The Assyrian Empire has a public relations problem. Watch any documentary or read any popular history website and there is a good chance that within minutes someone will be impaled, flayed, or have their city burned to the ground. Preferably all three. The accompanying narrator will then solemnly inform us that the Assyrians ruled through terror, demanded impossible tributes from their neighbours, sought to conquer the entire known world and eventually suffered a well-deserved downfall.

This image is not entirely without foundation. The Assyrians were perfectly capable of extreme violence and, unlike many rulers throughout history, they were remarkably eager to advertise it. Yet I often find myself frustrated by how predictable these portrayals have become. Not because they are completely wrong, but because they are so incomplete. The Assyrian Empire frequently appears as a stock villain: an ancient equivalent of the Galactic Empire, forever plotting conquest while everyone else waits to be conquered. The real Assyrian Empire was far more interesting than that.

Continue reading “Assyria, more than history’s favourite villain”

In my previous post, I argued that the low frequency of Assyrian campaigns in the Levant between 841 and 743 BCE does not necessarily indicate stagnation or decline. Rather, it suggests that a relatively stable regional order had emerged in which local powers such as Damascus, Hamath, Luḫuti and Arpad largely managed their own affairs while Assyria focused its attention on developments in the north and east.

One of the clearest glimpses of this world comes from the reign of Zakkur, king of Hamath and Luḫuti. Who exactly Zakkur was remains unclear. In his own inscription, he claims that the god Baʿlshamayn raised him from humble origins and made him king. Scholars have often interpreted this statement as evidence that he was a usurper rather than a legitimate heir.

Zakkur probably originated from Hatarikka (Hazrach), the capital of Luḫuti, which remained his principal residence even after he acquired Hamath. How this happened is uncertain. He may have first become king of Luḫuti and later conquered Hamath, overthrowing its ruling dynasty in the process. Whatever the precise sequence of events, Zakkur succeeded in uniting two previously separate kingdoms and creating a larger and more powerful state than had existed before in central Syria.

Continue reading “Zakkur of Hamath: the limits of Levantine power”

The Levant has played a central role in world history since the earliest beginnings of civilization. This fertile corridor between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Desert, situated between Mesopotamia, Egypt and Anatolia, formed a crossroads of long-distance trade. Caravan routes crossed its valleys and plains, while its ports connected the eastern Mediterranean to wider maritime networks. Much of the wealth of Levantine cities derived from their position as intermediaries in both overland and maritime commerce.

Politically, however, the Levant was highly fragmented. Phoenician city-states, Aramaean tribes and Neo-Hittite kingdoms constantly competed for control of trade routes. Alliances shifted frequently and no single power could easily dominate the region for long. For Assyria, the Levant therefore represented both opportunity and danger: a wealthy gateway to the Mediterranean, but also a frontier capable of producing powerful anti-Assyrian coalitions.

Under Shalmaneser III (r. 858–824 BCE), Assyrian armies campaigned repeatedly in the Levant, confronting anti-Assyrian coalitions led by rulers such as Ahuni of Bīt-Adini, Irhuleni of Hamath and Hazael of Damascus. A century later, the region again became the focus of Assyrian expansion under Tiglath-pileser III (r. 745–727 BCE), who annexed large parts of Syria and Palestine and transformed former client states into Assyrian provinces.

Yet between these two periods lies a striking gap. According to the Assyrian Limmu List — a chronological record in which each year was named after a high official and often accompanied by a brief note about a military campaign — there were hardly any Assyrian campaigns to the Levant between roughly 841 and 743 BCE. This was not because Assyria became inactive. On the contrary, Assyrian kings campaigned almost every year, but mostly toward the north and east: against Urartu in the Armenian Highlands and frontier polities the Zagros and Taurus Mountains. Why, then, was the western frontier comparatively quiet for almost a century?

