“And Pul, the King of Assyria, came against the land.” – II Kings, 15:19 In 745 BC, Tiglath-pileser III reformed the administrative and military structure of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and led the armies of Assur in a virtually-unbroken string of regiona...

During the first half of the eighth century BC, Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria all struggled against the forces of entropy and decline.  In the absence of the Aramean threat, Israel and Judah resumed their perpetual struggle.

“I received the tribute of the kings of the seacoast – namely, the lands of the peoples of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Mahallatu, Maizu, Kaizu, Amurru and the city of Arvad, which is in the midst of the seas – silver, gold, tin, bronze, a bronze […]

“My brother Ashur-danin-apli, in the time of Shalmaneser, his father, acted wickedly, bringing about sedition, rebellion, and wicked plotting, caused the land to rise in revolt, prepared for war, brought the people of Assyria, north and south,

The Olmec of Mesoamerica and the Chavin of Peru laid strong cultural foundations that would influence regional civilizations down through the first European encounters with the New World. The longest-lasting Chinese Dynasty, the Zhou,

“I slew 14,000 of their warriors with the sword. Like Adad, I rained destruction on them. I scattered their corpses far and wide, and covered the face of the desolate plain with their wide-spreading armies.

At the dawn of the first millennium BC, the collapse of the great Near Eastern powers allowed the cultures of Canaan to flourish.  While the Phoenicians embarked on a bold new era of maritime expansion, the Hebrews and Arameans carved out new Iron Age ...

“Regarding what you wrote me before:  ‘Enemy ships were observed at sea!’  If it is true that ships were observed, reinforce yourself.  Where are your troops and chariots?  Are they not with you?  If not, who will deliver you from the enemy?

“…And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings, Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains.  Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

“As there are no pacts of faith between lions and men, nor do wolves and lambs have spirit in kind,…nor for us two will there be oaths;… Recollect your every skill.  Now the need is very great to be a spearman and brave warrior.” – Achilles, […]

After expelling the Hyksos, the rulers of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty led their New Kingdom in an unprecedented drive for territorial expansion.  In Syria and the Levant, they were forced to contend with powerful new states forged by the Hurrians and the Hitt...

“I was asleep upon my bed, having become weary…like a snake of the necropolis. As I came to, I awoke to fighting, and found that it was an attack of the bodyguard. If I had quickly taken weapons in my hand, I would have made […]

“From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.” – Napoleon Bonaparte The power of Egypt’s Old Kingdom rulers was reflected in their awe-inspiring monuments. The Harappan civilization of the Indus River Valley traded across Centra...

“Now any king who wants to call himself my equal, wherever I went, let him go!” – Sargon the Great In 2,334 BC, Sargon of Akkad forged the world’s first empire and created a legend that would inspire Near Eastern rulers for millennia. The Third […]

Contemporary with early Sumer and Egypt, the Norte Chico thrived along the Peruvian coast, while the Neolithic Britons built their mysterious stone circles. The first European civilization, the Minoans of ancient Crete,

“Climb the stone staircase, more ancient than the mind can imagine” – The Epic of Gilgamesh The Sumerians of Mesopotamia, the Elamites of the Persian plateau, and the Egyptians of the Nile River valley were among the first civilizations to emerge in th...