:The Second Assyrian Empire (745 - 612 BC)
: (745 - 727 BC) Tiglasser III
The era of the Second Assyrian Empire begins with the assumption of power by this great king, whose rule lasted eighteen years, during which the glory and power of the Assyrian kingdom was restored. He adopted a policy of leniency and tolerance towards the countries subject to him. After establishing the foundations of rule in Assyria, he headed south and fought the Aramaic, Chaldean, and Elamite tribes and eliminated their strife in Babylon. Then he turned north to stop the advance of (Sardur II), king of Urartu, and was able to defeat him and return him to Armenia. Then he turned to the Aramaic states in Syria, fought in Aleppo, and conquered Damascus in the year (732 BC). He conquered the coastal cities from the Gulf of Alexandretta to Gaza, and reached the Egyptian border. Then he attacked Babylonia again, descended to the far south, subjugated the Kingdom of Beit Yakini, and then fought the Arab sheikhs in the desert. He adopted a policy of displacement, transferring peoples from one place to another and integrating them with each other to make them a unified nation with one language and similar customs. He transferred large groups of residents of Syria and Palestine and settled them in Babylon and Assyria, and deported groups of Babylonians and settled them in the north and west.
After his death, his son Shalmaneser V assumed power, who called himself King of Babylon and Assyria. During his time, Hosea, the King of Israel, revolted, so Shalmaneser besieged his capital, Samaria, for three years. He died during that, and he took over after him:
: (722 - 705 BC) Sargon II
His rule lasted seventeen years, which he spent in wars and conquests. His first act was that he completed the conquest of the city of Samaria and eliminated the Kingdom of Israel in the year (721 BC) and conquered the rest of the Syrian and Palestinian cities and the Phoenician coasts. It happened at the beginning of his rule that the Chaldean king called (Marduk-Baladan) revolted from the kingdom of Beit Yakini in the far south and, in cooperation with the Elamites, seized Babylon and most of the southern cities. Sargon tried to discipline him, but he failed the first time. He left Babylon under the rule of Marduk-Baladan for more than ten years and worked. During which Sargon strengthened the Assyrian kingdom in the north, conquered the Aramaic cities in Syria and Palestine, and eliminated their alliances that were concluded at the instigation of the Pharaoh of Egypt. The movements of the Aryan peoples were intense at that time, covering the north from the east in the northern Iranian plateau to the west on the coasts of Asia Minor.
Then Sargon headed again towards Babylon, supported by a strong army. Marduk-Baladan was unable to withstand him, and no help came from the Elamites, so he fled to the south and left Babylon to the Assyrians. This was in the year (709 BC). Sargon followed him to the kingdom of Beth-Yakini and conquered it. It appears that he He pardoned him and appointed him king of the Kingdom of the South.
Sargon was from the class of aristocratic leaders who preserved the ancient customs and worship of the Assyrians. That is why we see him promoting the worship of the god Assyria and building his temples in Assyria and other cities. However, his most famous urban exploits were the construction of a new capital, which he called after himself (Dur Sharukin), and its ruins are called today Khorsabad, and the name is a distortion of (Khusrawabad). It is about 12 kilometers north of Nineveh. Sargon decorated the entrances to the city and his palace with statues such as winged bulls and large marble slabs carved in relief with different scenes. The visitor to the Iraq Museum sees many of these slabs in the tenth hall. Sargon did not enjoy his new capital, as he died in one of his invasions in the north, one year after moving to the new city, and his son assumed power after him:
:Sennacherib (705 - 681 BC)
He assumed power after the death of his father, Sargon, and did not want to use the buildings that his father had built. He did not live in the new capital, but rather left it and moved to Nineveh and renovated its buildings, the paradise of the earth, with its lush gardens and the water streams that ran through it.
