- Sennacherib
Sennacherib (in Akkadian "Śïn-ahhe-eriba" "(The moon god) Śïn has Replaced (Lost) Brothers for Me") was the son of Sargon II, whom he succeeded on the throne of Assyria (705 BC-681 BC).
- Esarhaddon
Esarhaddon, was a king of Assyria who reigned 681 BC-669 BC, the youngest son of Sennacherib and the Aramean queen Naqi'a (Zakitu), Sennacherib's second wife. When, despite being the youngest son, he was named successor by his father, his elder brothers tried to discredit him. Oracles had named Esarhaddon as the person to free the exiles and rebuild Babylon, the destruction of which by Sennacherib was felt to be sacrilegious.
- Ashurbanipal
Ashurbanipal, Assurbanipal or Sardanapal, in Akkadian "Aššur-bāni-apli", (b. 685 BCE – d. 627 BCE) (reigned 669 – ca. 631 BC or 627 BC), the son of Esarhaddon and Naqi'a-Zakutu, was the last great king of ancient Assyria. He is famous as one of the few kings in antiquity who could himself read and write. Assyrian sculpture reached its apogee under his rule (Northern palace and south-western palace at Nineveh, battle of Ulai).
- Sargon II
Sargon II was an Assyrian king. He took the throne from Shalmaneser V in 722 BC. It is not clear whether he was the son of Tiglath-Pileser III or a usurper unrelated to the royal family. In his inscriptions, he styles himself as a new man, rarely referring to his predecessors; however he took the name Sharru-kinu, "true king", after Sargon of Akkad - who had founded the first Semitic Empire in the region some 16 centuries earlier.
- Tiglath-Pileser III
Tiglath-Pileser III was a prominent king of Assyria in the 8th century BC (ruled 745-727 BC) and is widely regarded as the founder of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. He is considered one of the most successful military commanders in world history, conquering most of the world known to the ancient Assyrians before his death.
- Hoshea
Hoshea ("salvation") was the last king of Israel and son of Elah. William F. Albright has dated his reign to 732 BC-721 BC, while E. R. Thiele offers the dates 732 BC-722 BC. There are two versions of how he became king. According to the author of "2 Kings", Hoshea conspired against and slew his predecessor, Pekah ("2 Kings" 15:30); Shalmaneser V then campaigned against Hoshea, and forced him to submit and render tribute (17:3).
- Shalmaneser III
Shalmaneser III was king of Assyria (859 BC-824 BC), and son of the previous ruler, Ashurnasirpal II. His long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations of Mesopotamia and Syria, as well as Kizzuwadna and Urartu. His armies penetrated to Lake Van and the Taurus Mountains; the Hittites of Carchemish were compelled to pay tribute, and the kingdoms of Hamath and Aram Damascus were subdued.
- Shalmaneser V
Shalmaneser V (Akkadian: "Shulmanu-asharid") was king of Assyria from 727 to 722 BC. He first appears as governor of Zimirra in Phoenicia in the reign of his father, Tiglath-Pileser III. On the death of Tiglath-Pileser, he succeeded to the throne of Assyria on the 25th day of Tebet 727 BC, and changed his original name of Ululayu to "Shalmaneser".
- Ctesias
Ctesias of Cnidus (in Caria) (Greek), was a Greek physician and historian, who flourished in the 4th century BC. In early life he was physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon, whom he accompanied in 401 BC on his expedition against his brother Cyrus the Younger. Ctesias was the author of treatises on rivers, and on the Persian revenues, of an account of India (which is of value as recording the beliefs of the Persians about India), and of a history of Assyria and Persia in 23 books, …
- Tiglath-Pileser I
Tiglath-Pileser I (the Hebraic form of "Tukulti-apil-Esharra", "my trust is in the son of Esharra") was King of Assyria (1115 BC - 1076 BC). Georges Roux, writing in his book "Ancient Iraq" (London: Penguin, 1992), considers Tiglath-Pileser "one of the two or three great Assyrian monarchs since the days of Shamshi-Adad". From his surviving inscriptions, he seems to have carefully cultivated a fear of himself in his subjects and in his enemies.
