title: Maureen O'Hara

text: In 1985 she was awarded the Career Achievement Award from the American Cinema Foundation. O'Hara also became the first woman to win the John F. Kennedy Memorial Award for "Outstanding American of Irish Descent for Service to God and Country". For her contributions to the motion picture industry, O'Hara has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7004 Hollywood Blvd. In 1993, she was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She was awarded the Golden Boot Award.


title: Maureen O'Hara

text: In March 1999, O'Hara was selected to be Grand Marshal of New York City's St. Patrick's Day Parade. In 2004, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Film and Television Academy in her native Dublin. The same year, O'Hara released her autobiography "Tis Herself", co-authored with Johnny Nicoletti and published by Simon & Schuster. She wrote the foreword for the cookbook "At Home in Ireland", and in 2007 she penned the foreword to the biography of her friend and film co-star, the late actress Anna Lee.


title: Maureen O'Hara

text: O'Hara was named "Irish America"s "Irish American of the Year" in 2005, with festivities held at the Plaza Hotel in New York. In 2006, O'Hara attended the Grand Reopening and Expansion of the Flying Boats Museum in Foynes, County Limerick as a patron of the museum. A significant portion of the museum is dedicated to her late husband Charles. O'Hara donated her late husband's seaplane, the "Excambian" (a Sikorsky VS-44A), to the New England Air Museum. The restoration of the plane took eight years and time was donated by former pilots and mechanics in honor of Charles Blair. It is the only surviving example of this type of early trans-Atlantic plane.


title: Maureen O'Hara

text: In 2011, O'Hara was formally inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame at an event in New Ross, County Wexford. She was also named the president of the Universal Film & Festival Organization (UFFO), which promotes a code of conduct for film festivals and the film industry.


title: Maureen O'Hara

text: In 2012, O'Hara received the Freedom of the Town of Kells, County Meath, Ireland, her father's home, and a sculpture in her honour was unveiled.


title: Maureen O'Hara

text: In 2014, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selected O'Hara to receive the academy's Honorary Oscar, which was presented at the annual Governor's Awards in November that year. O'Hara became only the second actress, after Myrna Loy in 1991, to receive an Honorary Oscar without having previously been nominated for an Oscar in a competitive category.


title: Application software

text: An application program (software application, or application, or app for short) is a computer program designed to carry out a specific task other than one relating to the operation of the computer itself, typically to be used by end-users. Word processors, media players, and accounting software are examples. The collective noun "application software" refers to all applications collectively. The other principal classifications of software are system software, relating to the operation of the computer, and utility software ("utilities").


title: Application software

text: Applications may be bundled with the computer and its system software or published separately and may be coded as proprietary, open-source, or projects. The term "app" usually refers to applications for mobile devices such as phones.


title: Application software

text: In information technology, an application (app), an application program, or application software is a computer program designed to help people perform an activity. Depending on the activity for which it was designed, an application can manipulate text, numbers, audio, graphics, and a combination of these elements. Some application packages focus on a single task, such as word processing; others called integrated software include several applications.


title: Application software

text: User-written software tailors systems to meet the user's specific needs. User-written software includes spreadsheet templates, word processor macros, scientific simulations, audio, graphics, and animation scripts. Even email filters are a kind of user software. Users create this software themselves and often overlook how important it is.


title: Application software

text: The delineation between system software such as operating systems and application software is not exact, however, and is occasionally the object of controversy. For example, one of the key questions in the "United States v. Microsoft Corp." antitrust trial was whether Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser was part of its Windows operating system or a separable piece of application software. As another example, the GNU/Linux naming controversy is, in part, due to disagreement about the relationship between the Linux kernel and the operating systems built over this kernel. In some types of embedded systems, the application software and the operating system software may be indistinguishable from the user, as in the case of software used to control a VCR, DVD player, or microwave oven. The above definitions may exclude some applications that may exist on some computers in large organizations. For an alternative definition of an app: " see Application Portfolio Management."