Sennacherib was a firm ruler and a brilliant politician who used force and severity in his wars against his enemies and introduced many inventions into the methods and weapons of warfare. Babylon revolted against him at the beginning of his rule under the leadership of Mardu as the former enemy. Sennacherib prepared successful military campaigns in Asia Minor and the coasts of the Aegean Sea. These campaigns were a direct cause of the exchange of culture between the East and the West. After that, he descended towards the coast of Phoenicia and eliminated the alliances of the mini-states in Tire, Sidon, and Ashkelon. He returned and subjugated all the cities that were under Assyrian rule in the past. He besieged Jerusalem during the time of its king Hezekiah, and because of the spread of the plague in his army, he was forced to retreat to Nineveh. Meanwhile, Babylon had revolted again because its people and clergy were resentful of him because he did not respect the worship of the god Marduk, but rather made Babylon an attached part of the Assyrian kingdom. Sennacherib prepared a strong disciplinary campaign against the rebels and conquered Babylon and appointed one of his sons over it. Then he wanted to eliminate the states of the people of the sea in the far south because they were always the cause of strife in Babylon. So Sennacherib ordered the manufacture of warships and brought in for this skilled craftsmen from the Phoenicians and Greece who made ships for him on the Tigris and Euphrates and descended. He headed towards the south, crossing the marshes until he reached the sea, and in the Iraqi Museum there is a large slab of marble engraved with a scene representing this campaign (Hall Twelve - No. 10). He conquered all the states of the Gulf, and the Elamites took advantage of Sennacherib’s preoccupation in the south, so they attacked central Iraq and the Babylonian region, so he returned against them. We will fight. However, his forces had apparently weakened and his supply center was far away, which forced him to retreat towards Nineveh, but he did not give them long, as he returned to them with a strong army with which he besieged Babylon and conquered it by force. His anger against it was intense, so he destroyed it, burned its palaces, demolished its walls, and opened the waters of the Euphrates on it until it was submerged. Then he descended south to fight the Arab tribes that helped the revolutionaries in Babylon. He advanced towards Dumat al-Jandal and subjugated its sheikhs. Then he crossed the desert from there towards the Mediterranean coast and arrived near Gaza. He wanted to fight the Egyptians, who were often the reason for inciting the mini-states in Syria and Palestine against Assyria, but he was tired. He took his cue from Sennacherib and retreated after he met the army of Taherqa, Pharaoh of Egypt, on the border.
Sennacherib was famous for his many wars for his urban works as well, especially for digging canals and canals. He brought water to Nineveh from the sources of the Kumel River in Mount Bafian and ran it through canals and over arches built with stone. At the end of his reign, he appointed his son Aser Haddon from his Aramaic wife (Nakiyah) as crown prince, apart from his brothers who They grew him up, so one of his sons revolted against him, with the support of the ruling men, and killed him in the year 681 BC.
: (681 - 669 BC) Esarhaddon
When his father was killed, Haddon was captured in the north in the Armenian mountains. He advanced towards Nineveh, conquered it, and eliminated the rebellion there. Esarhaddon followed a policy of reconciliation with Babylon and rebuilt what had been destroyed during the time of his father. He appointed his eldest son (Shamash-sham-ukun) to its throne. He fought south to eliminate a movement carried out by Marduk-Baladan and defeated him. This man fled to Elam and was killed there. Aser-haddon was appointed a new prince in this region. The son of Marduk-Bladan II, and thus security was established for him in the south.
In the year (676 BC), Esarhaddon headed towards Syria and the coast of Phoenicia, conquered all the inland and coastal cities, and was showered with gifts from their princes and the princes of Cyprus and Greece. Asr Haddon surpassed other Assyrian kings in fame due to his invasion of Egypt. He directed a powerful campaign to defeat the Egyptian armies that were hostile to him in Syria and Palestine. He advanced with his army towards the Egyptian border and fought Pharaoh Taherqa in the year (673 BC), then he retreated to Nineveh, and after two years he repeated the matter and attacked with an army. Armum conquered the delta of Egypt and conquered it. He entered the capital, Memphis, and Taharqa fled towards Upper Egypt. Esarhaddon seized a lot of spoils, which he transported to Nineveh, leaving behind him the garrison of Assyria in Memphis. The Iraqi Antiquities Directorate found some Egyptian antiquities in the hill of Prophet Yunus, including three large statues made of black doyorite stone of King Taherqa. When Esarhaddon returned from the Egyptian campaign, he engraved his image in the mountain rocks at the mouth of the Nahr al-Kalb near Beirut as a memorial to this brilliant victory. During the rule of the Haddun families, waves of peoples were creeping towards Asia Minor, sometimes from east to west and at other times from west to east, and the state of the Maidhis was formed in northern Iran.
