A critical resource for students and scholars of the ancient Near East and the Bible Josette Elayi’s Sennacherib, King of Assyria is the only biography of Sargon II’s famous son. Elayi traces the reign of Sennacherib in context in order to illuminate more fully the life and contributions of this warlord, builder, innovator, and social reformer—a unique figure among the Assyrian kings. Elayi offers both an evaluation of this royal figure and an assessment of the Assyrian Empire by interpreting the historical information surrounding the decisive events of his reign. Features: Exploration of why Sennacherib did not seize Jerusalem or remove Hezekiah from the throne An extensive investigation of annals, royal inscriptions, letters, palace reliefs, clay tablets, and excavation reports Maps and tables

A fascinating glimpse into ancient Assyrian culture, history, and art explored through one of its most famous rulers, King Ashurbanipal.

The Royal Inscription of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (680–669 BC) is the inaugural volume of the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period Project. The volume provides reliable, up-to-date editions of all of the known royal inscriptions of Esarhaddon, a son of Sennacherib who ruled Assyria for twelve years (680–669 BC). Editions of 143 firmly identifiable texts (which mostly describe successful battles and the completion of building projects, all done ad maiorem gloriam deorum), 29 poorly preserved late Neo-Assyrian inscriptions that may be attributed to him, and 10 inscriptions commissioned by his mother Naqia (Zakutu) and his wife Esharra-hammat are included. To make this corpus more user-friendly to both specialist and laymen, each text edition (with its English translation) is supplied with a brief introduction containing general information, a catalogue containing basic information about all exemplars, a commentary containing further technical information and notes, and a comprehensive bibliography (arranged chronologically from earliest to latest). The volume also includes: (1) a general introduction to the reign of Esarhaddon, the corpus of inscriptions, previous studies, and dating and chronology; (2) translations of the relevant passages of three Mesopotamian chronicles; (3) 19 photographs of objects inscribed with texts of Esarhaddon; (4) indexes of museum and excavation numbers and selected publications; and (5) indexes of proper names (Personal Names; Geographic, Ethnic, and Tribal Names; Divine, Planet, and Star Names; Gate, Palace, Temple, and Wall Names; and Object Names). The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing transliterations of selected inscriptions arranged in a ‘musical score’ format. The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) series will present up-to-date editions of the royal inscriptions of a number of late Neo-Assyrian rulers, beginning with Tiglath-pileser III (744–727 BC). This new series is modeled on the publications of the now-defunct Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia (RIM) series and will carry on where its RIMA (Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Periods) publications ended. The project is under the direction of G. Frame (University of Pennsylvania) and is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Assyria was one of the most influential kingdoms of the Ancient Near East. In this Very Short Introduction, Karen Radner sketches the history of Assyria from city state to empire, from the early 2nd millennium BC to the end of the 7th century BC. Since the archaeological rediscovery of Assyria in the mid-19th century, its cities have been excavated extensively in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Israel, with further sites in Iran, Lebanon, and Jordan providing important information. The Assyrian Empire was one of the most geographically vast, socially diverse, multicultural, and multi-ethnic states of the early first millennium BC.Using archaeological records, Radner provides insights into the lives of the inhabitants of the kingdom, highlighting the diversity of human experiences in the Assyrian Empire. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A Companion to Assyria is a collection of original essays on ancient Assyria written by key international scholars. These new scholarly contributions have substantially reshaped contemporary understanding of society and life in this ancient civilization. The only detailed up-to-date introduction providing a scholarly overview of ancient Assyria in English within the last fifty years Original essays written and edited by a team of respected Assyriology scholars from around the world An in-depth exploration of Assyrian society and life, including the latest thought on cities, art, religion, literature, economy, and technology, and political and military history

This is an examination, in 30 chapters, of all aspects of the ancient Assyrian empire and its relationship to "empire theory" and the study of empires in general, explicating Assyria as the first of the genuine empires. The discussion also examines how ancient empires contribute to our understanding, despite differences, of modern empires.

Addressing the relationship between religion and ideology, and drawing on a range of literary, ritual, and visual sources, this book reconstructs the cultural discourse of Assyria from the third through the first millennium BCE. Ideology is delineated here as a subdiscourse of religion rather than as an independent category, anchoring it firmly within the religious world view. Tracing Assur's cultural interaction with the south on the one hand, and with the Syro-Anatolian horizon on the other, this volume articulates a "northern" cultural discourse that, even while interacting with southern Mesopotamian tradition, managed to maintain its own identity. It also follows the development of tropes and iconic images from the first city state of Uruk and their mouvance between myth, image, and royal inscription, historiography and myth, and myth and ritual, suggesting that, with the help of scholars, key royal figures were responsible for introducing new directions for the ideological discourse and for promoting new forms of historiography.

The rediscovery of Babylon and Assyria in the 1840s transformed Western views on the origins of civilisation. The excavation of Nineveh proved that even the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians together did not constitute the ancient world. These peoples had nothing to do with the beginnings of civilisation on Earth. It was in Mesopotamia that humanity took the first steps on its path towards the society we know today. The Sumerians inaugurated civilisation itself, but it was the Babylonians and then the Assyrians who fulfilled its potential. Their early experiments in state formation remain fascinating to us today: just like our governments, for a thousand years Babylon and Assyria grappled with the challenges of organising central power, administering distant territories, and engineering social harmony in empires and their cities. These achievements form one of the momentous episodes in human history; the Mesopotamian invention of writing revolutionised our minds and increased our intellectual possibilities a hundredfold. The First Great Powers is a revelation: of kingship, warfare, society and religion. Here at last we can discover what it meant to be an ancient Mesopotamian living in such an extraordinary world.