was certainly used by the Assyrians perhaps most famous is this inscription by Ashur NASA Pal during the early days of imperial expansion [Music] I built a pillar over against the city gate and I flayed all the Chiefs who had revolted and I covered the pillar with their skins some I impaled upon the pillar on sticks and others I bound to stakes round the pillar I cut the limbs off the officers who had rebelled many captives I burned with fire and many I took as living captives from some I cut off their noses their ears and their fingers of many I put out their eyes I made one pillar of the living and another of heads and I bound their heads to tree trunks around the city there young men and maidens I consumed with fire the rest of their warriors are consumed with thirst in the desert of the Euphrates as horrific as this description is the Assyrian state wasn't particularly unusual in its cruelty for the time but more the sheer scale of its success [Music] rather than being a barbaric society in the Western sense of the word the Assyrians were in fact a very cultured and refined people who had their own great literary and artistic traditions however they lived in a rough neighborhood and knew the history of their land and the greater region well having long memories whether these Outsiders especially semi-nomadic once gue Tian's amirite s-- koreans Elamites or now our Mahon's these outside us but more often than not caused havoc to the existing order [Music] for the Assyrian King it was his divine duty commanded to him by the god Asher to not allow this to happen order had to be kept thus if the King had to use brutality against his enemies to make a point and to make his people safe then so be it a serious very survival depended on it this same policy also applied to the citizens of the Empire stay in line and all would be well rebel at your own peril having more than doubled the Empire's territorial holdings and tributary states which once again put Assyria on the path to unchallenged regional supremacy in 727 BC tiglath-pileser the third passed away he was succeeded by one of his sons shall manusia the fifth who according to a Babylonian Chronicle was the assyrian king who conquered the kingdom of israel and its capital at the time samaria [Music] however the nail in the coffin for the kingdom and Samaria may have actually come during the reign of shall manases half-brother who in 722 overthrew him to become king sargon ii of Assyria it was probably early in Sargon's reign that what had once been the Kingdom of Israel officially became the Assyrian province of Samara nur though the conquest and ultimate subjugation of this kingdom is well known due to its mention in the Bible it was actually one of a serious smaller military campaigns during the neo-assyrian period in reality there were much more powerful and larger threats to the state especially in southeastern Anatolia as well as Babylonia similarly ancient plants the latter now ruled over by Chaldeans Oriya lords a fresh infusion of once nomadic military rulers who would fight tooth and nail against the Assyrians to cling on to their newly won holdings just north of Assyria in lanced that today make up southeastern Turkey Armenia and parts of Iran and Azerbaijan was the land of Bharata once consisting of petty kingdoms and hill tribes in the 9th century BC its leaders United their realms together into a single great Kingdom in order to ward off Assyrian aggression in time the kingdom of hirato became powerful enough to threaten not just the Empire's frontier but the Assyrian heartland itself sargon ii decided that it was time to put an end once and for all to the threat from urato in 714 BC he moved deep into arathi in territory plundering several towns along the way before defeating the king rooster the first in a decisive battle Russa and what was left of the arathi an army fled but the Assyrian King decided not to pursue them however instead of returning to Assyria star gone along with 1000 of his best man traveled south to the city of Musa seer to plunder the sacred temple of Harrah two's patron God haldi both Sargon's military victory over Russa as well as the sacking of their national shrine were near fatal blows urato would never fully recover from all but eliminating the mountain kingdom as a threat to Assyria while the campaign in aratu may have been Sargon's most famous perhaps just as important was his ability to pacify unrest in Babylonia for centuries Assyria and Babylon had been fierce rivals militarily Assyria was generally the stronger power and of several occasions had even conquered and occupied the capital city of Babylon itself there were few fans of Assyria in most babylonian cities neo-assyrian kings though especially as their power and territorial reach group considered Babylonia to be within their own sphere of influence and controlled it under puppet rulers however during the short period of instability when sargon ii ascended the throne many areas of the Empire including Babylonia took advantage of the situation and revolted in 722 or 721 BC at shall daeun by the name of Marduk Appler Idina better known to history as Mara Doc Ballad and seized the throne of Babylon to declare himself as a king due to campaigns in other parts