A relief from the Assyrian capital of Nimrud showing the god Ashur. Assyrians derive their name from Ashur. (Wikimedia Commons) What comes to mind when you think of an empire? Is it the Roman Empire, ...

A Neo-Assyrian gypsum relief depicting a royal lion hunt, from the Northwest Palace at Nimrud Palace Relief. Created between 875 BC and 860 BC. (The Trustees of the British Museum [CC BY-NC-SA 4.0]) ...

Wall relief panel depicting an “urmahlilu” (Lion-Man) (645-640 BCE), a protective spirit, North Palace, Nineveh, in the I am Ashurbanipal: king of the world, king of Assyria (unless noted otherwise, ...

Ashurbanipal, last major ruler of the Assyrian Empire, depicted in the royal lion hunt bas-reliefs (c. 645 B.C.) that were ripped from the walls of the North Palace at Nineveh during the excavations ...

In Lord Byron’s 1821 play “Sardanapalus,” the king of the title laments that the glory of his empire will someday fade into oblivion. “Time shall quench full many a people’s records, and a hero’s acts ...

The ancient Assyrains had a vast empire in the Middle East. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

In his new book “Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire” (Basic Books), Yale professor Eckart Frahm offers a comprehensive history of the ancient civilization (circa 2025 BCE to 609 ...

Ashish Sinha receives funding from the National Science Foundation. Gayatri Kathayat receives funding from National Science Foundation of China. Ancient Mesopotamia, the fabled land between the Tigris ...

Ancient Mesopotamia, the fabled land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, was the command and control center of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. This ancient superpower was the largest empire of its ...