Mesopotamia and the sequence of civilizations: Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and cultural legacies

1. WEEK TWO –
MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATIONS
1. How societies became Civilizations
2. Features of the Fertile Crescent
3. Features of the Sumerians – first Civilization
a) Myth and Ritual Pattern
b) Enuma Elish
c) Epic of Gilgamesh
4. Features of the Akkadians – first Empire
5. Ancient Law Codes
6. Writing Sytems
7. Sequence of Mesopotamian Civilizations and Cultures
Historical Theme = the Four Big “C”s

2. IN SUMMARY:
Neolithic Agrarian Attributes
•They were primarily rural societies.
•They were based primarily on peasant agriculture or livestock breeding.
•Most people maintained life in balance with their natural environment.
•Their religion was based heavily on gods and spirits that controlled their natural environment.
•Their religion emphasized ritual and sacrifice as ways to control the deities.
•They relied on religious specialists to communicate with the gods.
•They believed time to be cyclic.
•Their social values emphasized kinship and the clan.
•Significant advancements in new technologies and expansion of populations

3. Advancement to Civilization
• Individual farms became farming villages
• Villages evolved into Towns
– Social stratifications
– Economic divisions **Must here stress the importance of
– Occupational specialties Geography to advancement of
Civilizations**
• Towns grew into Cities (centralized authority)
– Government centers
– Religious ritual ** Family and Gender Roles Change**
– Economic centers
– Cultural sophistication
• Cities produced Civilization
– Agrarianism -- Government -- Shared religious ritual – state level
– Civic identity -- Trade Networks -- Shared cultural traditions, i.e. art
– Social complexity -- Writing -- Monumental architecture

4. Mesopotamia is
a Greek word
meaning 'between
the rivers'. The
rivers are the Tigris
and Euphrates
which flow through
modern Iraq. The
Euphrates also
flows through
much of Syria.
Another Historical Theme re: Mesopotamia = Geographic Determinism
Northern Mesopotamia is made up of hills and plains. The land is quite fertile due to
seasonal rains, and the rivers and streams flowing from the mountains. Early settlers
farmed and used timber, metals and stone from the mountains nearby. Southern
Mesopotamia consisted of marshy areas and wide, flat, barren plains. Cities developed
along the rivers which flow through the region. Early settlers had to irrigate the land
along the banks of the rivers in order for their crops to grow. Since they did not have
many natural resources, contact with neighboring lands was important.

6. Human use of the rivers.
•inland navigation possible ~ sometimes.
•rivers yearly flood its banks, producing fertile land.
•irrigation water for agricultural pursuits and
water for sustenance of people and animals
The character of Euphrates and Tigris are different.
Irrigation systems first appeared around
6000 BCE. Dikes, dams and canals brought
the waters from the rains in the north to use
in the south. This required a high level of
organization of the society and collective
efforts for the construction, maintenance,
supervision and adjustments of the irrigation
network. Over-irrigation and limited drainage
gradually brackished the fields, often causing
ecological crisis. Together with the change of
river flow, it stimulates throughout the
Mesopotamian history the foundation of new
settlements and cities
The Tigris is
•rough and fast flowing. 'Tigris' meaning 'fast as an arrow'.
•upper course difficult to pass – not conducive to travel
•river cuts deep in the surrounding –
not accessible for irrigation.
The Euphrates is
•a lifeline. It is more easily used by ships.
•banks are lower, suitable for irrigation, with less violent floods.
•Precipitation in the mtns, north is large = rainfall-agriculture is possible.
•In low lands precipitation is low - Without irrigation (manipulation of the water) agriculture is not possible.
Euphrates vs. Nile Delta. The Euphrates reaches its highest water levels at the end of March to the
beginning of May, the Tigris a few weeks earlier. In both cases the crops are already growing on the field.
The river flood can only be used for agriculture when the fields are shielded by a system of dams, dikes and
canals. This contrasts with the Nile in Egypt. High water in the Nile are a result of the summer monsoon
in Central Africa and has is highest water levels in September-October. The Nile fertilizes the land in the
autumn and the crops can grow in (early) spring when no floods occur. Moreover the Nile, fed by rivers in a
large area, has a more constant flow and carries the soluble salts and lime into the sea. The Euphrates is
more easily prone to salination.

