Anatolia has had many civilizations throughout history, such as the Hattians, Hurrians, Luwians, Hittites, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Assyrians, Urartians, Cimmerians, Carians, Scythians, Corduene, Armenians, Romans, Georgians, Circassians, Kurds, Seljuk Turks and Ottomans.

The Assyrians had better success than the Egyptians, annexing much Hittite ( and also Hurrian ) territories in these regions.

" And this is not just a warning or speaking positively of the destruction of Ninevah, it is also a positive encouragement and " message of comfort for Israel, Judah, and others who had experienced the " endless cruelty " ( 3: 19 ) of the Assyrians.

Like the Assyrians, the Babylonians had to campaign yearly in order to control their colonies.

The conquest of the whole of Mesopotamia and much surrounding territory by the Assyrians created a larger and wealthier state than the region had known before, and very grandiose art in palaces and public places, no doubt partly intended to match the splendour of the art of the neighbouring Egyptian empire.

Though a simple battering ram had come into use in the previous millennium, the Assyrians improved siege warfare and used huge wooden tower-shaped battering rams with archers positioned on top.

The Assyrians fought their way back north and captured various cities, in the meanwhile a year had passed as it was now 693 BC.

In the years before Jesus, Sidon had many conquerors: Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and finally Romans.

Centuries later, the Assyrians invaded Israel, which, though it had been a tributary, had also defaulted, and so Naphtali, one of the most northerly tribes, became one of the first to be conquered.

It remained the capital long after the Assyrians had become the dominant power in western Asia, but was finally supplanted by Calah ( Nimrud ), Nineveh ( Nebi Vunus and Kuyunjik ), and Dur-Sargina ( Khorsabad ), some farther north.

Some modern authors assert that the Cimmerians included mercenaries, whom the Assyrians knew as Khumri, who had been resettled there by Sargon.

During the reign of Sargon, the Assyrians had occupied Cyprus, but following Sargon's death in 705, Luli reclaimed the island and its colony of Kition.

On his return, he had Samaria rebuilt as the capital of the new province of Samerina and settled it with Assyrians.

The Assyrians had not given up their claim on Mitanni, and Shalmaneser I in the 13th century BC annexed the kingdom.

This area was populated by Syriac Christians and had a significant presence of Pontic Greeks, Assyrians, Baghdadi Jews and Armenians ; these peoples lived in the region from 500 BC to the late 19th century.

The Mannaeans, former vassals of the Assyrians, were no longer restricted to the area around Lake Urmia, but had spread into Zamua, where they interrupted the horse trade between Parsuash and Assyria and refused to pay further tribute.

Those expelled included individuals who had refused to sign so-called " nationality correction " forms, introduced by the authorities prior to the 1997 population census, requiring members of ethnic groups residing in these districts to relinquish their Kurdish or Assyrians identities and to register officially as Arabs.

This is the current view for the majority of the Christian, Islamic and Jewish faiths, although according to Biblical accounts the Arab people traditionally have had long-standing alliances with the descendants of the Assyrians and the Medes.

Once his forces had defeated the Assyrians and their Egyptian allies, Nebopolassar gave up the throne in favour of his son, Nebuchadnezzar II.

The Assyrians before him had already attempted to do the same.

In 1921, Lord Bryce wrote that the Armenian genocide had also claimed half of the population of Assyrians in the Ottoman Empire, as similar cruelties were perpetrated upon them.

Monumental gateways had already been in use for thousands of years by civilizations such as the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians and Myceneans.

While in Erzurum he had learned of the fashion in which the European powers intervened in Ottoman affairs on the pretext of “ protecting ” the Christian minorities, and there were indications that Britain, Russia, and France hoped for similar benefits from the Assyrians and Armenians of Iran.

Anatolia has been inhabited by many peoples throughout history, such as the Hattians, Hurrians, Hittites, Luwians, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Assyrians, Mitanni, Scythians, Cimmerians, Urartians, Carians, Commagene, Cilicians, Arameans, Kaskians, Mushki, Palaic, Corduene, Armenians, Romans, Colchians, Iberians, Georgians, Kurds, Seljuk Turks, and Ottomans.

In the course of its history, it has been ruled by the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Israelites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Persians, the Egyptians and the Crusaders, until it was destroyed by the Mamluks in 1270.

