How far into Turkey did the Assyrian Empire extend to?

by kervinjacque

I was kinda interested in the Empire of Assyria and I read that they had control of turkey and saw pictures of the Assyrian Empire almost taking all of the territories of Modern day Turkey.

And I would like to know, is this a good source to tell me that Assyria did indeed conquor all of turkey? or? if not, how far ?

kookingpot

The picture you show is pretty much as far as the Assyrian Empire got into Turkey. They did not take "all" of it, really not even half of it. This map is another version, showing Assyria at its zenith in the 7th century BC. The western half of modern-day Turkey never fell under Assyria's sway. Even their successor Babylon was unable to take all of modern Turkey.

It wasn't until the [Persian Empire of Darius the Great](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire#/media/File:Achaemenid_Empire_under_different_kings_(flat_map).svg) that all of Turkey fell under Mesopotamian sway around 520 BC.

For further reading on these subjects, check out:

  • Sagona, A. G., & Zimansky, P. E. (2009). Ancient Turkey. London: Routledge.

  • Van de Mieroop, Marc. 2007. A history of the ancient Near East: ca. 3000-323 BC. Malden, Mass. [u.a.]: Blackwell.

Sagona and Zimansky's book discusses Anatolia, and is one of the best works on ancient Anatolia that is out there. Van de Mieroop's book is from the other perspective, and will cover the territories conquered by each of the ancient Mesopotamian empires.