7. 5500 BCE, the Ubaidians,
a pre-urban culture
•lived in large villages
•first temples in Mesopotamia,
•Grow wheat, barley and lentils
•raise sheep, goats, and cattle.
•Ubaidian sites include
Lagash, Eridu and Ur.
4000 BCE Sumerians appear
•moved into Mesopotamia,
•perhaps from around
the Caspian Sea.
3800 BCE the Sumerians
had replaced the Ubaidians
and others in the south
•built better canals ~ irrigation
•better transportation
•crops by boat to village centers.
•improved their roads, donkeys pulling wheeled carts.
•The Sumerians increase in population
•gave rise to what we call civilization – from an ancient word for city.
Sumerians invented urban living.

8. Sumerian society
•was not secular
•city-states were "owned" by the deity
•the inhabitants served their patron deity.
•city-states were theocracies =
– governed by a priest-bureaucracy.
•cities were dominated by shrines or temples.
•temple is on a man-made mountain (called a ziggurat) w/stairs leading up to the temple area on the top.
•Each Sumerian city had a ziggurat or two dedicated to the deity of that city.
– The geographical conditions of Mesopotamia did not favor architectural development
– lacked stone and timber = essential materials for monumental architecture.
– Most buildings made of tall marsh reeds = highly perishable materials.
– The ziggurats and temples made of mud brick dried in the sun
– Temple’s name means literally "the waiting room" for the god.
– Temples attempt to bridge gap between humans and gods. Lugals (priest-kings) = mediators between deity
and the people, commissioned by god/goddess to re-build temple or build new one
• civic projects solidified the power of the Lugal and convinced the people that their way of life was
preserved by their obedience.
The mountain is an important symbol in Mesopotamian religion, representing
the mysterious forces of life which bring rain and fertility.

9. This is an artist's conception of what an ancient city such as Uruk in
Mesopotamia may have looked like. Typically, people lived in their
homes, but slept on the flat roofs at night where the desert breeze
cooled them off. Sumerians invented the concept of “urban” living.

10. July 25, 2005 - An Army C-23 Sherpa aircraft flies over a ziggurat at Ur, Iraq –
still standing after 500 years of countless wars.

11. The statues from the Abu Temple were ritual furniture for the temple. The two largest figures are
a god and goddess (designs on the base have symbols relating to their divinity). The large eyes
also identify them as divine; the eye in many cultures has a mysterious force ("the evil eye," for
example). The other figures in the grouping are thought to be worshippers -- or stand-ins (votive
figurines) for worshippers, believed to be offering prayers on behalf of human beings.

12. Sumerian Lugals (priest-kings) portrayed themselves as mediators between deity and the
people, often commissioned by a god or goddess to re-build an existing temple or build a
new one. These kinds of civic projects solidified the power of the Lugal and convinced the
people that their way of life was preserved by their obedience.

13. Cylinder seals and their impressions recorded and communicated Sumerian
religious beliefs. In this instance, a male figure confronts a goddess whose gown
is drawn aside. Two braided knots neatly separate images of animals, real and
mythological, horizontally into four distinct registers. In the upper region of the
seal, pairs of lions are depicted in heraldic fashion (facing one another). Below,
two winged griffins raise their forearms over the hindquarters of submissive
ibexes who stare backwards at their predators. Cylinder seals evolved from
earlier round stamp seals with primitive markings designating ownership and
tallying of goods.

