ASSYRIA 



432 



ASSYRIA 



^ASSYRIA 



Principal Events B.C. 



Tiglath-Pileser 1 1130 



Assur Nazir -Pal 883 



Tiglath-Pileser H 745 



Ten Tribes of Israel Captured 722 



Sennacherib 701 



Esarhaddon 680 



Assur-Bani Pal 668 



Fall of Nineveh.... ...606 



Spearman Armed 

 for Conflict 



Archer of 

 Assyrian Army 



Winged Bull Cuneiform Writing and Tablet of Baked Clay on 



which Records were Preserved. Envelope for "Tablet. 



Assur 

 Chief Assyrian Deity 



a great collection of Assyrian and Babylonian 

 writings. The remains of this famous library, 

 consisting of thousands of clay tablets, are 

 now in the British Museum. Assurbanipal 

 was also a great warrior. He fought the 

 Egyptians, captured the city of Tyre, and cru- 

 elly laid waste the country of Elam, to the 

 southeast, as a punishment for aiding Baby- 

 lonia, which had rebelled against him. Eight- 

 een years after his death the Assyrian mon- 

 archy came to an end. 



The name of this monarch is also spelled 

 Ashurbanipal. See ASSYRIA. 



ASSYRIA, a seer' i a, the ancient name of a 

 country lying west of the Tigris River and 

 north of Babylonia, forming with that country 

 the cradle of civilization. Along its eastern 

 boundary rose the mountains of modern Kur- 

 distan; on the north lay the country of Ar- 

 menia. Assyria was the head of a great mil- 

 itary empire that in the seventh century B. c. 

 stretched from the Black Sea to the Persian 

 Gulf, from the frontiers of India to the Medi- 

 terranean, and included Egypt. So closely con- 

 nected were the Assyrians and Babylonians in 

 their geography, their history and their cus- 

 toms, that historians do not find it easy to 



treat separately these two ancient peoples, the 

 pioneers of the world's civilization. 



Geography. Assyria was a fertile plain with 

 low ranges of hills and shallow valleys, through 

 which the great tributaries of the Tigris flowed. 

 The Assyrians in early times built a network of 

 canals, so that the land was under irrigation 

 when rain failed them, and they cultivated 

 olives, vines, fruits and vegetables. From the 

 hills they procured iron, copper and lead ; from 

 the neighboring mountains, limestone, sand- 

 stone, alabaster and basalt. Assur, on the west 

 bank of the Tigris, and the city from which 

 the country took its name, was the oldest 

 capital; Calah, a later capital, lay on the east 

 bank, on the site of the modern Nimrud. 

 Nineveh, the city that became the permanent 

 seat of government, was located twelve miles 

 north of Calah. The modern town of Erbil, 

 near the mountains on the east, is built on the 

 site of the ancient Arbela, which gave its name 

 to the famous battle won in 331 B.C. by Alex- 

 ander the Great. 



People. Assyria was settled, probably as 

 early as 2500 B. c., by colonists from Babylonia, 

 who were of Semetic stock. Though they re- 

 sembled their Babylonian kinsmen in many 