title: Application software

text: The word "application" used as an adjective is not restricted to the "of or pertaining to application software" meaning. For example, concepts such as application programming interface (API), application server, application virtualization, application lifecycle management and portable application apply to all computer programs alike, not just application software.


title: Application software

text: Some applications are available in versions for several different platforms; others only work on one and are thus called, for example, a geography application "for Microsoft Windows", or an "Android" application for education, or a "Linux" game. Sometimes a new and popular application arises that only runs on one platform, increasing the desirability of that platform. This is called a killer application or "killer app". For example, VisiCalc was the first modern spreadsheet software for the Apple II and helped sell the then-new personal computers into offices. For Blackberry it was their email software.


title: Application software

text: In recent years, the shortened term "app" (coined in 1981 or earlier) has become popular to refer to applications for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, the shortened form matching their typically smaller scope compared to applications on PCs. Even more recently, the shortened version is used for desktop application software as well.


title: Application software

text: From the legal point of view, application software is mainly classified with a black-box approach, about the rights of its end-users or subscribers (with eventual intermediate and tiered subscription levels).


title: Application software

text: Software applications are also classified in respect of the programming language in which the source code is written or executed, and concerning their purpose and outputs.


title: Application software

text: Application software is usually distinguished into two main classes: closed source vs open source software applications, and free or proprietary software applications.


title: Application software

text: Proprietary software is placed under the exclusive copyright, and a software license grants limited usage rights. The open-closed principle states that software may be "open only for extension, but not for modification". Such applications can only get add-on by third parties.


title: Application software

text: Free and open-source software shall be run, distributed, sold, or extended for any purpose, and -being open- shall be modified or reversed in the same way.


title: Application software

text: FOSS software applications released under a free license may be perpetual and also royalty-free. Perhaps, the owner, the holder or third-party enforcer of any right (copyright, trademark, patent, or "ius in re aliena") are entitled to add exceptions, limitations, time decays or expiring dates to the license terms of use.


title: Application software

text: Public-domain software is a type of FOSS, which is royalty-free and - openly or reservedly- can be run, distributed, modified, reversed, republished, or created in derivative works without any copyright attribution and therefore revocation. It can even be sold, but without transferring the public domain property to other single subjects. Public-domain SW can be released under a (un)licensing legal statement, which enforces those terms and conditions for an indefinite duration (for a lifetime, or forever).


title: Application software

text: Since the development and near-universal adoption of the web, an important distinction that has emerged, has been between web applications — written with HTML, JavaScript and other web-native technologies and typically requiring one to be online and running a web browser — and the more traditional native applications written in whatever languages are available for one's particular type of computer. There has been a contentious debate in the computing community regarding web applications replacing native applications for many purposes, especially on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Web apps have indeed greatly increased in popularity for some uses, but the advantages of applications make them unlikely to disappear soon, if ever. Furthermore, the two can be complementary, and even integrated.


title: Application software

text: Application software can also be seen as being either horizontal or vertical. Horizontal applications are more popular and widespread, because they are general purpose, for example word processors or databases. Vertical applications are niche products, designed for a particular type of industry or business, or department within an organization. Integrated suites of software will try to handle every specific aspect possible of, for example, manufacturing or banking worker, accounting, or customer service.


title: Application software

text: Applications can also be classified by computing platforms such as a desktop application for a particular operating system, delivery network such as in cloud computing and Web 2.0 applications, or delivery devices such as mobile apps for mobile devices.


title: Application software

text: The operating system itself can be considered application software when performing simple calculating, measuring, rendering, and word processing tasks not used to control hardware via a command-line interface or graphical user interface. This does not include application software bundled within operating systems such as a software calculator or text editor.


title: South Park (season 25)

text: The twenty-fifth season of the American animated sitcom series "South Park" premiered on Comedy Central on February 2, 2022 and ended on March 16, 2022. Consisting of six episodes, it is the shortest season of the show by runtime, and the second shortest by episode count.