- George Smith
George Smith (Chelsea, London March 26, 1840 - August 19, 1876), was a pioneering English Assyriologist who first discovered and translated the "Epic of Gilgamesh", the oldest-known written work of literature.
- Taharqa
Taharqa (also spelled Tirhakah, Tirhaqah, Taharka, Manetho's Tarakos) was king of Egypt, and a member of the Nubian or Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt. His reign can be dated from 690 BC to 664 BC. He was the son of Piye, the Nubian king of Napata who had first conquered Egypt, and the younger brother and successor of Shebitku.
- Hezekiah
Hezekiah was the 13th king of independent Judah and the son of King Ahaz and Abijah (2 Chronicles 29:1), who was a daughter of a man (who was not the prophet) named Zechariah. (Abijah was also known as Abi (2 Kings 18:1-2).) He reigned twenty-nine years (2 Kings 18:2). He is also one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. William F. Albright has dated his reign to 715 BCE-687 BCE, while E. R. Thiele offers the dates 716 BCE-687 BCE.
- Shalmaneser I
Shalmaneser I, king of Assyria. (1274 BC – 1245 BC or 1263 BC - 1233 BC) Son of Adad-nirari I, he succeeded his father as King in 1263 BC. He carried on a series of campaigns against the Aramaeans in northern Mesopotamia, annexed a portion of Cilicia to the Assyrian empire, and established Assyrian colonies on the borders of Cappadocia.
- Shalmaneser II
Shalmaneser II was King of Assyria from 1031 BC to 1019 BC. He succeeded his father, Ashurnasirpal I and was succeeded by his son, Ashur-nirari IV, but beyond this little is known of his reign.
- Tukulti-Ninurta I
Tukulti-Ninurta I was a king of Assyria. (reigned 1243 BC – 1207 BC) He succeeded Shalmaneser I, his father, as king. Tukulti-Ninurta I defeated Kashtiliash IV, the Kassite king in Babylon, capturing the city. Kashtiliash IV was captured and deported to Assyria. After a rebellion in Babylon, he plundered Babylon's temples, and later began to build a new city, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. However, his sons rebelled against him and besieged him in his new city.
- Ahab
Ahab or Ach'av was king of Israel and the son and successor of Omri ("1 Kings" 16:29-34). William F. Albright dated his reign to 869 BC-850 BC, while E. R. Thiele offered the dates 874 BC-853 BC. He married Jezebel, the daughter of King Ithobaal I of Tyre, and the alliance was doubtless the means of procuring him great riches, which brought pomp and luxury in their train.
- Ashur
Ashur (Akkadian:), was the second son of Shem, the son of Noah. Ashur's brothers were Elam, Aram, Arpachshad and Lud. The Hebrew text of Gen. 10:11 is somewhat ambiguous as to whether it was Ashur himself (eg. as reads the KJV), or Nimrod who built the cities of Nineveh, etc. in Assyria, since the name "Ashur" can refer to either the person or the country.
- Shamash-Shum-Ukin
Shamash-shum-ukin was king of Babylon from 668-648 BC. He was the second son of the Assyrian King Esarhaddon. His elder brother, crown prince Sin-iddina-apla had died in 672, and in his stead the third son Assurbanipal was invested as crown prince and later king of Assyria, while Shamash-shum-ukin remained crown prince of Babylonia.
- Shalmaneser IV
Shalmaneser IV was king of Assyria (783 - 773 BC). He succeeded his father Adad-nirari III, and was succeeded by his brother Ashur-dan III. Very little information about his reign has survived. According to the eponym canon, he led several campaigns against Urartu (mod. Armenia). His rulership was severely limited by the growing influence of high dignitaries, particularly that of Shamshi-ilu, who was then commander-in-chief of the army.
