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Article · Ancient world to present

Who Are the Assyrians? An Introduction to an Ancient and Modern People

Assyrians are a living people rooted in northern Mesopotamia, with ancient historical connections, Neo-Aramaic and Syriac traditions, and a global diaspora.

Read more Article · Present day

Do Assyrians Still Exist Today?

Yes. Assyrians live in Middle Eastern homelands and a global diaspora, maintaining varied identities, institutions, languages and cultural traditions.

Ancient Assyrians and Modern Assyrians: What Does the Evidence Show?

Evidence supports survival and layered continuity after the empire, but not an unchanged homogeneous nation; scholars differ over how to describe the connection.

Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac and Aramean: Understanding the Names

These names can describe churches, languages, ethnic identities or administrative categories; their meanings overlap, but people do not all relate them in the same way.

What Language Did the Assyrians Speak? From Akkadian to Aramaic and Neo-Aramaic

Ancient Assyrians used Akkadian in cuneiform; Aramaic spread during the empire, Classical Syriac became a great literary language, and diverse Neo-Aramaic varieties continue today.

The Assyrian Genocide (Sayfo): History, Memory and Recognition

Sayfo names the mass killing, expulsion, starvation, abduction and destruction suffered by Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac/Aramean Christians during the First World War.

The Assyrian Diaspora: From the Homeland to Communities Worldwide

The Assyrian diaspora emerged through genocide, refugee flight, labour migration, family reunification and recent wars—and remains connected to Middle Eastern homelands.

Assyrian Christianity: Churches, Liturgy and Identity

Assyrians participate in several Syriac Christian traditions, but denomination and ethnicity overlap without being interchangeable. This guide maps the institutions without assigning anyone an identity.

Assyrians in Modern Iraq: Citizenship, Representation and the Nineveh Plains

Assyrians have been citizens, writers, workers, organisers and political actors in modern Iraq while facing massacres, displacement and persistent debates over representation and security.

From Urmia to the Diaspora: Assyrian Print, Poetry and Public Culture

Printing, vernacular writing, newspapers and poetry created new ways for Assyrians to debate language, reform and identity across the Middle East and diaspora.

Assyrian Music and Dance: Performance, Memory and Belonging

At weddings, festivals, churches, concerts and online, Assyrian music and dance turn language and memory into shared practice while changing across regions and generations.

Read more Article · c. 2500–609 BCE

Ancient Assyria: A Complete Historical Timeline

Follow Assyria from the city of Ashur and its merchant networks to a territorial empire, the fall of Nineveh, and life after the kings.

Where Was Assyria? The Homeland, Cities and Changing Borders

Assyria’s core lay along the Tigris in present-day northern Iraq; its imperial frontiers changed radically and once stretched far beyond that homeland.

How the Assyrian Empire Rose—and Why It Fell

Assyria rose through centuries of institutional development, military recovery and provincial expansion; it fell to Babylonian and Median armies amid internal strain.

Nineveh: Capital, Destruction and Rediscovery

Nineveh was an ancient sacred city before Sennacherib made it an imperial capital; its fall in 612 BCE ended a court, not the life of the site forever.

Read more Article · 7th century BCE

Ashurbanipal and the Library That Preserved Mesopotamian Knowledge

More than 30,000 tablets and fragments from Nineveh preserve literature and scholarship—but they did not form one modern library or 30,000 separate books.

The Old Assyrian Trade Network: Merchants, Families and Kanesh

Before Assyria was an empire, merchant families from Ashur built a long-distance commercial network linking Mesopotamia and Anatolia through credit, caravans and household enterprise.

The Middle Assyrian Empire Explained

Between the merchant age and the famous Neo-Assyrian Empire, Middle Assyrian rulers built a territorial state with provinces, archives, laws and ambitious royal cities.

How Assyria Ran an Empire: Provinces, Roads and Forced Resettlement

Governors, vassals, relay roads, archives, taxation and forced resettlement connected the Neo-Assyrian court to an empire that could never be ruled by conquest alone.

Gods, Temples and Omens: Religion in Ancient Assyria

The god Aššur anchored Assyrian kingship, but ancient religion included many deities, temples, household protections and scholarly systems of divination that changed across centuries.

Ashur-uballit I

A ruler whose diplomacy and campaigns helped turn Ashur from a regional kingdom into a major power during the Late Bronze Age.

Tiglath-Pileser I

A prolific campaigner and royal author who briefly restored Assyrian reach from northern Mesopotamia toward the Mediterranean.

Ashurnasirpal II

The king who made Kalhu a spectacular royal capital and established the courtly and military language of early Neo-Assyrian power.

Shalmaneser III

A long-reigning monarch whose repeated western campaigns are recorded in inscriptions and on monuments including the Black Obelisk.

Tiglath-Pileser III

A transformative ruler who reorganised the empire, expanded provincial government and brought much of the Levant under direct control.

Sargon II

Founder of the Sargonid line, conqueror of Samaria’s wider region and builder of the planned capital Dur-Sharrukin.

Sennacherib

A builder-king who transformed Nineveh, fought major rebellions and became a prominent figure in Assyrian, Babylonian and biblical traditions.

Esarhaddon

Sennacherib’s son, remembered for rebuilding Babylon, conquering Egypt’s capital Memphis and carefully planning a divided succession.

Ashurbanipal

The last great king of Assyria, known for campaigns, court art and the scholarly tablet collections recovered from Nineveh.

Shamshi-Adad I

An Amorite conqueror who took Ashur and ruled a wider Upper Mesopotamian kingdom through palaces, family appointments and an extensive letter network.

Tukulti-Ninurta I

A powerful Middle Assyrian ruler who defeated Babylon, expanded royal ideology and founded Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta across the Tigris from Ashur.

Adad-nirari II

An early Neo-Assyrian king whose sustained campaigns and rebuilding helped restore territorial power after centuries of contraction.

Read more Places · Ancient city

Ashur

Assyria’s oldest political and sacred centre, set on a rocky terrace above the Tigris.

Read more Places · Ancient city

Nineveh

An ancient city opposite modern Mosul that Sennacherib made the monumental capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Read more Places · Ancient city

Kalhu / Nimrud

The royal city created by Ashurnasirpal II, renowned for palaces, reliefs, ivories and colossal gateway figures.

Read more Places · Ancient city

Dur-Sharrukin / Khorsabad

Sargon II’s purpose-built capital, occupied by the royal court only briefly before his death.

Read more Places · Living city

Arbela / Erbil

A continuously important northern Mesopotamian city and cult centre of the goddess Ishtar of Arbela.

Read more Places · Region

Nineveh Plains

A diverse region east and north of Mosul containing towns and villages with deep Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac, Yazidi, Shabak, Arab and Kurdish histories.

Read more Places · Region

Hakkari

A mountainous historical homeland of Assyrian tribal communities and Church of the East dioceses before the upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Read more Places · Region

Tur Abdin

A limestone plateau known for Syriac Orthodox monasteries, villages and a long Syriac literary and liturgical tradition.

Read more Places · Living city

Urmia

A city and fertile plain with a major modern Assyrian cultural, ecclesiastical and printing history.

Read more Places · Ancient city

Kaneš / Kültepe

An Anatolian royal city whose lower town preserves thousands of letters and contracts from Assyrian merchant households.

Read more Places · Ancient city

Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta

Tukulti-Ninurta I’s planned royal city opposite Ashur, with palace terraces, a canal and a new temple of Aššur.

Read more Places · Living city

Harran

A long-lived city and sanctuary of the moon god Sîn that became the final base of Assyrian royal resistance after Nineveh fell.

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