166 Geoff Emberling
The annual campaigns of the Assyrian army considerably expanded the territory of the
empire. In the reign of Shulmanu-ashared III (r. 858–824BC), Assyrians fought against
states in the Jazira and west of the Euphrates, eventually defeating a coalition of Hit-
tite and Aramaean kings near Damascus (Grayson 1996: 63ff.). They also encountered
Arabs—tribal groups riding camels and living in tents along the desert margins of the
Middle Euphrates (Grayson 1996: 23). After another period of rebellion and imperial
weakness, the empire expanded again in the reign of Tukul-apil-esharra III (r. 744–727
BC), incorporating cities in the Levant from Hamath and Damascus to Gaza, as well as
Phoenician cities along the Mediterranean coast (Grayson 1991a).
During the reign of Sharrukin II (Sargon, r. 721–705BC), after initial rebellions, con-
trol over the Levant was expanded, and the Philistine cities were annexed. Campaigns
against Phrygia in central Anatolia led to an encounter with Mita, king of Mushki, who
is likely to be Midas of the golden touch celebrated in Greek accounts, and a particularly
successful campaign against Urartu to the north seized the contents of the temple trea-
sury of the Urartian state god Haldi at Musasir. Most significantly, Sharrukin captured
Babylon and ruled as its king, which brought Assyrian armies into conflict with Chaldean
tribes living in the marshes of southern Iraq, whose resistance to Assyrian control was led
by Marduk-apla-iddina. Marking the increasing expanse of Assyrian territory—the land
of the god Ashur—were reliefs carved into cliffs at particularly important locations in
the landscape, such as the source of the Tigris River (Börker-Klähn 1982; Harman ̧sah
2007). Sargon’s reign is also marked by the construction of another new capital city,
Dur-Sharrukin (“The Fortress of Sharrukin,” modern Khorsabad).
During the last century of the Assyrian Empire, under kings Sin-ahhe-eriba (Sen-
nacherib, r. 704–681BC), Ashur-iddina (Esarhaddon, r. 680–669BC), and Ashur-bani-
apli (r. 668–627BC), the empire reached its largest extent and confronted its greatest
diversity. The empire expanded into Egypt, conquering a Kushite dynasty that had ruled
there, and waged a series of campaigns against Elam to the southeast. Conflicts and
other contacts also continued with a wide variety of mostly tribal groups in the Zagros
Mountains to the East.
As the empire expanded, the scale of linguistic diversity increased, as did the systematic
use of forced relocation of populations. The practice of bringing the families of local elites
back to the Assyrian capital began in the Middle Assyrian period, and we know from many
sources that foreign royal women could serve in the palace and even become queens. The
most dramatic example is certainly the rich tombs discovered under the palace of Kalhu
(Oates and Oates 2001) in which were buried Assyrian queens with foreign names that
identified them as being originally from the west (e.g., Dalley 2008).
According to Oded’s (1979) study of large-scale deportations, the numbers of forcibly
moved people rose from the Middle Assyrian figures of 14,400 and 28,800 cited above
to over 450,000 during the reign of Sin-ahhe-eriba after 700BC, a rate of nearly 20,000
people per year. Oded cautiously reconstructs the total population movement as over 4
million people during the Neo-Assyrian period. The motivations for this scale of deporta-
tion included simple punishment for rebellion, dismantling of communities to decrease
the possibility of resistance, and perhaps to increase loyalty to the empire. The largest
number of deportees came from Babylonia, but Medes and Elamites were also frequently