잔인했던 아시리아 제국 10분 완벽정리

The Hittites, who used iron weapons for the first time in world history, started to get destroyed by ocean people near the end of the 1170’s BCE. Thus the Mesopotamian area fell into chaos until around the 9th century BCE, where kingdoms such as Assyria or Babylonia competed. Among the four great ancient civilizations, the Egyptian and Mesopotamian regions were areas in which warfare and trades were active, and while Egypt and Hittites fought, Assyria grew their strength and became a militaristic kingdom. Assyria, which had grown in power and had begun to threaten the preexisting superpowers, started from a small city state upstream of the Tigris river, Assur. The name Assur originates from the city’s protector god, the sun god Assur.

00:48 - Since Assur was at the meeting point of the Eastern and the Western civilizations, it grew wealthy as a center of trade, which helped raise Assyria into a powerful nation. Originally, Assyria was one of the Akkadian kingdoms established in 25th century BCE, and early Assyrian kings such as King Tudiya became a protectorate of Akkadian Empire after being subjugated by Sargon the first of Akkad. Regarding the Akkadian empire, check out the channel’s 10-minute history playlist, esopotamian history section. Assyria, which is the topic of the video today, is the Neo-Assyrian empire, to be exact. It was a multiethnic country composed of various different ethnicities from different origins, and existed from 934 BCE to 609 BCE.

01:37 - The Assyrians that exist now are the last of the Mesopotamians that have descended from Sumer and Babylonia, and after they were subjugated by Persia, they have not held an independent country, but have maintained the identity as an ethnicity. They live in northern Iraq, Syria, or northwest Iran, and there are about 4 million Assyrians in the world. Ancient Assyria wasn’t too different from other countries when Mesopotamian region were having competitions within, making alliances with Babylonia and Hittites, but when the oceans people invaded near the end of the bronze age, and destroyed the Hittites, and began threatening Egypt, Assyria also spent a weakened period. However, in spending this period, other countries in Mesopotamia were almost annihilated, and even the faraway superpower Egypt was having a hard time recovering. On the other hand, Assyria gathered wealth from Assur, a center of commerce, which led to strengthened military, revolutionized chariots, and utilized the first cavalry in history.

02:46 - Assyria sought powerful military force in order to protect their source of wealth, which were the trade routes. After learning how to forge iron weapons from the now destroyed Hittites, they re-organized their entire military with iron weapons. Moreover, whereas Hittites had three people on their chariots, Assyrians had two shield-bearers, which increased the number to four. And they used the oldest siege weapon in history, and helped destroy the enemy’s protected castle walls, which gave them fear. The recovery of Assyria, who were weakened by the ocean people, began around 900 BCE when Ashur-Dan II and Adad-nirari II began dominating the nearby nations.

03:30 - And they achieved revolutionary improvements to their military during Ashurnasirpal II, the conqueror king ‘wolf of Assyria’, which allowed them to dominate Syria and Phoenicia to the east and the north. The Assyrians really believed in their superiority, so their policies in dominated areas were known to be pretty cruel. The hatred and fear against them could be seen even in the old testament. Especially ‘Ashurnasirpal II’ ruled the conquered areas with fear, and executed any resistance as examples. It was common to see people skinned and hanging from the castle walls, and women and children were set on fire as well.

04:17 - Ashurnasirpal II was so very cruel against the dominated people, but he facilitated trade and cultural trade with advanced regions for the Assyrians, raising monuments, showing the kingdom’s strength. After Ashurnasirpal II died in 859 BCE, the next Assyrian kings spend a weakened period by losing some of their land from territory disputes. Around the time when Assyria’s influence was shrinking, in 744 BCE, ‘Tiglath Pileser III’ starts a military coup and became the king, and the completer of Assyria, Tiglath Pileser III, conquered to the west Damascus, Phoenicia, and Jews, to the east Azerbaijani region’s Media, and acting as the king of Babylonia to the south, he leads Assyria into the age of Assyrian superpower in the Orient. However, ‘Tiglath Pileser III’ was also quite far from the peaceful rule, so he continued to conquer, and to protect his own people, he forcefully conscripted dominated people into his army. ‘Tiglath Pileser III”s rule was characterized by another rule of fear.

05:24 - The conquered area’s people were indiscriminantly executed and added to the pile of skulls, and even if the resisting areas surrendered, the nobles in those areas had ropes tied through their nostrils, dragged and executed. After executing the resisting cities’ nobles and rulers, he forced the remaining citizens to move so that they would no longer maintain any sense of unity or nationalism. And many of them died from the heat, the cold, or hunger. Besides, children, who were slow to walk, were smashed against rock and killed. The king who came after Tiglath Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, had a short reign of only 4~5 years, and it was Sargon II who took the throne upon his death.