At the end of the reign of the Haddon family, a dispute occurred over the inheritance of the throne, so he appointed his young son, Ashurbanipal, as crown prince, in order to please his Babylonian mother, Naqba. Then he appointed his eldest son (Shamash-Sham or Kun) as king of Babylon on the condition that he would be loyal to his brother. Then the Haddon families fell ill and a sedition arose in Egypt. He prepared a campaign to suppress it, but he died on the way and was succeeded by his son:
:Ashurbanipal (669 - 629 BC)
Ashurbanipal was fond of literature and fine arts, and he collected many books. He ordered the translation of clay tablets written in Sumerian, Akkadian, or Babylonian, and placed them in his large library that he found in Nineveh. Ashurbanipal ordered the commander of the Assyrian army (Shanyushu) to continue marching with the army that his father had prepared to suppress the strife in Egypt. He advanced to the Delta, fought Taharqa and the other Egyptian princes, and conquered Memphis. Then he followed Taharqa to Upper Egypt and also conquered Thebes. Thus, all of Egypt was subjected to Assyrian rule. Ashurbanipal appointed Egyptian governors over it, including Bismathek, and contracted with them to pay tribute to the Assyrian state and provide loyalty to it. After the withdrawal of the Assyrian armies, Psmanek annexed the Egyptian provinces under his banner and established the twenty-sixth dynasty, which was loyal to the Assyrian state. As for Babylonia, we mentioned previously that Asr Haddon had appointed one of his sons called (Shamash-sham-ukun) as ruler of Babylon. When Ashurbanipal assumed power in Nineveh, his brother (Shamash-sham-ukun) came forward to obey and acknowledge the supreme authority of the king of Nineveh, and at the time Ashurbanipal himself recognized his brother's kingship over Babylon, and thus the two brothers cooperated to rule Mesopotamia for twenty years, but after that it happened that the brother Shamash-sham or Kan was swept up in the trend of rebellion that overwhelmed Babylon against Ashurbanipal, so he split the stick of obedience against his brother, so Ashurbanipal was stripped. He carried out a disciplinary campaign against Babylon, besieged his brother there, and conquered it by force in the year (648 BC), destroyed it, and burned Shamash-sham-ukin in the flames of his palace. Then the king of Nineveh marched south to remove the Aramaic and Arab tribes that had helped the revolution, subjugated them all, attacked the Elamites in their homeland, conquered their capital Sus, destroyed it, and exhumed the graves of its kings. Thus, he condemned the Middle East to Assyrian rule.
According to a late Assyrian text, Ashurbanipal ruled for 42 years, so the time of his rule would be from 669 to 627 BC. However, the historical events at the end of his reign were unclear and confusing, and his name was not mentioned in recorded reports during the last two years of his rule, which made historians worry. They put the end of his rule in the year (629 BC).
:Ashurtililani (629 - 627 BC)
After the death of Ashurbanipal, disputes occurred over the Assyrian throne, after which his son (Ashurtililani) was able to win power. He was not as assertive as his predecessors, the kings of the Assyrian Empire. In suppressing internal strife and in external war, he relied on his leader, “enacting evil for evil.” Due to the weakness of the Assyrian kingdom, many of its elements left it. Distant provinces, such as Egypt, which became independent and remained loyal to the Assyrian state. Likewise, many coastal cities in Palestine and Syria, as well as cities in Armenia, seceded. One of the Madhi kings even dared to attack Assyria, but the Assyrian army repelled him, killed the Madhi king, and defeated his army.
:The fall of Nineveh and the end of the Assyrians
The Chaldean prince (Nabo Bu Lasr) appeared in Babylon and founded a new, independent dynasty in the year (626 BC), known as the last Babylonian dynasty or the Chaldean Kingdom. After this prince became independent in Babylon, he tried to seize the Assyrian cities and their possessions, and in Nineveh, the Assyrian leader (Sin-Shar-Shar-Lashar) rebelled against his master, the king (Ashur-til-ilani), and he resigned and then deposed the king who was residing at that time in Nimrod. However, the king's brother (Sin Shar Ashken) fought the rebel leader and was able to eliminate him, seized power and lived in Nineveh. These internal wars affected the reputation of the Kingdom of Assyria and were a reason for the separation of most of the parties from it. However, Egypt remained loyal to the Assyrian state, and so were the northern tribes of the Hittites and Lydians because they were afraid of the expansion of the new king of the Madians, namely (Ki-i-Akhsar), who was able to form a strong Midian army that they took over. On northern Iran and Mesopotamia, then he descended to the plains of Assyria and clashed with the Assyrian army in fierce wars.
After his agreement with the king of Babylon, Nebu Bu Nasr, Ki-Akhsar was able to undermine the Assyrian kingdom. Each of them attacked the capital, Nineveh, and besieged it. After intense campaigns and violent resistance, the city’s fortresses fell into the hands of the invaders (612 BC), so the king (Sin-shar Ashken), the last king of Assyria, was burned. He himself was in his palace, and one of the Assyrian princes called (Ashur-oballat II) fled from the massacre to Harran. So (Ki Akhisar) took control of the north-east of Assyria, just as Nebubuzzar took control of its south, and he sent his son (Nebuchadnezzar) to join the remnants of the fleeing Assyrian army to Harran and eliminated it in the year (609 BC). Thus, the Assyrian state that had entangled the Middle East for a long time with its continuous wars was overthrown. and its successive invasions.
Then Nebuchadnezzar continued his incursion westward, taking the upper Euphrates route, and occupied the provinces that had previously been under Assyrian rule. The Pharaoh of Egypt, Mao Necho, son of Psamtik, was advancing to help the Assyrians, but his progress was slow because he was busy conquering the cities of Palestine and the coasts of Syria. He engraved his image in the mountain rocks at The mouth of the Kalb River near Beirut, and when it advanced eastward, it collided with the armies of Nebuchadnezzar near the city of Carchemish in the year (605 BC). It was a decisive incident between the two parties in which the Egyptian army was defeated and retreated to the borders of its country.
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