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Assur
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How it came to be
Ashur stands on the Tigris in northern Iraq. The oldest levels of its Ishtar temple date to the Early Dynastic III period (2600 to 2350 BC), and the city was occupied for about 3,000 years. In the Old Assyrian period it was the hub of a trading network that reached Kültepe in Anatolia.
Shamshi-Adad I (reigned 1808 to 1775 BC) conquered Ashur and made it his religious capital. From the 14th to the 9th centuries BC it was the first capital of the Assyrian Empire and the city of the national god Ashur, where kings were crowned and buried. Ashurnasirpal II (reigned 884 to 859 BC) moved the capital from Ashur to Kalhu (Nimrud).
At the end of the Assyrian period the city was sacked by the Medes and Babylonians. It revived as an administrative centre under the Parthians, and more than 1,000 burials from that period have been found. When it was inscribed in 2003 it went straight onto the danger list because a planned dam threatened to flood it. In 2015 the area came under the control of the Islamic State group.
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