of the Empire Sargon could not fully devote his attention to the Babylonian problem until 7:10 BC when he invaded the area in full force defeating Mara dark paladin who eventually went into exile beginning a lengthy and interesting series of guerrilla campaigns and adventures in the marshlands of southern Iraq and over the sea and mountains in Iran the old enemy of Mesopotamia for thousands of years sargon ii was actually welcomed by many Babylonians as their new king he seemed to return the favor by regularly worshipping babylons patron deity Marduk as well as staying in the city for three years much to the chagrin of many in Assyria like Asher NASA pal the second Zargon the second also constructed a new capital city known as der shuriken meaning fort Sargon it took at least ten years to build being completed in 707 BC [Music] yet Sargon spent little time in his new fortress capital just two years later being killed in battle in the region of table al on the northern frontier possibly by Sumerians barbarian horse masters of the North Sargon's body was never recovered from the battlefield meaning that the proper funeral rites could not be carried out this according to a Syrian religion meant that Sargon spirit would be cursed to wander the world never resting in peace for the average of Syrian extremely religious devotees of the war God ashore along with an elaborate pantheon this was a sign that they'd been abandoned by the gods but why man II may have reasoned that their kings tragic end was due to his love of Babylon and adoration of its patron deity Marduk thus when his son Sanaa he Arab are better known to history as Sennacherib came to power in around 704 BC he abandoned his father's fortress at der shuriken moving the Assyrian capital to Nineveh in many ways Sennacherib was the exact opposite of his father whereas sargon ii had continued to strangle the kingdom of Urartu Sennacherib sought a reproach meant with it most likely for the reason that it acted as a buffer between Assyria and the hostile nomadic tribes that roamed the relatively uncharted territories beyond Sennacherib is best known to history for his attack on the kingdom of Judah and his siege in 701 BC of its capital Jerusalem this is yet another event that described in both the Old Testament of the Bible as well as in Sennacherib own inscriptions though each is account of what happened differs both agree that Sennacherib moved into the Levant to either accept tribute from or destroy several of its kingdoms the Assyrians then entered Judah and attacked the city of Lachish before heading to Jerusalem there Sennacherib laid siege to the city but in the end failed to take it both the Bible and Assyrian records agree on this outcome but the reason why isn't clear the biblical account details the discussion between the prophet Isaiah and Judas King Hezekiah who is convinced that he must hold against Sennacherib siege then one night an angel miraculously goes through the enemy camp to kill a hundred and eighty-five thousand of Sennacherib soldiers though most scholars tend to believe that the numbers of his army would be closer to 5,000 regardless of the total and how it happened such heavy losses seem to have been what forced Sennacherib to withdraw the Assyrian account gives a different more worldly explanation for Sennacherib departure stressing that on the other side of the Empire there was a massive revolt when Mara Duke balidaan returned to four meant more trouble in Babylonia of course this is the same mara doc balidaan who Sennacherib father had fought and forced into exile barely a decade earlier similar to during his father's time mera dark paladin knew that he was outnumbered and so sought exile in neighboring Elam [Music] in order to punish and further prevent elamite interference in a Syrian affairs in 694 BC Sennacherib preemptively attacked Elam by sending Syrian forces across the Gulf to attack the southern portion of the country and then move towards the elamite capital of Susa however this campaign ended up being a disaster and in retaliation Elam ruler haloo Shu in Shushan AK bypassed the Assyrian forces to march directly into Babylonia spurring the locals there into full rebellion when word of the events reached the city of Babylon the people there seized Sennacherib Sun ashen Aden Schumi who he'd appointed as the ruler of the city and turned him over to the Elamites it's presumed he was executed this for Sennacherib was the last straw in what was no doubt an act of personal vengeance Sennacherib destroyed Babylon one of his own inscriptions reads as follows the city and its houses from its foundations to its parapets I swept away I demolished I burned with fire the wall and the outer wall the temples and the gods the ziggurat of mud-brick and earth as many as there were I tore down and deposited them into the ARA two Canal in the midst of that city I dug ditches and flooded its ground with water the form of its foundations I destroyed and I caused its devastation to exceed that of any flood so that in later days the ground of that city its temples its gods would be forgotten in time Babylon's structures would be rebuilt its temples restored but its people would never forget [Music] while Sennacherib life was filled with war