The Assyrian Empire: Military Organization and Expansion

Assyria, located in northern Mesopotamia with urban centers such as Assur, Nineveh, and Nimrud, became, over the course of the second and especially the first millennium BCE, one of the leading military powers of the ancient Near East. The period known as the Neo-Assyrian Empire (roughly between the ninth and seventh centuries BCE) represents its greatest territorial expansion, which came to encompass Mesopotamia, parts of Anatolia, the Levant, and, for a time, Egypt.