06:13 - Assyria led an age of chaos through continued conquest outside their own territories, but coups were commonplace within as well. Sargon II, who became king in 722 BCE, inherited the former king’s policies, and conquered Samaria after attacking them for three years. After destroying north Israel, they moved their population to Assyria, and sacked Armenia, and received a loyalty pledge from Cyprus. Babylonia prior to Sargon II shared rulers with Assyria, with Assyrian king as the Babylonian king. Merodach-baladan, from the Yakin tribe, was ruling the Caldean region.

06:52 - He took over Babylon when Sargon II took over Assyria, and declared himself as the king of Babylonia. Babylonia was once ruled by Merodach-baladan’s ancestor, Eriba-Marduk, so the locals did not resist his rul for 10 years after Sargon II became king. As Sargon II became king through a military coup, he had an aggressive side, and claimed victory against Merodach-baladan, and became the king of Babylonia. Merodach-Baladan fled after his defeat, and the locals had no choice but to accept Sargon II as their king. After that, Sargon II died while on a conquest elsewhere.

07:43 - Assyria’s rulership was succeeded by Sennacherib, his son. And Merodach-Baladan, who lost to Sargon II, still had some discontent with Assyria. He would send secret envoys to Hezekiah of Judah to sow discontent against Assyria. 2 years after Sargon II’s death, Merodach-Baladan retook his position as the king of Babylonia, but was defeated by Sennacherib of Assyria, and died while on the run. Sennacherib conquered nearby cities and expanded his kingdom in the four years after his succession, and destroyed an Egyptian reinforcement as well.

08:19 - He set the capital as Iraq’s Mosul region, which was called “Nineveh”, built 4-km long castle walls, rebuilt the temple, and attempted prosperity. But he was murdered by his first son after not taking his eldest son’s side and making him next in line during their succession dispute. Esarhaddon, who became king past his elder brothers, was the rightful king chosen by his father, but lost his father as his brothers envied him. With the justification being that he would take vengeance for his father’s death, he marched towards Nineveh, and destroyed his brothers’ army in Nisibis. Esarhaddon, who became king in 680 BCE, focused on reviving Babylon, which his father destroyed completely.

09:01 - He revived the temple of Marduk, the primary god of Babylon, calming the public. Esarhaddon, who thought that he had taken over most of Mesopotamia, set his eyes upon Egypt in Africa. The hatred of the dominated against Assyrian Empire for their cruelty was formidable, with frequent rebellions, and Esarhaddon attempted to calm them through arranged marriages with the Scythians and Cimmerians in the north. Around this time, Egypt was on their 25th dynasty, which was established by the Ethiopians. After Ramses II of the 19th dynasty passed, 500 years passed, and the dynasty had seen many changes.

09:42 - Just for your understanding, the Ptolemaic dynasty, known for their association with Cleopatra, was the 32nd Dynasty, started 300 years later. Esarhaddon of Assyria was building a golden empire with the trade at the Mediterranean, he went a step further, and had the dream of defeating king Taharka of Egypt, and subjugating Egypt into Assyria. So, for the first time, the king of west Asia crossed the lower Egyptian deserts, to attack the capital of Egypt, Memphis. Assyrian army used their subjugated people to pierce a tunnel to in front of Memphis and slammed Memphis’ walls with wall-destroying siege weapons. And continued attacking other walls with ladders to attack the top of the walls.

10:25 - Therefore, Taharka of Egypt abandoned Memphis, and fled to Thebe in south. Assyria used to have the greatest territory in all Mesopotamia, and with this war, they conquered Egypt as well, forming a massive empire. So we have summarized the history of Assyria, which was known to have been the most cruel against their subjects. Assyria have existed for a long time, but they first started showing their prowess as they adopted Iron weapons, starting with the Neo-Assyrian empire. From the Wolf of Assyria, Ashur-Nasir-Pal II to Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II, they garnered hatred of many nations through the rule of fear.

11:09 - But their military might was so powerful that they ended up taking over the superpower of Africa, Egypt. Finally, Esarhaddon of Assyria successfully routs Taharka of Egypt to Thebe. and we will continue the history of the Assyrian empire in our next world history video. Thank you for watching ‘till the end, and please do have a peaceful day. .