14. Babylonian myth of
Semitic origins will
promote Marduk as the
chief god who battles
with Tiamat, the main
goddess and destroys
her, using her body to
create the earth – hence
the male god becoming
the creator and the
“mother goddess” is
supplanted.
From verses scattered throughout hymns and myths, we can compile a picture of the universe's (anki)
creation according to the Sumerians. The primeval sea (abzu) existed before anything else and within
that, the heaven (an) and the earth (ki) were formed. The boundary between heaven and earth was a solid
(perhaps tin) vault, and the earth was a flat disk. Within the vault lay the gas-like 'lil', or atmosphere, the
brighter portions therein formed the stars, planets, sun, and moon. Each of the four major Sumerian deities
is associated with one of these regions. An, god of heaven, Ki is the original name of the earth
goddess, whose name more often appears as Ninhursag (queen of the mountains), Ninmah (the
exalted lady), or Nintu (the lady who gave birth). Akkadian myth names her Tiamat, whom Marduk
will destroy. It seems likely that An & Tiamat were the progenitors of most of the gods. The eventual
relegation of the female deity to an inferior position relative to the male deity reflects the domination and
control of women by men as civilizations advanced, one of those paradoxes in history.

15. Goddess Entreating (detail)
c.2330-2150 B.C. Akkad period.
Marble. Cylinder seal.
Mesopotamia
Many Mesopotamian prayers had to be
spoken out loud and accompanied by
specific gestures. The best attested of these
prayers is the type named su-ila, or "uplifted
hands.“
On this seal, a goddess stands with an
uplifted hand, perhaps performing a
similar prayer-like ritual. Uplifted hands
are characteristic of goddesses in
Mesopotamian art, especially during the
Neo-Sumerian and Old Babylonian period,
c.2100-1600, B.C. Such goddesses have
been identified as lama, female
protective beings called "angels."
These goddesses served as supplicants on
behalf of human worshippers, offering
prayers for their well-being.
Orantes posture in
Catacomb Christian art
Byzantine Christian Art

16. Cuneiform (“wedge”) was the
system of writing used most
extensively in the ancient Middle
East. Cuneiform was employed for
writing a number of languages from
about the end of the 4th millennium
BC until about the 1st century BC.

17. What elements of this
Myth Pattern shows up in
Jewish/Christian/Muslim
beliefs?
The Enuma Elish, “When on High”, is a
Mesopotamian myth of creation recounting
the struggle between cosmic order and
chaos. It is basically a myth of the cycle of
seasons. It is named after its opening words
and was recited on the fourth day of the
ancient New Year's festival. The basic story
exists in various forms in the area.
This version is written in Akkadian, an old Babylonian dialect, and stars Marduk, the patron deity of the city of
Babylon. A similar earlier version in ancient Sumerian has Anu, Enil and Ninurta as the heroes, suggesting that
this version was adapted to justify the religious practices in the cult of Marduk in Babylon.

19. Sumerian seal (carved cylinder), early dynastic period (third
millenium B.C.). "Master or Mistress of animals" (beast master)
themes took many forms in ancient Near Eastern art, including
this Sumerian example.
Interior decoration in Catal Huyuk
8,000 years ago—5,000 years before
the rise of Greece’s city-states. The
walls were painted with vivid images of
goddesses, hunters, and, in the bottom
right hand corner, of the city’s ground
plan and the nearby volcano that gave
Catal Huyuk its rich store of exportable
treasure: obsidian. Note the beast-master
motif top center, which will
show up in Sumerian art forms 2000-
3000 years later.

20. Epic of Gilgamesh – notice the use of the beast master motif we saw 2000 years earlier
at Çatal Höyük. This motif showed up in all forms of Mesopotamian art. Gilgamesh
was the first piece of literature to create the pattern of the Hero Epic.