title: South Park (season 25)

text: To celebrate the show's 25th anniversary, live Broadway orchestral covers of the series' songs were performed, alongside the release date of the upcoming season.


title: South Park (season 25)

text: On March 16, 2022, a live concert celebrating 25 years of "South Park" music was announced, which took place at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado on August 10, 2022. On June 7, 2022, a second concert was announced and took place on August 9, 2022. The concerts featured appearances by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and music by Primus and Ween. The concert aired as a special on August 13 on Comedy Central, which was the anniversary date of the show's premiere, and again on August 14 on Paramount+. In addition, an exhibition, titled "South Park: The 25th Anniversary Experience", and various pop-up stores were set up at select locations in the United States and other countries.


title: South Park (season 25)

text: After the regular season concluded, two Paramount+ films for 2022 were announced on May 11, 2022. This year's specials do not have a production code and are not considered part of the regular season, however, they are still considered episodes.


title: South Park (season 25)

text: "Screen Rant" felt that the season was too short, saying that "it took quite a while for "South Park" season 25 to get going. Some of the earlier episodes, such as 'Pajama Day', felt like they were going through the motions with their COVID-related satire, and by the time the season did get going with a pair of Butters-centric episodes touching upon cancel culture and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the season was already over. Without more episodes to properly develop and marinate character-specific plot threads and the brilliant current events satire that came with them, "South Park"'s latest season, unfortunately, didn't tell a complete and satisfying story."


The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church) is a religious sect of the fundamentalist Mormon denominations whose members practice polygamy. The fundamentalist Mormon movement emerged in the early 20th century, when its founding members were excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), largely because of their refusal to abandon the practice of plural marriage after it was renounced in the "Second Manifesto" (1904). The FLDS Church as a distinct group traces its origins to the 1950s in the Short Creek community (now the twin cities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona), where the group is still based.


title: Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

text: The FLDS Church has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center: citing leader Warren Jeffs' opinions on "Blacks, women, gays, violence and the end of the world"; and called them "a white supremacist, homophobic, antigovernment, totalitarian cult". The group is considered a polygamous cult.


text: The FLDS Church headquarters were originally located in what was then known as Short Creek in Arizona, on the southern border of Utah. The settlement eventually expanded into Utah and became incorporated as the twin municipalities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona. The historic location of the church was in Hildale and Colorado City, but the church also has a long-standing colony in Bountiful, British Columbia. In 2004, news reports suggested a possible shift of the church's headquarters to Eldorado, Texas, where a temple had been built by FLDS Church members. Since the purchase of land located northeast of Eldorado, then called the Yearning for Zion Ranch, there appeared to be a shift in the headquarters of the church, along with a large exodus of the "most faithful" church members. Other newer church settlements are southwest of Pringle, South Dakota, and Mancos, Colorado, with a presence in Minot, North Dakota, and Grand Marais, Minnesota.


text: The exact number of members of the FLDS Church is not known, due to the relatively closed cultish nature of the organization. It was estimated to have 6,000 to 10,000 members residing in the sister cities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona; Eldorado, Texas; Westcliffe, Colorado; Mancos, Colorado; Creston and Bountiful, British Columbia; and Pringle, South Dakota. However, in recent years, membership has suffered due to purges by Warren Jeffs, and members leaving. There are also developing communities near Benjamín Hill, Sonora (south of Nogales in the state of Sonora); Ensenada, Baja California (south of Tijuana); and Boise City, Oklahoma. Members of the FLDS Church have owned machine shops that have sold airplane components to the United States Air Force and the Defense Logistics Agency; from 1998 to 2007 the receipts from these components totaled more than US$1.7 million.


