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Assyrians primarily lived in the provinces of Hakkari, Şırnak, and Mardin in southeastern Turkey, These areas had sizable Kurdish and Armenian populations. Starting in the nineteenth century, the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians of eastern Anatolia, including the Hakkari mountains in Van province, were the subject of forced relocations and executions, a possible cause being religious persecution.
A giant lamassu from the royal palace of the Neo-Assyrian king Sargon II (r. 722–705 BC) at Dur-Sharrukin The history of the Assyrians encompasses nearly five millennia, covering the history of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Assyria, including its territory, culture and people, as well as the later history of the Assyrian people after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 609 BC.
In the first half of the seventh century, the Neo-Assyrian Empire was at the height of its power, controlling the entire Fertile Crescent, and allied with Egypt.However, when Assyrian king Assurbanipal died of natural causes in 631 BC, [4] his son and successor Ashur-etil-ilani was met with opposition and unrest, a common occurrence in Assyrian history. [5]
The issue of Assyrian independence has been brought up many times throughout the course of history from before World War I to the present-day Iraq War. The Assyrian-inhabited area of Iraq is located primarily but not exclusively in the Nineveh Governorate region in northern Iraq where the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh was located. [14]
While the Assyrian rulers of the Old Assyrian period had governed with the title iššiak ("governor") jointly with a city assembly made up of influential figures from Assur, the Middle Assyrian kings were autocratic rulers who used the title šar ("king") and sought equal status to the monarchs of other empires. The transition into an empire ...
Further east the Sutean, Aramean and Arab tribes formed confederations in the Syrian Desert and the Middle Euphrates region. Further south in the region of modern day Israel and Jordan were Hebrew and Canaanite-spreaking Biblical kingdoms of Israel, Judah, Ammon, Edom and Moab. There was also the Arab tribe of the Qedarites.
The Old Assyrian period was the second stage of Assyrian history, covering the history of the city of Assur from its rise as an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I c. 2025 BC [c] to the foundation of a larger Assyrian territorial state after the accession of Ashur-uballit I c. 1363 BC, [d] which marks the beginning of the succeeding Middle Assyrian period.
In the Old Assyrian period, when Assyria was merely a city-state centered on the city of Assur, the state was typically referred to as ālu Aššur ("city of Ashur"). From the time of its rise as a territorial state in the 14th century BC and onward, Assyria was referred to in official documents as māt Aššur ("land of Ashur"), marking its shift to being a regional polity.