3090 AM · 671 BCE · world history
The Assyrian Empire at Its Height
Assyria rules from the Persian Gulf to Egypt — the first empire on such a scale.
The Assyrian war machine combined siege engineering, cavalry and calculated terror — palace reliefs show in detail what happened to rebellious cities. Conquered peoples were deported and mixed to break their ties to the land. Yet Ashurbanipal assembled a vast library at Nineveh, to which we owe the Epic of Gilgamesh.