Analysis Of The Article Grisly Assyrian Record Of...

The article â€Å"Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death† by Erika Bleibtreu gives an insight into the ways of the Assyrian military campaigns and battles. During Mesopotamian times, wars were what divided ruling periods. There were many different groups of people that dominated Ancient Mesopotamia, and the Assyrians were one of them. Assyria, a powerful ancient empire, once sprawled across the entirety of the Fertile Crescent. It encompassed land in four modern day countries: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The Assyrians were a force to not be reckoned with, for they destroyed cities and devastated crop fields and killed many people. The Assyrians did so well mainly because of their great talent to resist and overwhelm their enemies. There was never a point in time that the Assyrians were ever at peace, they were always involved in some sort of conflict. Assyrian national history, as it has been preserved for us in inscriptions and pictures, almost solely consists of just the Assyrian battles and campaigns. After reading the article, I question myself â€Å"Why were the Assyrians at war so much?† Bleibtreu makes the answer clear, the Assyrians were power and land hungry. The map of the beginning of the Assyrian empire compared to the map at the end of the Assyrian empire were completely different. The Assyrian empire went through much expansion during the time period that they ruled. The Assyrians wanted complete control over everything and everyone; as a matter of fact they