History of the World-Beheading Before Beheading Was Cool

NOTE:  I'll continue to post this disclaimer.  The past several posts and who-knows-how-many-to-come are merely what I remember from the Penguin Academy of Our Lady of Barnum Avenue and History Class at Stratford High School while growing up older in Connecticut.  I'll research some specifics, mostly dates and the most obscure of names, and I'll try to place historical events in their proper historical context.  Meaning, I won't have the Aztecs land on the moon.  Or...did they?  Trust me, some of this is true; however, don't use any of this nonsense to prepare for the History Advanced Placement Examination.  If you do, the only college you'll get into is Klown Kollege and you'll probably be confused for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  Or Joe Biden.  Especially if you sniff their hair.  By the way, I originally wrote this two and a half years ago, which included the crack about the cellar dweller from Delaware.  I said then, I continue to say now: that demented turnip is comedy gold!

The Assyrians

Proto Crazy People

I'm sorry, can you read this?
I can't.
But, I'm old.
Still...maybe you can zoom in?
It'll be worth it.
I hope.

Giving Credit Where Credit's Due Department:  During my earlier discussion of the Babylon Empire, "Babble On," the sharp-eyed Chris Martin, from the globally-acclaimed Tilting At Windmills, reminded me that the Assyrians predated such Babylonians as Nebuchadnezzar.  My bad.  Anyway, I'm thrilled that at least someone is paying attention to these things.  Rehashed repeats though they be (just so you know, I'm providing these snippets for the benefit of my followers from my Nit Nats website, which includes Gerry).  I'll eventually get to brand new posts for everyone.

    Around 2,000 BC (give or take a hundred years), the civilization of Assyria grew to prominence.  Situated in between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, it soon came to dominate the region.  This included Babylon, after they tricked their neighbors into letting them into the city by posing as Jehovah's Witnesses.  With swords.  

    After a lavish victory celebration that lasted for weeks and featured delicacies from throughout the land (including sandwiches on fertile crescent rolls with cheese and the now-extinct Mesopotamian Moose), their mothers told them they needed to get a job.

    So, they began a copper trading business with 

"Here for cornhole tourney."

Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey, when projected sales of "Severed Head Cornhole" fell through.

    Why Anatolia and not someplace a little closer is lost to history.  They could have started a business with Egypt, I suppose.  Either they were dissuaded by having to cross the desert or were a little skeeved out by all that cat-worship and brother-sister nonsense.  No one knows unfortunately.  Likewise, no one knows exactly who had the copper.  Perhaps the Anatolians traded their copper for goats, who knows?

"Heartless bastards.  At least the Persians are friendlier."

"Hey, check out the eyes."

    Unfortunately for the Assyrians, the largesse created by the thriving "Goats For Copper" business came to an end sometime around 1,200 BC (give or take a hun…oh, you know the drill) when they were invaded and conquered by a group known as the "Sea Peoples."  

Wrong Sea People

    For many years, I had thought they were conquered by Aquaman

"I hear you people have copper.  And goats."

(the Jason Momoa Aquaman, not the Saturday morning cartoon Aquaman), but when I started to write this, I didn't think that sounded right.  So, I did a little research.

    And, by a "little research," I mean "very little research."  After viewing Why Justice League Sucked (co-starring, incredibly, Jason Momoa) on You Tube, I found out that nobody really knows who the Sea Peoples were.  Whoever, though, they terrorized the region and even beat up on the Egyptians.  Scholars (and by "scholars," I mean "guys who can't get jobs") theorize they came from the sea (sounds legit)...maybe the Aegean, Asia Minor, Southern Europe, East River, or Atlantis.

"Disappointing."

    Eventually, though, the Assyrians rose back up and kicked the
interlopers out of their country.  Thus began the "Neo-Assyrian Empire" (which, shockingly, had nothing to do with The Matrix).  Maybe because they finally figured out what they were doing or maybe they were hacked off by being occupied by people who talk to fish, these Assyrians were not your grandfather's Assyrians.

"Holy CRAP!  They marry their sisters???
Sure, we impale people, but that's just plain sick."

    Armed with the newest technology of iron weaponry (developed by the Ur Chapter of Lockheed Martin), they ran roughshod over the neighborhood for the next several hundred years.  They expanded their territory to invaded parts of Asia Minor, Judea (seriously, those people never caught a break), and, under the rule of Assurbanipal, even swallowed Egypt (well, that's a clumsy way of putting it).  They even sacked Babylon (hee hee hee..."sacked") after King Sennacherib received a tweet accusing him of low energy, small hands, and having hair plugs.

"Swallowed'."

    The Assyrians became known for implementing tactics to 

After all, beheading can get tedious.

terrorize their subjects to include mass executions, impalements, ritual beheadings, showing family vacation hieroglyphs, mass deportations of Mexicans, and fingernail scratching on chalkboards.  

   These fierce warriors pioneered the optimum use of cavalry, infantry, chariots, dutch rubs, and taunting.

Especially once they learned to not shoot their horses in the back of the head.

    Eventually, though, the Assyrians got a little too big for their 

Now you can answer
the bridgekeeper's question.

britches.  An alliance of Babylonians and Medes (Known as "The Coalition of the Willing") sacked their capital city of Nineveh.

    And, just like that (and, let's face it, you're just as tired of reading as I am of writing), in 610 BC, the Assyrian Empire went the way of the Sumerians, Babylonians, lower gas prices, and the Jeb! candidacy.

The Ancient Shriners developed the
concept of Ancient Little Cars

    Oh sure, there were other civilizations flourishing in the Near East and Northern Africa: the Lydians, Phoenicians, Scientologists, Cimmerians, Shriners, Scythians, Dothraki, Hittites, Nubians, Urartus (I seriously don't know who the frik they were), Phrygians, Scythians, Masons, and countless others.  

    Plus, as I've said before, we mustn't rule out the civilizations in India, China, and Mesoamerica, either.  But, I will because we only got "White People History" growing up in the 60s.

"Don't forget the invention of cheese and Wonder Bread.  There's a good lad."

    Besides, remember, none of them were Catholics, either.  So, there's that.

"Praise the Lord, saints be praised, show me your knuckles."

   Before we go on to the hyper-crazy Persians and how they buggered bothered the Greeks, I'll need to pay a visit to a group of people seen mostly in the Bible and Cecil B. DeMille movies.

Next time:  The Hebrews-So, Would It Kill You To Not Kill Us?

  

"Behold!  The Lord will lead you out of bondage into the Promised Land.  Where you'll be kidnapped by the Babylonians.  Killed by the Assyrians.  And the Macedonians.  And the Romans.  And the Muslims.  And the Crusaders.  And the Germans.  And the British.
But, it'll totally be cool in the 21st century, you watch."