21. Among the earliest written
documents from Mesopotamia
are records of land sales or
grants, often carved in stone
with associated images, perhaps
for public display. The Sumerian
inscription on this stele records a
transaction involving three fields,
three houses, and some
livestock. Ushumgal, a priest of
the god Shara, and his daughter
are the central figures of the
transaction, but because of the
archaic script, it is not clear
whether Ushumgal is buying,
selling, or granting these
properties. The smaller figures
along the sides very likely
represent witnesses to the
transaction.
Stele of Ushumgal, Early Dynastic I; 2900–2600 B.C.
Mesopotamia, Umma (modern Jokha) (?)
Alabaster (gypsum); H. 22.4 cm

22. Gilgamesh
•historical king of Uruk
•lived about 2700 B.C.
•stories were written about 2000 B.C. on clay tablets,
still survive
•first written accounts in Sumerian language
the Sumerian language, as far as we know,
bears no relation to any other human
language we know about.
These Sumerian Gilgamesh stories
were integrated into a longer poem.
•versions of which survive not only in Akkadian
(the Semitic language, related to Hebrew, spoken by the
Babylonians) but also on tablets written in Hurrian and Hittite (an
Indo-European language, a family of languages which includes
Greek and English, spoken in Asia Minor).
•All the above languages were written in cuneiform
•The fullest surviving version from twelve stone tablets, in the
Akkadian language, found in the ruins of the library of
Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria 669-633 B.C., at Nineveh. All the
tablets are damaged.
•The tablets name an author, which is extremely rare in the ancient
world, for this particular version of the story: Shin-eqi-unninni, the
oldest known human author we know.
The Flood Tablet / The
Gilgamesh Tablet /
Library of Ashurbanipal
Now in the British
Museum

23. Gilgamesh Plot Summary
The plot of the Epic of Gilgamesh goes something like this: The gods had
created Enkidu -- a wild man-like creature -- in the hope that he might challenge
the arrogant and ruthless Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and thus temper his
excesses. After an initial confrontation, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become friends.
On an expedition to the west, they confront an evil monster, Humbaba, in the
Cedar Forest. Enkidu slays Humbaba and, in retribution, the gods take Enkidu's
life. Enkidu's death so haunts Gilgamesh that he undertakes to seek eternal life,
and so Gilgamesh the mighty hero is transformed into Gilgamesh the broken
mortal. The pursuit of immortality leads Gilgamesh into further adventures. The
most famous is his encounter with Utnapishtim, and ancient hero who had
survived a tragic flood. His tale, recounted in the epic, bears many
resemblances to the Biblical story of the Flood that Utnapishtim is often called
the Babylonian Noah. Gilgamesh, following Utnapishtim's advice, finds a plant
capable of rendering him immortal, only to have it stolen by a snake while he
sleeps, exhausted from his quest. He returned to his city-state of Uruk and
realized his quest for immortality was always there in his city of Uruk.

24. Can you name modern Epic Stories that have followed this hero
motif?

25. SUMERIANS SUMMARY
•earliest civilization living in the fertile valleys between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers,
Mesopotamia, which in Greek means, "between the rivers."
•Invented urbanization, city living, and invented & advanced Bronze Age technology
•a mysterious group of people, called their land Kengir, their language Emegir, and
themselves Sag-giga, “black-headed ones”
•spoke a language unrelated to any other human language we know of,
•invented writing, cuneiform script.
• formed large city-states in southern Mesopotamia that controlled areas of several
hundred square miles: Ur, Lagash, Eridu, Uruk, Nippur.
• Constantly at war with one another and other peoples over resources. The result over
time was the growth of larger city-states as the more powerful swallowed up the smaller
city-states.
•Eventually, the Sumerians battled another peoples, the Akkadians, who migrated up
from the Arabian Peninsula.

26. The culture that later Semites inherited from the Sumerians:
•system of monarchy ruled by a type of priest-king, ensi, translated “lugal” - leading the
military, admin. trade, judging disputes, and leading state religious ceremonies.
•a new legitimation of authority - some sort of divine selection, later asserting that the
monarch himself was divine and worthy of worship.
•government bureaucracy and bureaucrats - middle management, which consisted largely
of priests, who bore all the responsibility of surveying and distributing land as well as
distributing crops.
•and to make the bureaucrat's life easier: record-keeping. And record-keeping means
writing in some form or another.
•record keeping demanded system of measuring long periods of time - invented calendars,
divided into twelve months based on the cycle of the moon - added a "leap month" every
three years in order to catch up with the sun.
•develop a complicated knowledge of astronomy and the first human invention of the zodiac
in order to measure yearly time.
•record-keeping demanded calculating - to be added up, subtracted, multiplied, divided,
•Sumerians developed a sophistication with mathematics—abstract mathematics.

