Ancient Empires of the Middle East

Ancient World History

Mr. Blais

The Assyrians• Assyria is located on the

upper part of the Tigris River.

• Assyrians were a warlike people, mainly because the hills and valleys of their homeland offered them little natural protection

• Therefore learning to fight became an ingrained part of their society and culture

Assyrian Military• Around 1100 B.C.E. the

Assyrians built a very large and powerful army.

• Their military was well organized and diversified.

• They had large organized groups of foot soldiers, archers, charioteers, and cavalry.

• Soldiering was also a full time job and the Assyrians hired people from all over their territory.

Assyrian Technology• The number one advantage the

Assyrians had over their neighbors was their use of iron.

• Their iron weapons gave them clear advantage over their adversaries

• They were also excellent at attacking and laying siege to cities.

• They dug under city walls to weaken them, methodically hammered city gates with iron tipped battering rams, used ladders to scale walls, all the while covering the attack with a total barrage of arrows.

Assyrian Empire• Between 1100 B.C.E. and 612

B.C.E. the Assyrians used their army to build an extensive empire

• They conquered all of Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Canaan, Egypt, and even parts of Anatolia

• This empire was governed by a series of strong kings and divided into separate provinces

• Each province was governed by a chosen official who collected taxes and enforced the kings laws

Assyrian Culture• Little is known about the true

extent of Assyrian culture.• However based on historical

records and artifacts war and battle was central to their way of life.

• Their conquests were brutal.• Cities they conquered were burnt

to the ground and the citizens were killed to moved elsewhere in the empire.

• Their brutal nature made them feared but also made them many enemies.

Ashurbanipal • Ashurbanipal was one of the

last powerful Assyrian kings• He is most well known for the

library he began in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh

• This library held between 20 and 25 thousand clay tablets from area Mesopotamia

• The numerous hymns, stories, discoveries, and biographies were all cataloged and separated by subject matter.

Assyrian Decline • By 650 B.C.E. the Assyrian

Empire was in decline.• The size of their territory was

simply to big to govern effectively

• Their capital was attacked and conquered in 612 B.C.E. by a alliance of peoples, the most powerful of which were the Chaldeans.

• They would now replace the Assyrian Empire with one of their own.

The Chaldeans • By 612 B.C.E. the Assyrians

were defeated and the Chaldeans had replaced them as the rulers of the Middle East

• The Chaldeans created an empire the stretched throughout the Fertile Crescent

• They built their capital in Babylon and called themselves Babylonians

• They organized, governed, and ruled in similar fashion to the Assyrians though they were far less brutal in their tactics.

Nebuchadnezzar • Nebuchadnezzar was the

Neo-Babylonian’s most powerful king.

• Much of his time was spent beautifying the city.

• One of his most famous construction projects was the Hanging Gardens, which were rumored to be for his wife who missed her native land.

Babylon • At its height the city of Babylon

had over 1 million people living there.

• It became a center for trade and merchants from as far as India and Egypt traded there.

• The walls surrounding the city were so immense that charioteers could ride across the top of them.

• Babylon was also home to one of the largest ziggurats ever built at over 300 feet in height and seven different tiers

Astronomy • Astronomy, the study of the heavenly bodies, was very

important to the Neo-Babylonians.

• They believed that changes in the sky revealed the plans of the gods.

• They used their seven-tiered ziggurat to make most of their observations.

• They made detailed maps of the positions of the planets and phases of the moon.

• They were the first to make a sundial, the first to have a seven day week, and created the foundations of modern astronomy and astrology.

Babylonian Decline • Though the Babylonians

were able to accomplish many amazing feats, their reign over Mesopotamia was short lived.

• Much of their collapse had to do with the difficulty they had in ruling all the people they conquered

• By 540 B.C.E. Babylon felt to the Persians who came from northeastern Iran.