Continue reading “All quiet on Assyria’s western front”

In my previous post, I explored an alternate timeline in which Assyria and Babylonia remained allies rather than descending into centuries of rivalry. I also speculated that, in the long run, Assyria might eventually come to be ruled by an Iranian dynasty, while Babylonia could fall under Arab rule. At first glance, such a scenario may sound implausible. Why would an empire hand power to outsiders? Why would foreign peoples become the military and political elite of states they once served? Yet history shows that this kind of thing happens surprisingly often.

Perhaps the best-known example is the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt, where Turkic slave soldiers overthrew the ruling Ayyubids and founded a dynasty of their own. Similarly, in the late Roman Empire, Germanic generals evolved from imperial servants into kingmakers, and eventually rulers in their own right. In the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Medes first appeared as suppliers of horses, later as military auxiliaries, and eventually even as royal bodyguards. During Assyria’s final struggle for survival, the peoples of the Zagros played a crucial role: Mannaean contingents still fought alongside the Assyrians, while the Medes ultimately turned against their former masters. And centuries earlier, the Mitanni kingdom seems to have been dominated by an Indo-Aryan military aristocracy ruling over a predominantly Hurrian population.

These examples differ enormously in scale and context, yet they reveal a recurring historical pattern. Again and again, empires elevated foreign warrior groups into positions of military importance, only for those groups to gradually evolve into political elites, and sometimes even inherit the empire itself.

Continue reading “How empires create their own successors”

_{Map of an alternate Near East in 645 BCE, marking the 100th year anniversary of the Assyro-Babylonian alliance.
Assyria is shown in red, with allied and vassal states in light red.
Babylonia is shown in blue, with allied and vassal states in light blue.
Egypt is shown in yellow, with allied and vassal states in light yellow.
Author: Daan Nijssen ©}

In my previous post, I argued that the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was not caused by a single weakness, but by a long chain of interconnected crises. After revisiting that argument, however, I increasingly came to suspect that many of those problems revolved around one central issue: Assyria’s attempts to dominate Babylonia.

Assyrian kings repeatedly intervened in Babylonian politics, either ruling Babylonia directly or installing unpopular puppet rulers. The result was a cycle of revolts, civil wars, and destructive campaigns that drained Assyrian resources for generations. Elam supported Babylonian rebels in order to create a buffer state against Assyria, dynastic struggles erupted within the Assyrian royal house, and entire reigns were consumed by conflicts in the south.

The most infamous example was Sennacherib’s destruction of Babylon in 689 BCE, which severely damaged Assyria’s legitimacy. Later, the revolt of Šamaš-šum-ukin, Ashurbanipal’s older brother who ruled as king of Babylon, devastated the empire further, until Nabopolassar finally restored Babylonian independence and contributed to Assyria’s destruction.

But what if Assyria had never become trapped in this cycle? What if Tiglath-pileser III had maintained a stable alliance with Babylonia instead of trying to dominate it directly?

Continue reading “What if the Assyro-Babylonian alliance had persisted?”

The flames must have been visible for miles. In 612 BCE, after a long siege, a coalition of Babylonians and Medes stormed the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. Temples burned. Palaces were looted. Statues were smashed or buried beneath rubble. The great imperial city that Assyrian kings had called “the city without equal” was transformed into ruins.

For more than two centuries, the Neo-Assyrian Empire had dominated the Near East. Its armies had marched from the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea, from Anatolia to Egypt. Kings such as Ashurbanipal and Sargon II had presented themselves as rulers of the world itself, chosen by the gods to impose order upon all lands. And yet, within a few years, this seemingly invincible empire disappeared almost entirely.

Continue reading “When did the Assyrian Empire start to collapse?”

In the previous post, I argued that Mesopotamian literature of the late second millennium BCE shows signs of an “inward turn”. Characters gradually become more than just pawns: they begin to reflect, doubt, and speak in ways that reveal a rich inner life. This development has been framed as part of a shift in human self-consciousness. Julian Jaynes famously pushed this idea to its extreme, arguing that humans only started developing self-consciousness by the late second millennium BCE.