28. •The Akkadians were a Semitic people, that is, they spoke a Semitic language related to
languages such as Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic, and Arabic.
•When the two peoples clashed, the Sumerians gradually lost control over their city-states and fell
under the hegemony of the Akkadian kingdom which was based in Akkad, the city that was later to
become Babylon.
•But that was not the end of the Sumerians. The Akkadians abandoned much of their culture and
absorbed vast amounts of Sumerian culture, including their religion, writing, government structure,
literature, and law.
•But the Sumerians retained nominal control over many of their defeated city-states, and in 2125,
the Sumerian city of Ur rose up against the Akkadians and gained for their daring control over the
city-states of southern Mesopotamia.
•Revival of Sumerian fortune was to be short-lived, for after a short century, another wave of
Semitic migrations, Amorites, brought the end of the original creators of Mesopotamian culture.
•Sumerians began civilization, as a culture transformed by the practical effects of urbanization,
writing, and monarchy.
•While the Sumerians disappear around 2000 BCE, the invaders that overthrew them adopted their
culture and became, more or less, Sumerian. They adopted the government, economy, city-living,
writing, law, religion, and stories of the original peoples.
•Why? What would inspire a people to deliberately adopt foreign ways?
•The culture the later Semites inherited from the Sumerians consisted of the following:
·world's first systems of monarchy very first states in human history,
·ruled by a type of priest-king, called in Sumerian, ensi, translated “lugal”.
·leading the military, administering trade, judging disputes, and engaging in the most important
religious ceremonies.

30. Sargon of Akkad
Sargon the Great
Sargon the First
He was a gifted Akkadian warlord
around 2850BCE.
He conquered the city states and
united them under his command
to create the worlds first empire.
Around 2000BCE, the empire fell
to the nomadic tribes people of
the north.
Invaders of this region built on
the accomplishments that the
states they conquered had
already achieved. Therefore, the
advancements of the previous
civilizations would carry forward
from conqueror to conqueror.

31. LEGENDS OF SARGON
•According to legend his mother was a "changeling", which may mean a priestess prostitute,
possibly of Kish. His father was either unknown or a gardener, and he was set adrift on the river and
rescued like Moses.
•Originally he was royal cup-bearer to King of Kish. When the city is over taken in battle, Sargon moved to
Akkad to build his power base. He either built Akkad, or more probably, rebuilt or fortified it.
•After consolidating his power he attacked Uruk and razed its walls. He next defeated a coalition of 50
Sumerian communities, along with the remaining Urukite army. He then quickly conquered Ur and
the rest of Sumer. When he reached the Persian Gulf, he ritually washed his weapons in it. He
called himself the "Great Ensi of Enlil" to show that he respected Sumerian traditions.
•Next he marched on Assyria, Mari, Iarmuti, and Ebla, conquering them all. His western conquests
brought him "to the cedar Forests and the silver mountains", that is Lebanon and the Taurus
mountains. Finally, he subjected Elam and western Iran. The war with the Elamites was tough.
Eventually they were defeated and Susa made the capital of the Akkadian viceroy and Akkadian was
imposed as the new language of Elam.
•Sargon called himself "King of the Lands" and "King of the Four Quarters". He was not only a
great military leader, but also an ingenious administrator. He appointed Semites to high administrative
offices and posted all-Akkadian garrisons in the major cities. He appointed his daughter Enheduanna as
chief priestess of Nanna of Ur and as a ritual representative of Inanna of Uruk.
•According to legend he also sent expeditions to Anatolia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and India, but this is not
proven. Although in the case of India, the Indus (or Harrapan) civilization did trade with Akkad and sent
ships to dock there. A later Babylonian legend says that "all the Land" revolted against him late in his reign
and besieged him in Akkad, but he was victorious. His reign was the first time that texts were written
entirely in Akkadian. From his reign, a new kind of political ideal began to evolve, one that was
different from the city-state concept.

