Sîn-šar-iškun was the penultimate king of Assyria, reigning from the death of his brother and predecessor Aššur-etil-ilāni in 627 BC to his own death at the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC.
Letter written by Sîn-šar-iškun to his primary enemy, Nabopolassar of Babylon, in which he recognizes him as king of Babylon and pleads to be allowed to retain his kingdom. The authenticity of the letter is a matter of debate.
Fall of Nineveh by John Martin (1829)
Battle of Nineveh (612 BC)
The Battle of Nineveh is conventionally dated between 613 and 611 BC, with 612 BC being the most supported date. Rebelling against the Assyrians, an allied army which combined the forces of Medes and the Babylonians besieged Nineveh and sacked 750 hectares of what was, at that time, one of the greatest cities in the world. The fall of Nineveh led to the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire over the next three years as the dominant state in the Ancient Near East. Archeological records show that the capital of the once mighty Assyrian Empire was extensively de-urbanized and depopulated in the decades and centuries following the battle. A garbled account of the fall of the city later led to the story of the legendary king Sardanapalus.
The "Mask of Sargon of Akkad" (dated circa 2250 BC) was found in 1931 in Nineveh: it was probably mutilated during the destruction of Nineveh by the Medes and Babylonians in 612 BC.