- Nabonassar
Nabonassar (also Nabonasser, Nabu-nasir, Nebo-adon-Assur or Nabo-n-assar) founded a kingdom in Babylon in 747 BC. This is now considered as the start of the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty. At the time the Assyrian Empire was in disarray through civil war and the ascendancy of other kingdoms such as Urartu. An army commander involved in the civil war, who adopted the name Tiglath-pileser III with his accession, …
- Simo Parpola
Simo Parpola is professor of Assyriology at the University of Helsinki located in Helsinki, Finland. He specialized in epigraphy of the Akkadian language, and has been working on the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project since 1987. He is also Honorary Member of the American Oriental Society. Dr. Simo Parpola has suggested that the oldest versions of the Sephirot extend from Assyrian theology and mysticism.
- Nahum
Nahum (נחום) was a minor prophet whose prophecy is recorded in the Hebrew Bible. His book comes in chronological order between Micah and Habakkuk in the Bible. He wrote about the end of the Assyrian Empire, and its capital city, Nineveh, in a vivid poetic style. Little is known about Nahum’s personal history. His name means "comforter," and he was from the town of Alqosh, (Nah 1:1) which scholars have attempted to identify with several cities, …
- Phraortes
Phraortes or Fravartish, son of Deioces, was the second king of the Media and the founder of Median government. Like his father, Fravartish started wars against Assyria, but was defeated and killed by Ashurbanipal, the king of Assyria. Phraortes was followed by his son Cyaxares. He led his force to Lydia but was stopped in front of the river Halys due a sudden eclipse. Then, he followed in the footsteps of his father and marched on his way to Assyria, …
- Adad-Nirari II
Adad-nirari II is generally considered to be the first King of Assyria in the Neo-Assyrian period. He reigned from 912 to 891 BC. Because of the existence of full eponym lists from his reign down to the middle of the reign of Ashurbanipal in the 7th century BC, year one of his reign in 911 BC is perhaps the first event in ancient Near Eastern history which can be dated to an exact year, …
- Adad-Nirari I
Adad-nirari I was a king of Assyria. He is the earliest Assyrian king whose annals survive in any detail. Adad-nirari I was a king of substantial military consequence in the development of the Assyrian kingdom. In his reign, Assyria began to play a large role in the history of Mesopotamia. He conquered northern Mesopotamia and subdued the Mitanni empire. His surviving records indicate that he defeated King Nazimaruttash of Kassites, at the battle of Kar-Ishtar.
- Hormuzd Rassam
Hormuzd Rassam (1826 - 16 September, 1910) was an Assyrian Assyriologist and traveller who made a number of important discoveries, including the stone tablets that contained the "Epic of Gilgamesh", the worlds oldest literature.
- James B. Pritchard
James Bennett Pritchard was an American archeologist whose work explicated the interrelationships of the religions of ancient Israel, Canaan, Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. He had a long association with the University of Pennsylvania, where he was professor of religious thought and the first curator of Biblical archaeology at the University Museum. Pritchard's strength lay in setting the Bible within its broader cultural contexts in the Ancient Near East.
- Psammetichus I
Psammetichus, or Psamtik I, was the first of three kings of the Saite, or Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt. His prenomen, Wahibre, means "Constant is the Heart of Re. The story in Herodotus of the Dodecarchy and the rise of Psamtik is fanciful. It is known from cuneiform texts that twenty local princelings were appointed by Esarhaddon and confirmed by Assurbanipal to govern Egypt. Necho I, father of Psammetichus, was the chief of these kinglets, …
- Ashur-Uballit I
Ashur-uballit I , was king of the Assyrian empire (1365 BC-1330 BC or 1353 BC – 1318 BC). His reign marks Assyria's independence from the kingdom of Mitanni, by defeating Shuttarna II; and the beginning of Assyria's emergence as a powerful empire. Later on, due to disorder in Babylonia following the death of the Kassite king Burnaburiash II, Ashur-uballit established Kurigalzu II on the Babylonian throne, …
- Urukagina
Urukagina, alternately rendered as Uruinimgina, was a ruler ("énsi") of Lagash in Mesopotamia about the 24th century BC. His wife was probably Queen Shagshag. He is best-known for his reforms to combat corruption, which are sometimes cited as the first example of a judicial code. Although the actual text has not been discovered yet, much of its content may be surmised from other references to it that have been found.