text: The residents in the area of Hildale and Colorado City have a long history of practicing polygamy, dating to the mid-19th century. It is taught in the community that Brigham Young, then president of the LDS Church, once visited the area and said "this will someday be the head and not the tail of the church. This will be the granaries of the Saints. This land will produce in abundance sufficient wheat to feed the people." The twin cities were once known as Short Creek, officially founded in 1913 as a ranching community.


text: The FLDS traces its claim to spiritual authority to accounts, starting with a statement published in 1912 by Lorin C. Woolley, of a purported 1886 divine revelation to then-LDS Church President John Taylor. They see the 1886 Revelation as precluding validity of the 1890 Manifesto against new plural marriages by church members, issued by Wilford Woodruff, whom the LDS Church recognizes as Taylor's successor. After the formal abandonment of plural marriage by the LDS Church, many members around Short Creek and elsewhere continued, and even solemnized, plural marriages. In 1904 the LDS Church issued the Second Manifesto, and eventually excommunicated those who continued to solemnize or enter into new plural marriages.


text: Short Creek soon became a gathering place for polygamist former members of the LDS Church. In 1935, the LDS Church excommunicated the Mormon residents of Short Creek who refused to sign an oath renouncing polygamy. Following this, John Y. Barlow began to lead a group of Mormon fundamentalists who were dedicated to preserving the practice of plural marriage. The location on the Utah–Arizona border was thought to be ideal for the group because it allowed them to avoid state raids by moving across the state line. Ben Bistline has called it a "popular misconception" that the spot was chosen "because" it straddled the state line, rather than being where the property offered to the Priesthood Council happened to be.


text: Some of the locally prominent men in Short Creek, after being excommunicated by the LDS Church, later became leaders of the Mormon fundamentalist movement, including Lorin C. Woolley, J. Leslie Broadbent, John Y. Barlow, Charles Zitting, Joseph White Musser, LeGrand Wooley, and Louis A. Kelsch. In 1932, these men created the organization known as the Council of Friends, a group of seven high priests that was said to be the governing priesthood body on Earth. The Council of Friends became the governing ecclesiastical body over the Mormon fundamentalists at Short Creek.


text: The early years of the movement were contentious and saw many differing interpretations and opinions among leaders as to how plural marriage should be practised. These contentions eventually led to the subsequent schisms that created the multiple Mormon fundamentalist organizations that now exist, including the FLDS Church, the Apostolic United Brethren, and the Latter-day Church of Christ or Kingston group. It is commonly believed by all of these sects that the early leaders of the fundamentalist movement claimed to receive revelations from God commanding that plural marriage should not cease.


text: One researcher has suggested that the concept of the FLDS as a separate church entity did not fully arise until a 1987 lawsuit when the full name of the church first appears. According to this interpretation, the original authority conferred by Lorin C. Wooley was only for the purpose of initiating plural marriages, not for the establishment of a new church, and many early Short Creek polygamists continued to regard the LDS Church as authoritative but "out of order" on the matter of polygamy. Such members held hope that the LDS Church would one day come back "into order" and re-establish the practice of polygamy.


text: In 1984, a schism formed within the FLDS Church just before the death of Leroy S. Johnson. A small group of FLDS (known as the Centennial Park group) took issue with the "one-man rule" doctrine that altered the leadership structure of the church and that was implemented fully when Rulon Jeffs assumed his position as sole leader of the organization. These followers took up residence just south of Colorado City, in Centennial Park, Arizona, calling themselves "The Work of Jesus Christ," or "The Work" for short.


text: Also in 2002, after Warren Jeffs assumed leadership, Winston Blackmore, who had been serving in Canada as the Bishop of Bountiful for the FLDS Church, was excommunicated by Jeffs in an apparent power struggle. This led to a split within the community in Bountiful, British Columbia, with an estimated 700 FLDS members leaving the church to follow Blackmore.