32. • Last Sumerian dynasty of UR
(revival after Akkadians) fell
around 2000 BC, Mesopotamia
drifted into conflict and chaos for
almost a century.
•Around 1900 BC, a group of
Semites called the Amorites
gained control of most of the
Mesopotamian region. Like the
Akkadians, the Amorites
centralized the government over
the individual city-states and
based their capital in the city of
Babylon, which was originally
called Akkad and served as the
center of the Amorite empire. For
this reason, the Amorites are
called the Old Babylonians and
the period of their ascendancy
over the region, which lasted from
1900-1600 BC, is called the Old
Babylonian period.
Old Babylonian Empire

33. •While the Sumerian civilization consisted of independent and autonomous city-states, the
Old Babylonian state was a behemoth of dozens of cities. In order to make this system
work, power and autonomy was taken from the individual cities and invested in the
monarch. As a result, an entirely new set of laws were invented by the Old Babylonians:
laws which dealt with crimes against the state.
•The History of Babylonia
•Traditionally the history of Babylonia has been broken down into three major periods:
The Old Babylonian Period (2000-1595 BCE) = Amorites
The Middle Babylonian Period (1595-1000 BCE) = Kassites
The Neo-Babylonian Period (1000-539 BCE) = Chaldeans
•It is in the realm of law that the Sumerian state was most dramatically changed by the
Amorites. While law among the Sumerians was administered jointly by individuals
and the state, the Old Babylonians allowed the state to more actively pursue and
punish criminals. The punishments became dramatically more draconian: the death
penalty was applied to many more crimes, including "bad behavior in a bar."

34. ANCIENT LAW CODES
A number of documents from Mesopotamia called Law Codes have been
recovered and the fact that these contain parallels with biblical and modern law
has evoked considerable interest in modern scholarship. The documents in
question are:
The Laws of Urukagina (Sumerian, 2350 BC),
The Laws of Ur-Namrnu (Sumerian, 2112-2095 BC),
The Laws of Lipit-Ishtar (Sumerian 1934-1924 BC),
The Laws of Eshnunna (Babylonian, 1900 BC), and
The Code of Hammurabi (Babylonian, 1792-1750 BC).

35. The Law Code of Hammurabi shown here is
preserved on a seven-foot-tall, black diorite stele,
which depicts the king himself receiving the law
from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice.
The Law Code of Hammurabi provides incredible
insight into the civil laws and customs of the
ancient world, and shows similarities to the laws
contained in the Torah (first five books) of the
Bible.
The Law Code of Hammurabi currently resides in
the Louvre Museum, Paris.

36. •Perhaps the most important legal text in history is an Old Babylonian code of
laws written by Hammurabi (around 1792-1750 BC), the most famous of the
Old Babylonian monarchs. This code, called the Code of Hammurabi is
generally regarded as Sumerian in spirit, but with all the harshness of the Old
Babylonian penalties.
•Although we know nothing of Old Babylonian religion, they seem to have
adopted the religion of the Sumerians. We do know that the Amorites lived in
close contact with the Sumerians for a long time preceding their ascendency
over the region, so it's possible that they gradually adopted Sumerian religion
over several centuries.
•The Amorites did, however, import a new god into Sumerian religion, Marduk,
which they elevated to the supreme position over the other gods. Like the
Sumerians, the Amorites did not believe that life after death held any promise
or threat, so like the Sumerians, Amorite religion ruthlessly focused on this
world.

