Prehistoric Assyria and the Birth of the Earliest City States

Pictured: Artist impression of a Neanderthal ritual burial at the Shanidār cave.

Assyria occupies a unique place in the history of human culture. Centred at the crossroads between northern Iraq, north-western Iran, south-eastern Türkiye, and north-eastern Syria— it was here that some of the earliest urban civilisations began to appear.

The earliest settlements in Assyria may be traced to the Palaeolithic site at Shanidār (50,000–45,000 years) and another belonging to the Jarmō culture of the Neolithic period from about 7,100 BCE. These sedentary communities, whose existence pre-dated the invention of pottery, were among the earliest civilisations in the region to master the domestication of crops and animal husbandry.

A more advanced culture called Ḥassūna (6,000 BCE) then emerged and spread all over the region. This was followed by the cultures of Ḥalaf (6,100 BCE) and Sāmarrāʿ (5,500 BCE), widely known for their use of copper and painted pottery.

Other such sites include Tepe Gawrā and Tell-Billā, located within proximity to modern-day Nineveh. Although the inhabitants of such early settlements did not demonstrate any ethnic or national characteristics; they could possibly be precursors to Indigenous Assyrian culture.

It was by the third millennium BCE that such semi-independent tribal settlements began forming a more organised society, social hierarchy, and centralised urban centres along the banks of the Tigris River. This societal development most probably took place following the migratory movements of Akkadian-speaking peoples from central Mesopotamia and their settlement among pre-existing tribes in the north.

By 2,600 BCE, the Akkadian-speaking peoples founded a major city-state called Āshūr. As the region’s patron god, Āshūr not only gained immense popularity among the diverse population groups in the region but his name came to signify the whole country, Mat-Āshūr “land of Āshūr” or “Assyria”.

The expression of such specific religious ideas coupled with Āshūr’s increasing stature also contributed to the forging of a cohesive cultural or national identity, the Āshūrāyū “of Āshūr” or “Assyrians”. In the ensuing centuries, Assyria had developed a distinct culture, separate from its neighbours.

During the first two centuries of the second millennium— commonly known as the Old Assyrian period —the city of Āshūr developed into the region’s administrative, ceremonial, political, and religious capital. Assyria, however, prospered under a series of exceptionally effective rulers and empire builders.

The Assyrians not only established some of the earliest trading colonies but expanded their borders beyond their heartland. With this expansion, the Assyrians exerted significant political and social control over conquered territories.

By the Neo-Assyrian period (c. 911–612 BCE), the Aramaic alphabetic script— more convenient than cuneiform —was adopted by the Assyrians. As a vehicle for written communication within their empire, particularly with those territories in the west, the Assyrians transformed Aramaic into an official language.

Be this as it may, Assyrian, a dialect of Akkadian, remained the socially, politically, and culturally dominant language. In fact, it was the ultimate vehicle for the propagation of Assyrian imperialist ideology as well as cultural identity.

From the ninth- to the seventh centuries BCE, the Assyrians made great territorial expansions— stretching throughout Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, Anatolia, and into parts of Arabia and Persia. The empire was known for its wealth, enriched by its trading routes as well as its libraries, vast centres of learning, and soaring achievements in monumental art and architecture.