text: The FLDS Church has been led by a succession of men regarded as prophets, who are believed to have been called by God to lead. The first leader of the FLDS Church was John Y. Barlow, who led the community of Short Creek until his death on December 29, 1949. He was succeeded by Joseph White Musser, who was the church's leader during a government crackdown on polygamy known as the Short Creek raid, in 1953, in which all the FLDS Church members of Short Creek were arrested, including 236 children.


text: Musser led the community until a contentious appointment of Rulon Allred to a high position of authority in 1951 angered some members of the Short Creek community. Musser had appointed Allred to be his successor, but Allred was not accepted as his successor by the Short Creek community. This led to a schism, with many followers breaking off and joining Allred; this offshoot became known as the Apostolic United Brethren. The core group in the Short Creek area instead followed Charles Zitting as its leader.


text: Zitting died in 1954 and Leroy S. Johnson was chosen to lead the church in Short Creek. Johnson led the FLDS Church until his death in 1986. He was succeeded by Rulon Jeffs, who assumed the position of Prophet, a title his predecessor refused to use. In Jeffs' later years, his poor health led to one of his sons, Warren Jeffs, serving as leader of the church in his stead, and upon Rulon's death in September 2002, Warren Jeffs became leader of the FLDS Church. However, immediately after the state of Utah convicted him of being an accomplice to rape, it was widely reported in the press that Warren Jeffs resigned his leadership of the FLDS Church, though the statement made by his attorneys only addresses Jeffs' resignation from his fiduciary post as "President of the Corporation of the President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Inc."


text: In early 2011, Jeffs reasserted his leadership of the church. Since no public statements had been made by church officials indicating Jeff's successor, it is not known who led the FLDS Church in the interim, although it is possible that Warren Jeffs continued to be leader during this period.


text: Polygamy is illegal in all 50 states of the United States as well as Canada and Mexico. Attempts to overturn the illegality based on right of religious freedom have been unsuccessful. In 2003, the church received increased attention from the state of Utah when police officer Rodney Holm, a member of the church, was convicted of unlawful sexual conduct with a 16- or 17-year-old and one count of bigamy for his marriage to and impregnation of plural wife Ruth Stubbs. The conviction was the first legal action against a member of the FLDS Church since the Short Creek raid.


text: In November 2003, church member David Allred purchased "as a hunting retreat" the Isaacs Ranch northeast of Eldorado, Texas, on Schleicher County Road 300 and sent 30 to 40 construction workers from Colorado City–Hildale to begin work on the property. Improvements soon included three 3-story houses, each 8,000 to , a concrete plant, and a plowed field. After seeing high-profile FLDS Church critic Flora Jessop on the ABC television program "Primetime Live" on March 4, 2004, concerned Eldorado residents contacted Jessop. She investigated, and on March 25, 2004, Jessop held a press conference in Eldorado confirming that the new neighbors were FLDS Church adherents. On May 18, 2004, Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran and his Chief Deputy visited Colorado City, and the FLDS Church officially acknowledged that the Schleicher County property would be a new base for the church. It was reported in the news media that the church had built a temple at the YFZ Ranch; this is supported by evidence, including aerial photographs of a large stone structure (approximately wide) in a state of relative completion. A local newspaper, the "Eldorado Success", reported that the temple foundation was dedicated January 1, 2005 by Warren Jeffs.


text: On January 10, 2004, Dan Barlow (the mayor of Colorado City) and about 20 other men were excommunicated from the church and stripped of their wives and children (who would be reassigned to other men), and the right to live in the town. The same day two teenage girls reportedly fled the towns with the aid of activist Flora Jessop, who advocates plural wives' escape from polygamy. The two girls, Fawn Broadbent and Fawn Holm, soon found themselves in a highly publicized dispute over their freedom and custody. After the allegations against their parents were proven false, Flora helped them flee state custody together on February 15, and they ended up in Salt Lake City at Fawn Holm's brother Carl's house.


