Tiglath-Pileser is passionately fond of the chase.…

The city of Damascus becomes the center of a powerful Aramaean state called Aram Damascus in the late twelfth century BCE.

The sources for the early history of Aram-Damascus are almost nonexistent.

A collection of annals dating to Tiglath-Pileser I (1114-1076 BCE) states that Aramaean people have begun settling in the southern half of Syria.

The ruins of the Aramean town most probably lie under the eastern part of the old walled city.

…Nineveh, and other cities, and texts from his library are still extant.

The Egyptian empire has shrunk since the time of Ramesses III and all ambitious royal building programs have failed.

The independence of officials has increasingly impeded government, as offices have become hereditary and corruption and inefficiency multiplies.

The New Kingdom ends in a civil war under Ramesses XI.

Egypt splits after 1085, between a northern Twenty-first dynasty claiming national recognition and a line of Theban generals supported by the high priests of Amun (the actual controllers of the south).

Tiglath-Pileser I of Assyria conquers Mesopotamia and the eastern Mediterranean, defeating Babylon and exacting tribute from the Phoenician city-states.

The Aramaeans take Babylon after his death and destroy Assyrian power, driving the Canaanites south.

Asharid-apal-Ekur, King of Assyria from 1076 BCE, had succeeded his father, Tiglath-Pileser I, and is succeeded by a brother, Ashur-bel-kala, in 1074 BCE.

The latter part of the reign of Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser seems to have been a period of retrenchment, as Aramaean tribesmen put pressure on his realm.

Georges Roux, writing in his book Ancient Iraq (London: Penguin, 1992), considers Tiglath-Pileser "one of the two or three great Assyrian monarchs since the days of Shamshi-Adad".

From his surviving inscriptions, he seems to have carefully cultivated a fear of himself in his subjects and in his enemies.

He dies in 1076 BCE and is succeeded by his son Asharid-apal-Ekur.

The later kings Ashur-bel-kala and Shamshi-Adad IV are also his sons.

The fragmentation of power in Egypt has allowed the Nubians to regain autonomy and to establish a new kingdom, Kush, centered at Napata.

Ramesses XI dies in about 1077 BCE, ending the Twentieth Dynasty.

He is succeeded by Smendes I, who founds the Twenty-first Dynasty.

The High Priest of Amun at Thebes, capital of Ancient Egypt, has by 1075 BCE become powerful enough to limit the power of the pharaoh over Upper Egypt.

This is the beginning of the Third Intermediate Period (1070 BC-664 BCE).

Eriba-Adad II, King of Assyria from 1056 to 1054 BCE, had succeeded his father, Ashur-bel-kala, but reigns for only two years before the throne is usurped by his uncle, Shamshi-Adad IV.

Little is known of his reign beyond this.

Ashur-bel-kala, the son of Tiglath-Pileser I, had succeeded to the throne of Assyria after the brief reign of his brother, Asharid-apal-Ekur, in 1074, after reigning for eighteen years, he is succeeded by his son, Eriba-Adad II, in 1056.