The fall of Assur, occurred when the first city and old capital of the

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

fell to

Median The median of a set of numbers is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a Sample (statistics), data sample, a statistical population, population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as the “ ...

, Babylonian, and other rebellion-led forces. The sack of the city that followed destroyed the city to some degree; however, it recovered during the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...

. The city remained occupied by Assyrians until the massacres of Tamurlane in the 14th century AD.

Background

Ever since the end of Ashurbanipal's reign in 627 BC, the

was in an exposed and critical position; civil war, revolts in

Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

and in the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

coupled with Median, Babylonian and Scythian invasions proved too much for the empire torn by civil war. In 616 BC, the Babylonians established their ''de facto'' independence from the Assyrians.

Assault on the city

In 615 BC, the Medes and their allies conquered Arrapha. The next year, they besieged Assur. Much of what was left of the Assyrian army was in

Nineveh Nineveh ( ; , ''URUNI.NU.A, Ninua''; , ''Nīnəwē''; , ''Nīnawā''; , ''Nīnwē''), was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul (itself built out of the Assyrian town of Mepsila) in northern ...

, unable to assist. Finally, after bloody hand-to-hand clashes (many skulls and skeletons were later found), the city was taken in 614 BC.A Companion to Assyria
: page 192

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fall Of Assur 610s BC Assur Assur Assur 7th century BC Assur