38. The Kassites were known for establishing the
second, or middle, Babylonian dynasty; they
were believed to have originated in the Zagros
Mountains of Iran. Although the Kassite kings
traditionally ruled over Babylonia for 576 years,
it is probable that the first Kassite kings reigned
in Babylonia simultaneously with the last kings
of the first Babylonian dynasty. The Kassite
kings appear to have been members of a small
military aristocracy but were apparently
efficient rulers and not locally unpopular. The
horse, the sacred animal of the Kassites,
probably first came into use in Babylonia at this
time.
In the 12th century Elam struck the final blow at
Kassite power in Babylonia, already weakened
by local insurrection. In the 1st millennium the
Kassites withdrew to the Zagros Mountains,
where they opposed the eastward expansion of
Assyrian power and paid tribute to Persia. They
were conquered by Alexander the Great but
later regained their independence.
No inscription or document in the Kassite
language has been preserved. Some 300 Kassite
words have been found in Babylonian
documents. Nor is much known about the
social structure of the Kassites or their culture.
Their religion was polytheistic; the names of
some 30 gods are known.

39. Assyrians
• The Assyrians were a Semitic people
• centered around their capital city of Ashur in the
northern area of Mesopotamia.
• Their bids for conquest were squashed by the
Babylonian king, Hammurabi and then by the
Asiatic Hurrians (Mitanni), and again by the Hittites,
• the Assyrians gained their independence around
1400 BCE.
• Assyrian ruler Tiglat-Pileser (1116-1090 BCE )
conquered Babylon and extended their empire
into Syria and Armenia.
• Between 883 and 824 BCE, the Assyrians conquered
all of Syria and Armenia, Palestine, Babylon and
southern Mesopotamia.
• At its greatest extent, the Assyrian empire extended
to the Mediterranean Sea from the western part of
modern Iran, including Anatolia, and southward to the Nile delta.
• Assyrian hegemony ended when the Neo-Babylonians, with help from the Medes (Persians), destroyed the
Assyrian Empire and burned Nineveh.
• Assyrian rule was ruthless = they were the most feared empire of the ancient world.
• Assyrians practiced forced migrations as their conquered subjects were often exiled, including the Hebrews of the
northern Kingdom of Israel – hence the term the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.
• The southern kingdom of the Hebrews, Judah, resisted Assyrian conquest but would later be defeated and exiled by
the Babylonians, in an event known as the Babylonian Captivity.

40. Map showing the geographic boundaries of the Assyrian Empire

41. Assyrian displays
the brutality waged
against others in
warfare, which
included: impaling
enemies, cutting
off limbs, skinning
captives alive,
beheadings, etc.

42. Assyrian art also depicted the mass
forced migration of the Israelites in
the 8th century BCE. Dispersed to
the far corners of the Assyrian
world, this destroyed the ethnic and
cultural identity of a people and this
kingdom of Israelites became
known as the Lost Ten Tribes in
Jewish and Christian traditions.
Israelites at Lachish being skinned alive

43. Detailing the blood sport of lion hunting
Ivory plaque carved with a scene of a lion attacking a fallen
Nubian. Assyrian, ca. 730-700 BCE.

44. The monuments
excavated at Nineveh
have revealed much about
the religion of the ancient
Assyrians. They
worshipped the sun,
moon and stars, and
among their idols were
heroes and rulers from
earlier times who were
made deities.
Asshur was the father of
the Assyrians and the
country was named after
him. He was regarded as
"the great god, king of all
the gods." It was Asshur
who gave power and life
to every priestly king, and
this was his symbol = A
winged circle or globe
with the human figure of a
warrior god armed with a
bow in its center.

45. (Northwest Palace at Nimrud 883-859 BCE) = Two carved figures of Ashurmasirpal II,
with winged genius on either side, facing a stylized Assyrian tree of Life.
The Assyrian Tree of Life is probably the oldest, as it is the most famous of all
sacred trees, and it still gives definite form to various ornamental designs. Starting
in Assyria where it seems to have been associated with the worship of Ishtar it
penetrated into Arabia, Central Asia, Asia Minor and Persia.

46. Celtic
Jewish
Egyptian Kabala
Buddhist, Laos
Makonde, Africa

47. Dissolution of the Assyrian Empire between the Neo-Babylonians and the Medes

48. Persian Empire ended all hegemony of Mesopotamian powers