and court intrigue he also spent considerable amounts of time in cultivating the gardens of Nineveh which he appears to have been very fond of [Music] it is he along with his grandson Ashurbanipal who in large part were responsible for making Nineveh the greatest capital city of the ancient world at the time one theory even argues that the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon one of the seven wonders of the ancient world which have never been discovered archaeologically were really a half-remembered not to the gardens of Nineveh in 693 BC Sennacherib unexpectedly replaced his son Oh do melissy as his designated heir with another Ashura ha Idina better known as asara dan [Music] obviously rejecting his father's decision her doom Allah C and his supporters conspired against and assassinated his father however asara Don who at the time was in the western portion of the empire marched into Nineveh with his supporters to defeat his brother after which he became the new king of Assyria after all a Sarandon's reign was one of balance considering the violent deaths of his grandfather Sargon and especially that of his father to be divine warnings Asura Don rebuilt the city of Babylon and the temple of its patron God Marduk but he also made sure not to neglect assure both the city and the god he also led military campaigns to conquer or recover Silesia the Phoenician city-state of Sidon media in the East Eastern Arabia and the greatest prize of all Egypt which he conquered in 671 BC in less than a month [Music] however within just a few years the Egyptians revolted forcing Asura Don to return to the land of the Nile however he never made it back to Egypt dying enroute asar hadn't had two sons Ashurbanipal and shamash Samui keen wishing to avoid conflict over the succession like that of his own he instead made both of his sons Kings Ashurbanipal becoming the ruler of Assyria while his brother became the king of Babylon unfortunately of course this arrangement didn't last for long with fighting breaking out between the two brothers it's perhaps for this reason that Ashurbanipal didn't go personally to deal with the Egyptian rebels instead sending his most trusted generals to complete the job for him exploiting the tension between the two brothers the Elamites again sought to undermine Assyria and Ashurbanipal by supporting shamash Samui keen and Babylon in 664 BC the elamite King attack led a surprise war against Assyria the overall conflict was only temporarily resolved in 653 BC when a Syrian troops defeated the ELA night king taya man at the Battle of the LA River tear man's head was brought back to Assyria and put on public display as a trophy though this didn't stop future ela might support for babylon which was crucial when shamash shamu eki declared war on Assyria that same year this renewed conflict between the brothers lasted for about four years only ending in 648 BC when a Shabana pals men finally entered Babylon to kill the Kings brother possibly but burning him alive as he hid in his palace Ashurbanipal didn't stop there he decided that it was time to both punish the Elamites for their years of interference in Babylonian affairs as well as to ensure that they'd never attack a Syrian interests again thus in 647 BC a Shabana pals army ravaged Elam and the great city of Susa in a similar manner to that of Sennacherib destruction of Babylon a few decades prior he boasted of destroying their temples burning the city's palaces plundering its wealth and even digging up and desecrating the bones of its long deceased kings though he often depicted himself as a fearless and cunning warrior Ashurbanipal in fact rarely went on major campaigns preferring instead to spend his days in his massive library studying the great texts of old in fact it's from a Shabana pals library at Nineveh that many of the old Sumerian and Babylonian texts or at least copies of them were first discovered a Shabana pal in classic Assyrian style sought to obtain a copy of every important texts that had ever been written since the beginning of time sending scholars and scribes all over the Near East to either bring them back or if this wasn't possible to at least make copies of them in one inscription he boasts of his own scribal skills and how he could read intricate tablets inscribed with obscure sumerian or Akkadian scripts that were difficult to unravel as well as confused inscriptions of stone from before the flood a particular obsession for most intellectuals of ancient Mesopotamia that would later morph into the biblical flood [Music] a Shabana pal was the last of the great Assyrian Kings when he died around the Year 630 BC the Assyrian Empire was the most powerful that it had ever been very few if any could challenge it militarily or on any other level and yet barely two decades after a Shabana pals death the Assyrian Empire ceased to exist due to the wealth of sources for the period shortly after a Shabana Powell's death scholars have been able to conclusively determine the path that led to the collapse of such a mighty empire based on what has been uncovered it seems that a Shabana pals son and successor Ashura tell Aulani was just a minor when he ascended the throne leading to the chief eunuch sin-shoo mula sheer