- Ashur-Nasir-Pal II
Ashur-nasir-pal II (transliteration "Ashshur-nâṣir-apli", meaning "Ashur is guardian of the heir") was king of Assyria from 884 BC-859 BC. Ashur-nasir-pal II succeeded his father, Tukulti-Ninurta II, in 884 BC. He conquered Mesopotamia and the territory of what is now the Lebanon, adding them to the growing Assyrian empire. He also viciously ended a rebellion in the city of Suru in Bit-Halupe.
- Alan Millard
Alan Ralph Millard is Rankin Professor Emeritus of Hebrew and Ancient Semitic Languages, and Honorary Senior Fellow, at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology (SACE) in the University of Liverpool. Millard worked on excavations at Tell Nebi Mend (ancient Qadesh-on-the-Orontes) and Tell Rif'at (ancient Arpad) in Syria, at Petra in Jordan, and at the Assyrian capital Nimrud (ancient Kalhu) in Iraq. As a student in London, he rediscovered the Epic of Atrahasis, …
- Hugo Winckler
Hugo Winckler was a German archaeologist and historian who uncovered the capital of the Hittite Empire (Hattusa) at Boğazkale, Turkey. Winckler was a student of the languages of the ancient Middle East. He wrote extensively on Assyrian cuneiform and the Old Testament, compiled a history of Babylonia and Assyrian that was published in 1891, and translated both the Code of Hammurabi and the Amarna letters.
- Hazael
Hazael (Hebrew "Hazael," meaning "God has seen") was a court official and later an Aramean king who appeared in the Bible. He was first referred to by name in 1 Kings 19 when God told the prophet Elijah to anoint him king over Syria. Years after this, the Syrian king Hadadezer was ill and sent his court official Hazael with gifts to Elijah's successor Elisha. Elisha asked Hazael to tell Hadadezer that he would recover, …
- Necho I
Necho I was Governor of the Egyptian city of Sais. His rule as a local Saite king of the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt lasted for 8 Years, according to Manetho. Egypt was reunified by his son, Psamtik I. Necho is primarily known from Assyrian documents but is now also attested in one contemporary Egyptian document from his reign. He was officially "installed" at Sais by Assurbanipal around 670 BC, but he already ruled Egypt as a local king prior to this event.
- Bel-Ibni
Bel-ibni was a Babylonian nobleman who served as King of Babylon for several years as the nominee of the Assyrian king Sennacherib. Sennacherib, believing that direct Assyrian rule was too costly, appointed Bel-ibni, a young Babylonian nobleman raised at the Assyrian court, King of Babylon in 703 BC. The experiment with a native puppet king was hardly more successful than direct Assyrian control.
- Ashur-Bel-Kala
Ashur-bel-kala was King of Assyria from 1074 to 1056 BC. He was the son of Tiglath-Pileser I and succeeded after the brief reign of his brother, Asharid-apal-Ekur. He reigned for 18 years and was succeeded by his son, Eriba-Adad II.
- Hiram I
Hiram I or Ahiram was king of Tyre and Byblos from 969 BC to 936 BC, succeeding his father, Abibaal. During his reign, Tyre grew from a satellite of Sidon into the most important of Phoenician cities, and the holder of a large trading empire. Hiram suppressed the rebellion of the first Tyrean colony at Utica, near the later site of Carthage. Hiram allied himself with king Solomon of Israel, …
- Enlil-Nirari
Enlil-nirari was an Assyrian king.(1330 BC - 1319 BC or 1317 BC - 1308 BC). He fought against Kurigalzu, king of Babylon and great-grandson of Ashur-uballit I, in the battle of Sugagu to establish the boundary between both states.