Babylonia and Assyria

Ancient Mesopotamia
Euphrates · Tigris
Cities / Empires
Sumer: Uruk · Ur · Eridu
Kish · Lagash · Nippur
Akkadian Empire: Akkad
Babylon · Isin · Susa
Assyria: Assur · Nineveh
Dur-Sharrukin · Nimrud
Babylonia · Chaldea
Elam · Amorites
Hurrians · Mitanni
Kassites · Urartu
Chronology
Kings of Sumer
Kings of Assyria
Kings of Babylon
Language
Aramaic
Sumerian · Akkadian
Elamite · Hurrian
Mythology
Enûma Elish
Gilgamesh · Marduk

See also: Category:Babylonia and Category:Assyria.

During the period when they were competing for dominance in Mesopotamia, the neighbouring sister-states of Babylonia and Assyria differed essentially in character. Babylonia was a land of merchants and agriculturists; Assyria became an organized military camp. The Assyrian dynasties were founded by successful generals; in Babylonia it was the priests whom a revolution raised to the throne. The Babylonian king remained a priest to the last, under the control of a powerful hierarchy; the Assyrian king was the autocratic general of an army, at whose side stood in early days a feudal nobility, aided from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III onwards by an elaborate bureaucracy. His palace was more sumptuous than the temples of the gods, from which it was quite separate. The people were soldiers and little else; even the sailor belonged to the state. Hence the sudden collapse of Assyria when drained of its fighting population in the age of Ashurbanipal.

See also

• History of Babylonia and Assyria:
  • Sumer
  • History of Sumer
  • Akkadian Empire
  • Gutian period
  • 3rd dynasty of Ur "Sumerian Renaissance"
  • Babylonia
  • Assyria
  • Kings of Babylon
  • Kings of Assyria
• Geography of Babylonia and Assyria
• Assyro-Babylonian culture
  • Mesopotamian mythology
  • Babylonian and Assyrian religion
  • Babylonian law
  • Babylonian literature
  • Art and architecture of Babylonia and Assyria
  • Social life in Babylonia and Assyria
  • Cuneiform script

• Ancient Orient
• Mesopotamia
• Assyriology
  • Classical authorities of Babylonia and Assyria
  • Modern discovery of Babylonia and Assyria
  • Chronology of the Ancient Orient
  • Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria
  • Chronological systems of Babylonia and Assyria

External links

• American Encyclopedia - The Assyrians and Babylonians
• Myths of Babylonia and Assyria by Donald A. MacKenzie, available at Project Gutenberg
• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02007c.htm
• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02179b.htm

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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