The Assyrians

About 300 years later, the Persians took over the city from the Byzantines and it was ruled by these pre-Islamic rulers until 629 A.D. The Byzantines took back over, but only began to rebuild the once again Christian city when the Caliph Omar invaded Jerusalem and began occupying the city in 638 A.D. This was the beginning of the Crusades. Jerusalem has had a long and horrible history with many different political and religious occupations leading up to the Crusades and even after. Jerusalem is a very important city in human history amongst its various leaders and various occurrences.

The kingdom survived for hundreds of years. However environmental changes, migrations of new people, and a weak government ended the kingdom. After the downfall of the Hittite kingdom, Assyrians and Persians conquered the land and settled the kingdom of Lydia. But, this kingdom didn’t last long, as Alexander the Great conquered the Persians in the battle of Issus in 333 BC. to claim the land.

The Egyptians defeated Josiah’s troops and King Josiah was killed as a result of the battle. Josiah’s son Jehoahaz became King upon his father’s death, he did not remain in power long and was replaced by Jehoiakim a pro-Egyptian leader. Jehoiakim was a loyal ally to the Egyptians and formed an alliance between Judah and Egypt in 609 B.C. Judah failed to realize the shift in power four years later when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon defeated the Egyptian army in the Battle of Carchemish. Judah surrender to the Babylonians in 603 B.C., after seeing the total destruction of Ashkelon a year earlier.

The Iraqi people were not fond of the Hashemite rule, and several uprisings, revolts, and revolutions finally succeeded in the overthrow of of the Hashemite Dynasty in 1958. Various political parties fought for control of Iraq. After ten years of the political parties fighting, a Arab Nationalist (and Socialist) party came to power. This party, known as the Ba'ath Party remained in power by eliminating any possible opposition. One of the most well known Ba'ath leader, Saddam Hussein became the President of Iraq from 1979 until 2003.

This was finished with help from Persia, a conventional foe of the Greek city-states. Sparta 's union with Persia, on the other hand, made the other city-states uneasy, and they got to be less enthusiastic to rebel against Athens. Athens was in a bad position politically by now. A theocracy toppled the vote based system in 411, and the oligarchs were soon supplanted by a more direct administration. Full vote based system was restored in the mid year of 410 after a major Athenian maritime triumph over the Spartans.

For this and its ability to support agriculture, it’s known also as the Fertile Crescent. It’s also been called the Cradle of Civilization for providing the earliest existence of a civilization. In the first century after the death of Jesus of Nazareth, the Roman Empire was reaching the height of its power. It vied for control of the area of Mesopotamia, some of the east-most territory to ever come under their control. In the several hundred years we’re concerned with from about 200AD – 700AD, Mesopotamia experienced control by three main empires: the Romans, Persians, and finally Muslims.

Ezekiel lived in a time of international crisis and conflict. Assyria was the world power in the area under the rule of Tiglath-pilesar III. In 724 B.C Israel raged war upon Assyria, and Israel was no match for Assyria. In 627 B.C the last of the able Assyrian rulers, Ashurbanipal died. Following the death of Ashurbanipal, Babylon under Nebuchadrezzer II wanted independence from Assyria.

The first Israelites supposedly migrated from Mesopotamia. They were a mix of races that were just trying to survive (Orlinsky, 8). The Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Amorites and the Babylonians had all thrown these people out of their country before a true golden era could arise (Hintz, 37). Israel was at its strongest starting in 1030BC. During this time Israel dominated west Asia.

These can be traced in the loss of the authority of the central government in the remoter provinces and in the degradation of the Abbasid Caliphs to the status of mere puppets of their ministers and military commanders. The Caliph held but a shadow of his former power and his empire had been almost entirely dismembered. The Umayyads in Spain and the Shi’ite Fatimids in Egypt and North Africa were established. North Syria and upper Mesopotamia were in the hands of Arab chieftains. Persia and Transoxania were parcelled among Buwayhid and Ghaznawid princes, each waiting for the opportunity to attack each other.

Early Sumerian Times Sumer may very well be the first civilization in the world (although long term settlements at Jericho and Catal Huyuk predate Sumer and examples of writing from Egypt and the Harappa, Indus valley sites may predate those from Sumer). From its beginnings as a collection of farming villages around 5000 BC, through its conquest by Sargon of Agade around 2370 BC and its final collapse under the Amorites around 2000 BC, the Sumerians developed a religion and a society which influenced both their neighbors and their conquerers. Sumerian cuneform, the earliest written language, was borrowed by the Babylonians, who also took many of their religious beliefs. In fact, traces and parallels of Sumerian myth can be found in Genesis. Sumer was a collection of city states around the Lower Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now southern Iraq.