The fact that, in Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions from the first millennium BCE, kings continuously boast, emphasize their own achievements, and present themselves as decisive actors, seems to confirm this hypothesis. At times, Neo-Assyrian kings sound almost modern. It is tempting to see this as the political counterpart to the literary inward turn: the emergence of something like an “ego” and a growing awareness of the self as an autonomous agent.

And yet, that interpretation is too simple. What changes in the first millennium BCE is not the sudden birth of the self, but the way agency is expressed and recorded.

Continue reading “When kings found their voice”

In the previous post, I argued that Mesopotamian divination reflects a particular, externally framed way of thinking. Meaning was located in the world — in the stars, in the entrails of sheep, in unusual events — and the task of the human mind was to interpret these signs within an increasingly sophisticated internal logic. But what about literature? Does this outward orientation also shape how Mesopotamians represented themselves?

The absence — and emergence — of an inner life

For much of Mesopotamian literature, the answer seems to be yes. Characters act, speak, and interact with gods and kings, but their inner lives — their doubts, emotions, or reflections — are rarely foregrounded. The focus lies instead on maintaining divine and political order. The individual is present, but not introspective in a way that feels familiar to a modern reader.

This observation led Julian Jaynes to a radical conclusion: early humans, including the Mesopotamians, did not possess an “inner life” at all. Consciousness, in his view, emerged only in the late second millennium BCE, when the “voices of the gods” went quiet following the turmoil of the Late Bronze Age collapse. This shift can be detected in texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, and the Erra Epic, where characters reflect on their suffering and question the divine order.

As I have argued before, Jaynes’ conclusion goes too far. Mesopotamians clearly thought, interpreted, and made decisions. Yet the pattern he identified is real. Something changes in the literature: a growing interest in the experience of the individual, in suffering, uncertainty, and the limits of human understanding. Even in prayers, we find devotees lamenting the silence of the gods.

Continue reading “The inward turn in Mesopotamian literature”

In the previous post, I argued that the difference between ancient and modern thought is not a matter of capacity, but of orientation: a shift from an externally framed experience of thought to a more internalized one. But what does such a shift look like in practice? One place where we can see this process unfold is Mesopotamia, where the relationship between humans, gods, and thought itself was worked out in strikingly concrete ways.

Ancient Mesopotamians believed they could “read” the world around them like a book. Nothing happened in isolation. The movement of the stars, the shape of a sheep’s liver, a sudden storm, an unusual birth, a dream in the night: each of these could reveal something about what lay ahead. The universe was seen as a dense web of connections in which the will of the gods was always present.

To modern readers, this may look like a system of “messages” sent by the gods. But that is slightly misleading. These signs were not so much messages as they were symptoms: visible expressions of deeper processes in a world where everything was connected. The task of the diviner was not to receive a message, but to interpret a pattern.

Continue reading “Reading the gods in uncertain times”

In my previous post, I explored Julian Jaynes’ bicameral mind hypothesis on its own terms. Taken seriously, it offers a strikingly coherent picture: ancient humans did not experience their thoughts as their own, but as the voices of gods. Seen through that lens, a wide range of otherwise puzzling features of ancient literature fall neatly into place. Divine commands, the absence of introspection, and the suspicion of acting “on one’s own” all begin to look less like metaphor and more like a fundamentally different way of experiencing thought.

That explanatory power is precisely what makes the hypothesis so attractive. But it is also a reason for caution. A theory that seems to explain everything risks explaining too much. Once adopted, it becomes easy to reinterpret any piece of evidence — any text, silence, or ambiguity — as confirmation. In that sense, it bears a resemblance to the ancient aliens “theory”, where the framework is so flexible that it becomes difficult to falsify.

Continue reading “Genius or rubbish? Jaynes revisited”