Much of the history of the Hittite Empire was concerned with warring with the rival empires of Egypt, Assyria and the Mitanni.

The Battle of Qarqar is mentioned in extra-biblical records, and was perhaps at Apamea where Shalmaneser III of Assyria fought a great confederation of princes from Cilicia, Northern Syria, Israel, Ammon, and the tribes of the Syrian desert ( 853 BC ), including Ahab ( A-ha-ab-bu < sup > mat </ sup >) ( Adad -' idri ).

The empire's breadbasket was the rain-fed agricultural system of northern Mesopotamia ( Assyria ) and a chain of fortresses was built to control the imperial wheat production.

Assyria or Athura ( Aramaic for Assyria ) was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the late 25th or early – 24th century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia ( present day northern Iraq ), that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history.

Assyria was also sometimes known as Subartu, and after its fall, from 605 BC through to the late seventh century AD variously as Athura, Syria ( Greek ), Assyria ( Latin ) and Assuristan.

When they lost control of Assyria itself, the name Syria survived and was applied only to the land of Aramea to the west, that had once been part of the Assyrian empire.

By 150 BC, Assyria was under the control of the Parthian Empire as Athura ( the Parthian word for Assyria ) where the Assyrian city of Ashur seems to have gained a degree of autonomy, and temples to the native gods of Assyria were resurrected.

In 116 AD, under Trajan, it was taken over by Rome as the Roman Province of Assyria.

Romans and Parthians fought over Assyria and the rest of Mesopotamia until 226 AD, when it was taken over by the Sassanid ( Persian ) Empire.

After the Arab Islamic conquest in the 7th century AD Assyria was dissolved as an entity.

Additionally, the claimants to this ancestry also claim descendancy from Sargon of Akkad ( whose dynasty died out over 1500 years before the Assyrian dynasty fell ), and from Nabopolassar, who was a Chaldean, politically and militarily opposed to Assyria, and not in fact an Assyrian.

In the Neo-Assyrian period the Aramaic language became increasingly common, more so than Akkadian — this was thought to be largely due to the mass deportations undertaken by Assyrian kings, in which large Aramaic-speaking populations, conquered by the Assyrians, were relocated to Assyria and interbred with the Assyrians.

Achaemenid Assyria ( 539 BC – 330 BC ) retained a separate identity ( Athura ), official correspondence being in Imperial Aramaic, and there was even a determined revolt of the two Assyrian provinces of Mada and Athura in 520 BC.

Aramaic was marginalised as an official language, but remained spoken in both Assyria and Babylonia by the general populace.

Between 150 BC and 226 AD Assyria changed hands between the Parthians and Romans ( Roman Province of Assyria ) until coming under the rule of Sassanid Persia in 226 AD – 651 AD, where it was known as Asuristan.

* Saggs, H. W. F. ( 1984 ): The Might that was Assyria, London, ISBN 0-283-98961-0

King Joash of Judah was recorded as being assassinated by his own servants, Joab assassinated Absalom, King David's son and King Sennacherib of Assyria was assassinated by his own sons.

Eventually Hezekiah revolted against Assyria, and as Isaiah had predicted the country was ravaged by Assyrian armies.

* Semitic tribes occupy Assyria in northern part of the plain of Shinar and Akkad

Successive kings wisely maintained peaceful relations with Assyria, but could not stem the repeated incursions from Semitic nomadic peoples, and large swathes of Babylonia were appropriated and occupied by these newly arrived Arameans, Chaldeans and Suteans.

* A dialect of the Akkadian language, an extinct Semitic language spoken in ancient Assyria

As early as the 8th century BC, the Aramaic language competed with the East Semitic Akkadian language and script in Assyria and Babylonia, and thereafter it spread throughout the Near East in various dialects.

Amorites, a Semitic people, also set up dynasties in Assyria and Babylon during this period.

