The Assyrian Empire

Assyria was the first great empire of the Iron Age. Its kings went to war almost every year and recorded their victories on palace walls in brutal detail.

Tiglath-Pileser III turned it into a new kind of state: a standing army, provinces ruled by governors, and whole peoples moved across the empire to break resistance.

At its height it ruled from Egypt to Iran. Then, within three years, Babylon and the Medes destroyed it. Nineveh was never rebuilt.