Have you ever wondered what the language of the ancient Assyrians would have sounded like? You are not alone. Scholars have been trying to determine what it sounded like for decades. Fortunately, the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies has made a public archive of Ancient Near Eastern academics reading Mesopotamian texts […]
Did you know that the current Assyrian flag is a relatively new design? The Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) proposed a competition for a new flag in 1968 and, in 1974, ultimately chose the one that we recognize today. It was designed by George Bit Atanus of Tehran, Iran. After that, the design quickly spread among Assyrians throughout the world. You can learn the history of the adoption of the […]
In the 1970s, Assyrians began to celebrate August 7th as Assyrian Martyrs’ Day. This day was chosen because in August of 1933, military forces from the newly-founded country of Iraq massacred approximately 3,000 Assyrians in Simele, Iraq. Although historically connected to the Simele Massacre, Assyrian Martyrs’ Day also commemorates the lives of the thousands of other Assyrian martyrs who perished throughout history. Two books written by contemporaries of the Simele Massacre contain partial listings […]
In 1921, James Henry Breasted, the founder of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, decided to gather up a team of scholars to create an Assyrian Dictionary. He envisioned that the scholars would study the texts of ancient Assyrian tablets to create a dictionary of the language used by Ancient Assyria. Little did he know that this project would take 90 years to complete. […]
Did you know that one of the first modern archaeologists to dig the remains of the ancient Assyrian Empire was himself an Assyrian? Hormuzd Rassam dug at such places as Nineveh and Nimrud, and made hundreds of important finds such as the Balawat Gates, the cuneiform tablets containing portions of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the reliefs depicting the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal. Hormuzd Rassam was born […]