Since the invasion Mandaeans, like other Iraqi ethno-religious minorities ( such as Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidi, Roma and Shabaks ), have been subjected to violence, including murders, kidnappings, rapes, evictions, and forced conversions.

Since no real census has been taken for decades, the election results are the only indicator of the province's ethnic distribution, although it should be noted that many Assyrians and Yazidis claim that ballot papers were denied them, and in addition, many members of ethnic groups voted for mainstream parties, or ethnic parties that were attached to mainstream Arab or Kurdish led parties.

There appear to have been alliances of Elam and Babylonia against the powerful Assyrians ; the Babylonian king Mar-biti-apla-ushur ( 984 – 979 ) was of Elamite origin, and Elamites are recorded to have fought unsuccessfully with the Babylonian king Marduk-balassu-iqbi against the Assyrian forces under Shamshi-Adad V ( 823 – 811 ).

Elamite royalty in the final century preceding the Achaemenids was fragmented among different small kingdoms, the united Elamite nation having been destroyed and colonised by the Assyrians.

A major city of ancient Caria, Muğla is known to have been occupied by raiding parties of Egyptians, Assyrians and Scythians, until eventually the area was settled by Ancient Greek colonists.

Urfa was conquered repeatedly throughout history, and has been dominated by many civilizations, including the Ebla, Akkadians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Hittites, Armenians, Hurri-Mitannis ( Armeno-Aryans ), Assyrians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Macedonians ( under Alexander the Great ), Seleucids, Arameans, Osrhoenes, Romans, Sassanids, Byzantines, and Crusaders.

Because Kara-Hardash was killed in the rebellion, the Assyrians placed on the Babylonian throne a certain Kurigalzu, who may have been Burnaburiash's son or grandson.

At the same time, significant immigration of Assyrians from Iraq has been recorded due to massacres and harassment in post-Saddam Iraq.

Notable examples of endogamous religious groups have been the Arab Christians in the Middle East, Assyrians, Jews, Yazidi Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan also the Mandaeans ( early Christians and followers of John the Baptist ) in Southern Iraq ( all under Islamic majority ), Turkmens and Armenians in Iran, Old Order Amish, Jehovah's Witnesses, Memons, Muslims, Knanaya Christians, Hindu Brahmins and the Parsi of India ( a non-Hindu minority in India ).

() The Assyrians may have been invited into Israel by the Assyrian party.

Necho I, the father of Psamtik by his Queen Istemabet, was the chief of these kinglets, but they seem to have been quite unable to hold the Egyptians to the hated Assyrians against the more sympathetic Nubians.

Manasseh was the first king of Judah who would not have had a direct experience of a Kingdom of Israel, which had been destroyed by the Assyrians in c. 720 BC and most of its population deported.

In the last few decades, caught between Turks assimilation policies against Kurds, and Kurdish resistance, many Assyrians / Syriacs have fled the region or been killed.

The strong Assyrians presence of Tur Abdin have always been there, for example confirmed from Aramaic texts the Assyrians Šameš-zabad ( 128 e. Kr ), Šameš-yāb ( 162 AD ), Sattar-Bēl ( 195 AD ), ` Abed-Nabû ( 195 AD ), Bar-Nanāya ( 195 AD ), Nērgol-dammar ( 195 AD ), Natūn-Šameš ( 195 AD ) och ` Aqab-Šameš ( 217 AD ) all lived in Tur Abdin.

With Iraqi independence, the new Assyrian spiritual-temporal leader, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, demanded the Assyrians be given autonomy within Iraq as had been promised by the British and Russians during World War I, seeking support from Britain.

The French, who at the time were controlling Syria, had notified the Iraqis that the Assyrians were not armed ; but while the Iraqi soldiers were disarming those whose arms had been returned by the French, shots were fired ( it is not clear if the Assyrians or Iraqi Army opened fire first ) resulting in a military clash, the Iraqi army was defeated and 30 Iraqi soldiers killed.

Over the ages it has been known as " Robihwa " by the ancient Egyptians, " Rafihu " by the Assyrians, " Ῥαφία, Rhaphia " by the Greeks, " Raphia " by Romans, "" Rafiach by the Israelites, " Rafh " by the Arab Caliphate.