History of The Assyrian Empire

Early history
Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is positively known. According to some Judeo-Christian traditions, the city of Ashur (Assur) was founded by Ashur the son of Shem, who was deified by later generations as the city's patron god.

Besides Ashur, the other three royal Assyrian cities were Calah (Nimrud), Khorsabad, and Nineveh.

Assyrian Empire
As the Hittite empire collapsed from onslaught of the Phrygians (called Mushki in Assyrian annals), Babylon and Assyria began to vie for Amorite regions, formerly under firm Hittite control. The Assyrian king Ashur-resh-ishi defeated Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon in a battle, when their forces encountered one another in this region.

In 1120 BC, Ashur-resh-ishi's son, Tiglath-Pileser I crossed the Euphrates, capturing Carchemish, defeated the Mushki and the remnants of the Hittites—even claiming to reach the Black Sea—and advanced to the Mediterranean, subjecting Phoenicia. He also marched into Babylon twice, assuming the old title "King of Sumer and Akkad", although he was unable to depose the actual Babylonian king on these occasions. He may be regarded as the founder of the first Assyrian empire.

Second Assyrian Empire
Under Tiglath-Pileser III arose the Second Assyrian Empire, which differed from the first in its greater consolidation. For the first time in history, the idea of centralization was introduced into politics; the conquered provinces were organized under an elaborate bureaucracy at the head of which was the king, each district paying a fixed tribute and providing a military contingent. The Assyrian forces became a standing army, that, by successive improvements and careful discipline, was moulded into an irresistible fighting machine; and Assyrian policy was directed towards the definite object of reducing the whole civilized world into a single empire, thereby throwing its trade and wealth into Assyrian hands.

Notable Archaeologists

Austen Henry Layard
The Right Honourable Sir Austen Henry Layard (5 March 1817–5 July 1894) was a British author and diplomatist, best known as the excavator of Nineveh. He was born in Paris.

The Layards were of Huguenot descent. His father, Henry PJ Layard, of the Ceylon Civil Service, was the son of Charles Peter Layard, dean of Bristol, and grandson of Daniel Peter Layard, the physician. Through his mother, a daughter of Nathaniel Austen, banker, of Ramsgate, he inherited Spanish blood. His uncle was Benjamin Austen, a London solicitor and close friend of Benjamin Disraeli in the 1820s and 1830s.

Leonard Woolley
Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (17 April 1880–20 February 1960) was a British archaeologist, best known for his excavations at Ur in Sumerancient Mesopotamia. He was knighted in 1935 for his services to archaeology.

Woolley was born in London, and educated at New College, Oxford. In 1905, he became assistant keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Then, on the recommendation of Sir Arthur Evans, he became the first supervisor of the Corstopitum excavations at Corbridge in Northumberland, in 1906 and 1907, under the direction of Francis Haverfield.