During 1855, he published Écriture Anarienne, advancing the theory that the language spoken originally in Assyria was Turanian ( related to Turkish and Mongolian ), rather than Aryan or Semitic in origin, and that its speakers had invented the cuneiform writing system.

Assyria continued to exist as a geopolitical entity until the Arab-Islamic conquest in the mid 7th century AD, and Assyrian identity, personal names and both spoken and written evolutions of Mesopotamian Aramaic ( which still contain many Akkadian loan words ) have survived among the Assyrian people from ancient times to this day.

However, Eastern Aramaic dialects, as well as Akkadian and Mesopotamian Aramaic personal and family names, still survive to this day among Assyrians in the regions of northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northwest Iran and northeast Syria that constituted old Assyria.

The north of Mesopotamia had become the Akkadian speaking state of Assyria by the late 25th century BC.

Slavery was known in almost every ancient civilization, and society, including Sumer, Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, the Hebrews in Palestine, and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas.

Sennacherib ( pronounced ; Akkadian: Sîn-ahhī-erība " Sîn has replaced ( lost ) brothers for me ") was the son of Sargon II, whom he succeeded on the throne of Assyria ( 705 – 681 BC ).

Under his successor Samsu-iluna ( 1749-1712 BC ) the far south of Mesopotamia was lost to a native Akkadian king called Ilum-ma-ili and became The Sealand Dynasty, remaining free of Babylon for the next 272 years, and both the Babylonians and Amorites were driven from Assyria to the north by an Assyrian governor named Puzur-Sin, and after a civil war, a native king named Adasi seized power.

During the periods of the collapse of Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia and the First Intermediary Period in Egypt, the Hyksos invasions and the end of the Middle Bronze Age in Assyria and Babylonia, and the Late Bronze Age collapse, trade through the Canaanite area would dwindle, as Egypt, Babylonia, and to a lesser degree Assyria, withdrew into their isolation.

Although Habiru ( a Sumerian ideogram glossed as " brigand " in Akkadian ), and sometimes ( an Akkadian word ) had been reported in Mesopotamia from the reign of the Sumerian king, Shulgi of Ur III, their appearance in Canaan appears to have been due to the arrival of a new state based in Asia Minor to the north of Assyria based upon Maryannu aristocracy of horse drawn charioteers, associated with the Indo-Aryan rulers of the Hurrians, known as Mitanni.

The letters are written in the official and diplomatic Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia, though " Canaanitish " words and idioms are also in evidence.

From the 21st Century BC through to the late 18th Century BC, Assyria controlled colonies in Anatolia, and the Hurrians, like the Hattians, adopted the Assyrian Akkadian cuneiform script for their own language about 2000 BCE.

Tiglath-Pileser III ( from the Hebraic form of Akkadian: Tukultī-apil-Ešarra, " my trust is in the son of Esharra ") was a prominent king of Assyria in the eighth century BC ( ruled 745 – 727 BC )< ref >

Following a brief Sumerian revival the empire broke up into two Akkadian states, Assyria in the north, and some time later Babylon in the south ( although Babylon was founded by invading Amorites, and was rarely ruled by native dynasties throughout its history ).

The last written records in Akkadian were Astrological Texts dating from 78 AD discovered in Assyria.

Akkadian literature is the ancient literature written in the Akkadian language ( Assyrian and Babylonian languages ) written in Mesopotamia ( Assyria and Babylonia ) during the period spanning the Middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age ( roughly the 23rd to 6th centuries BC ).

Esarhaddon ( Akkadian: Aššur-ahhe-iddina " Ashur has given a brother to me "; Aramaic: ; ; ; ), was a king of Assyria who reigned 681 – 669 BC.

Assyrians trace their ancestry back to the Sumero-Akkadian civilisation that emerged in Mesopotamia circa 4000 – 3500 BC, and in particular to the northern region of the Akkadian lands, which would become known as Assyria by the 24th century BC.

The ethnic terms Amurru and Amar were used for them in the Akkadian Empire, Assyria and Egypt respectively.