The subject of this MOOC is Assyria, an ancient country centred on the northern part of modern Iraq. It is one of many states flourishing in the Middle East in the millennia before the beginning of the Common Era. But the long-lived kingdom was certainly one of the most influential ones. In the ninth century BC, Assyria looked back at an eventful and well documented history, spanning more than a thousand years. At this time, about 3000 years ago, this state emerged as the first world empire. Decisions made in the imperial capital cities in present-day northern Iraq influenced lives from Cyprus to Bahrain from the Nile River to the Caspian Sea, positively and negatively. Faced by fierce competition centred on the Armenian Highlands and modern Sudan in the eighth century BC, the Assyrian Empire saw a period of 40 years of hitherto unmatched territorial expansion. This meant that by 700 BC, the lands from the Mediterranean Sea to Iran, and from Central Turkey to the Persian Gulf, were no longer merely under Assyrian influence. Instead, they were now under direct Assyrian control organised in provinces ruled by governors personally appointed by the king of Assyria. Until the late seventh century BC, the Assyrian Empire was the unrivalled political, economic, and cultural power of the Middle East. In this MOOC, we are interested in the imperial phase of Assyrian history for several reasons. Not only did a new model of state emerge that proved to be very successful and went on to shape the political organisation of the world until today, but also the ways modern multinational corporations operate arguably have their roots in the way that the Assyrian Empire was organised. Its heritage, not only profoundly influenced the subsequent history of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, but of the world. Assyrian culture is, at once, familiar and strange. Many of us share the Assyrian taste for good wines, but we would perhaps not choose locusts on a stick for nibbles. A fresh water supply, indoor toilets, and a well-functioning sewage system in the family home are as important to us as to urban Assyrians. However, we may find it slightly less essential to have an underground family tomb accessible from the living room. We too have a desire to plan for the time ahead and take counsel from those who professionally predict the future, such as weather forecasters and economists. But while the services of astrologists are still popular today as in Assyrian times, many of us would be reluctant to look for information in the entrails of sheep. We may congratulate Assyrian buyers on enjoying consumer protection and extended warranties, but we are perhaps taken aback to find that these extended to the purchase of people, who were then subject to a 100-day guarantee against epilepsy and mental instability. We too enclose letters in envelopes, but they are not made out of clay. Precisely, the fact that the Assyrians used clay as a writing material is very important for us. Since the archaeological rediscovery of Assyria in the mid-nineteenth century. many of its cities have been excavated extensively in Iraq, Syria, Eastern Turkey and Israel. Further sites in Iran, Lebanon and Jordan provide valuable information. It is because the durable clay was the Assyrians' most common writing material that many hundreds and thousands of original texts have been excavated, inscribed in the cuneiform script. Their language is a Semitic one and related, for example, to Hebrew and Arabic. Because of the clay tablets, we know so much about so many details of their history and culture, and every year, more are being found. Assyrian history begins in the city of Assur. Assur is situated on the Tigris River close to the modern Iraqi city of Tikrit, best known today as the birthplace of Saddam Hussein. Ancient Assur was founded almost 5000 years ago, long before the imperial period that we will focus on. It started as a trading centre that supplied the cities in the south of modern Iraq with merchandise from Turkey, shipped down the river Tigris. Texts found in Assur and elsewhere document how the city was periodically integrated into larger states centred in the south. But even under the control of such states, for example the Kingdom of Akkad, the Kingdom of Ur, or the Kingdom of Babylon, Assur always managed to preserve a strong cultural identity. Very importantly, the local rulers of Assur did not style themselves as kings. Instead, they asserted that “the god Aššur is king, and I am the representative of the god Aššur”. The city's god shared the city's name as he was the divine manifestation of the site. The city was founded on a rocky outcrop looming high over the river Tigris and the god Aššur WAS this mountain and therefore, inseparable from the city. The God Aššur was conceived as the sovereign of the city and the state, and it was in his name that the human ruler governed, but not alone. The ruler shared power with the collective citizen body in the city assembly, where the heads of extended families represented their clans' interests. The age of the city-state embedded in larger political structures came to an end three and a half thousand years ago. At this time, in the 14th century BC, in the days of the famous Egyptian Pharaohs Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, Assur's last overlord, a state called Mittani went into decline. The then ruler of Assur was called Ashur-uballit, “the God Aššur has kept alive”, possibly referring to his difficult birth. He used his overlord's dwindling power to establish his city as the centre of a territorial state that quickly incorporated most of what is today, northern Iraq. Now, for the very first time, the ruler of Assur adopted the title of king. King Ashur-uballit called his kingdom, the country of Assur, referring both to the God and the city. And we speak today of Assyria, using the classical Greek term. The original kingdom was situated in a triangle between three cities: Assur (near Tikrit) Nineveh (at the site of modern Mosul, northen Iraq's largest city) and Arbela (the modern city of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq). This region between the mighty River Tigris and the formidable Zagros mountain range that separates Iraq from Iran constituted the Assyrian heartland. It’s not big- covering an area for about 4000-square kilometres. This is roughly the size of the US state of Rhode Island, or twice the size of Luxembourg. From this modest starting point neighbouring regions were gradually integrated as provinces, and their inhabitants were counted as Assyrians. This was justified ideologically by asking for their contribution to the worship of the God Aššur, and this was the basis for Assyrian state taxation. By 1200 BC, Assyria controlled most of its former overlord Mitanni's holdings. The western borders of the kingdom reached the Euphrates River in modern Syria, and the kingdom asserted itself politically and on the battlefield over the neighbouring states like Babylonia and the Hittite Kingdom. From that time onwards, however, these states weakened and disintegrated as great migrations drastically changed the political and social organisation of their territories. The Aramaeans are one of several populations attested as having been on the move during that time, prompted at least in part by the dryer, and therefore worsened, climatic conditions that made agriculture unprofitable in certain regions of the Middle East. All this is part of a series of connected events today called the Late Bronze Age Systems Collapse. Assyria too incurred territorial losses during that time but maintained control over its well-protected heartland between the Tigris River and the great mountain barriers. In the political discourse, the Aramaeans were now cast in the role of the destructive intruders, whose unlawfully snatched territories must be absorbed back into the kingdom of Assyria, their rightful owner. Despite the loss of territory, Assyria's political set-up remained stable. It also never lost its chariot troops as it could afford socially and financially to maintain this highly specialised and effective branch of the armed forces. This and the realm's extent - which greatly exceeded that of the dozens of tiny territories controlled by Aramaean clans - gave the kingdom an advantage in the subsequent wars of conquest. These wars began 3000 years ago in the 10th century BC. Two generations later, Assyria’s former maximum extent had been reestablished. Now, the kingdom underwent a major transformation. The outcome is today called the Assyrian Empire, the first such state in world history. In this MOOC, we will focus on the Assyrian way of organising an empire. Our starting point will therefore be the year 879 BC, when the capital was moved away from the city of Assur and the God Aššur, to the newly created mega-city of Kalhu, profoundly changing the political organisation in the king's favour.