ruling as regent because eunuchs could not father children or have families meaning no wealth or property to pass on they were generally trusted members of most royal administrations for reasons that are unclear however in 627 BC Asher rotella Larney mysteriously disappeared with the chief eunuch and now Regent sin-shoo mula sheer crowning himself as king this was unprecedented in a Syrian history however after just a few months on the throne sin-shoo mullah Shir himself disappeared being replaced by another son of Ashurbanipal [Music] Sencha room ich Kenne by now however her serious enemies and disgruntled subjects must have known that things were unstable at court and in the absence of a strong military ruler many of them decided to revolt including the Babylonians a certain Chell D and regional official named naba palasa led the anti Assyrian activities in Babylonia eventually becoming the king of Babylon he mustered together whatever forces he could and gradually pushed the Assyrians out of his new realm however history could always repeat itself the Assyrians could always return to reassert control of the region thus Naboo palasa resolved to free Babylonia once and for all from the existential threat looming to their north forming an alliance with King Cyrax ease of the Medes an indo-european people originating in the frontiers around their Zagros Mountains who had once also been subjugated by the Assyrians and may have in part filled a power vacuum left in Iran after the Assyrian sack of Susa Naboo palasa marched north to conquer Assyria the Medes only recently a semi-nomadic people steeped in warfare and military conquest were the first to score major victories against the assyrians in 615 BC conquering the important city of a rapper and shortly afterward capturing and devastating ashore the very place where Assyria had began for over 1,400 years the city had withstood the test of time now in a matter of weeks the city's great walls had come down its temples desecrated monumental buildings put to the torch it's rich Treasuries plundered and its people massacred the loss of a Shah must have been a psychological blow greater than any military one that the Assyrians could have suffered the decisive blow finally came in 612 BC when the combined Babylonian and median armies supported by Scythian horse nomads from the north breached the walls of Nineveh enacting the same fate upon it as Asher during the conflict the Assyrian King since shahru ish King was killed now the Assyrian Heartland had been completely conquered with the Babylonians and the Medes dividing up the spoils of war despite this however the war wasn't over with a Syrian holdouts fighting on for years to come one group maintained control of the cities of herand and karkemish for a few years under a new king ashore orble at the second however by 6:10 we are told that they were forced out of these cities and after a failed attempt to retake them never heard of again thus without a king or a state to run the Assyrian Empire and the Assyrian Kingdom vanished from the historical record replaced in time by a new empire derived in part by the Medes who had conquered Assyria the Persians under the Achaemenid dynasty which utilized much of the societal infrastructure developed over a thousand years by the Assyrians while the Assyrians as a people survived the mighty empire that they had once held one that had inspired both or and dread amongst the people of the region was gone for good [Music] however the influence of the neo-assyrian empire and its culture and traditions did not disappear in fact due to later classical writers such as Herodotus future generations were at least somewhat familiar with Assyria though often mistakenly viewing all of Mesopotamia as a Syrian arguably the first true world empire that at its height encompassed more territory than any state preceding it the Neo Babylonians Persians Macedonians Romans Parthian z-- and others even into the Islamic period copied and were influenced by a Syrian practices for Empire and administration [Music] a Syrian art also influenced later peoples of the region who often merged several aspects of their style with their own it's also due to the assyrians that much of our knowledge with regards to the ancient Near East has been preserved whether in cuneiform or Aramaic language Assyrian scholars acting as the link to the earliest stories of mankind and of course the modern Assyrian community keep alive many of the traditions of their ancestors of centuries past the time when Assyria ruled the world thanks for watching folks if you enjoyed this video don't forget to like let me know in the comments what you'd like to see covered in the future and subscribe so you don't miss new episodes and you can watch the whole collection of history videos I've already made you've been watching history time my name's Pete Kelly and I'll see you on the next one [Music]

Channel: History Time

Views: 767,640

Rating: 4.8464122 out of 5

Keywords: assyria, ancient history, evil empire, empire, ancient empire, history, Neo-assyrians, assyrians, Assyrian, Persians, persian, ugarit, urartu, medians, biblical history

Id: tizdco2i85w

Length: 63min 10sec (3790 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 27 2020