Assyria

A large kingdom in Northern Mesopotamia, in what is now northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey. The Assyrians were a Semitic people who spoke a dialect of Akkadian. Assyria was a dependency of Babylonia and later of the Mitanni kingdom during most of the 2nd millennium BCE. It became independent in the 14th century BCE and subsequently became a major power in Mesopotamia, Armenia, and sometimes in northern Syria. In the 9th century BCE the kingdom saw expansion and from the mid-8th to the late 7th century BCE, a series of strong Assyrian rulers united most of the Middle East, from Egypt to the Persian Gulf, under Assyrian rule. The last great Assyrian ruler was Ashurbanipal. The empire was defeated by a Chaldean-Median coalition in 612-609 BCE. The Assyrians were noted for the fighting ability and cruelty. They were also monumental builders, as seen at the impressive sites of Nineveh, Ashur, and Nimrud.