The cities of Assur (near modern al-Sharqat),…
2061 BCE to 1918 BCE
The cities of Assur (near modern al-Sharqat), Nineveh, and Irbil form a triangle that define the original territory of what will from the mid-fourteenth century BCE become known as Assyria, in northern Mesopotamia around the present city of Mosul (al-Mawsil), Iraq.
The city of Assur (Ashur) seems to have existed since at least the middle of the third millennium BCE, although it appears to have been an administrative center at this time rather than an independent state.
Little is positively known of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria.
The Assyrian King List mentions rulers going back to the twenty-third and twenty-second century BCE; however, little is known of these kings.
They were more than likely local Akkadian rulers subject to the Akkadian Empire and later Sumerian domination.
The earliest king, named Tudiya, who was a contemporary of Ibrium of Ebla, appears to have lived in the twenty-third century BCE.
Ibrium concluded a treaty with Tudiya of Assyria for the use of a trading post officially controlled by Ebla.
He was succeeded by Adamu and then a further thirteen rulers, about all of whom nothing is known.
These early kings from the twenty-third to late twenty-first centuries BCE, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents were likely to have been semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers who dominated the region and at some unknown point during this period became urbanized and founded the city state of Ashur.
The people known as the Assyrians use the name Ashur to designate not only their country, but also their most ancient city and their national god.
The Assyrians speak Akkadian, the same Semitic language as their Babylonian neighbors to the south.
Locations
Topics
Subjects
Regions
The Near and Middle East
View →Subregions