text: In October 2004, Flora Jessop reported that David Allred purchased a parcel of land near Mancos, Colorado, (midway between Cortez and Durango) about the same time he bought the Schleicher County property. Allred told authorities the parcel was to be used as a hunting retreat.


text: In July 2005, eight men of the church were indicted for sexual contact with minors. All of them turned themselves in to police in Kingman, Arizona, within days.


text: On July 29, 2005, Brent W. Jeffs filed suit accusing three of his uncles, including Warren Jeffs, of sexually assaulting him when he was a child. The suit also named the FLDS Church as a defendant. On August 10, former FLDS Church member Shem Fischer, Dan Fischer's brother, added the church and Warren Jeffs as defendants to a 2002 lawsuit claiming he was illegally fired because he no longer adhered to the faith. Fischer, who was a salesman for a wooden cabinetry business in Hildale, claimed church officials interfered with his relationship with his employer and blacklisted him. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the company and found that Fischer was not fired from his job, but quit instead. The district court ruling was overturned in part on the basis that Fischer was discriminated against on the basis of religion when he reapplied for his position and was denied employment because he had left the FLDS church. The parties eventually settled the case for an agreed payment of damages to Shem Fischer.


text: In July 2005, six young adult "Lost Boys" who claimed they were cast out of their homes on the Utah–Arizona border to reduce competition for wives, filed suit against the FLDS Church. "The [boys] have been excommunicated pursuant to that policy and practice and have been cut off from family, friends, benefits, business and employment relationships, and purportedly condemned to eternal damnation", their suit says. "They have become 'lost boys' in the world outside the FLDS community."


text: On May 7, 2006, the FBI named Warren Jeffs to its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.


text: On August 28, 2006, Warren Jeffs was captured on Interstate 15 just north of Las Vegas, Nevada, after a routine traffic stop. Jeffs was tried in St. George, Utah, and a jury found him guilty of two counts of being an accomplice to rape.


text: The mayor of Colorado City, Terrill C. Johnson, was arrested on May 26, 2006, for eight fraudulent vehicle registration charges for registering his vehicles in a different state than he lived, which is a felony. He was booked into Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane, Utah, and was released after paying the $5,000 bail in cash.


text: From 2007 to 2011, the leadership of the FLDS Church was unclear. On November 20, 2007, after the conviction of then leader Warren Jeffs, attorneys for Jeffs released the following statement: "Mr. Jeffs resigned as President of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Inc." This statement does not address his position as prophet of the church, but merely addressed his resignation from his fiduciary post as president of the corporation belonging to the FLDS Church. According to a "Salt Lake Tribune" telephone transcript, there is evidence that, when incarcerated, Warren Jeffs made statements naming William E. Jessop, a former first counselor, as his successor or, alternatively, that Jeffs had told Jessop on January 24, 2007, that he (Jeffs) had never been the rightful leader of the FLDS. Many press accounts have suggested that Merril Jessop, who has been leading the Eldorado compound, is the de facto leader of the church. Additionally, on January 9, 2010, documents filed with the Utah Department of Commerce name Wendell L. Nielsen as the president of the sect. The FLDS incorporation charter does not require the church president to be its prophet. However, traditionally the President of the FLDS church was also the religious head. FLDS leaders have refused to clarify who is considered the prophet of the FLDS church. To add additional confusion to the issue of succession, a 2012 CNN documentary said that Jeffs still led the church from prison.


text: Prior to November 20, 2007, the church was being led by Jeffs, who succeeded his father, Rulon Jeffs, in 2002. For nearly two years, Warren Jeffs had been wanted on sex-crimes charges. From May 2006 until his arrest in August 2006, he was on the FBI's Ten Most-Wanted List. On September 25, 2007, Jeffs was found guilty of two counts of being an accomplice to rape and was sentenced to ten years to life in prison. This conviction was later overturned. On January 28, 2011, Jeffs again asserted his leadership of the denomination. Warren Jeffs was later sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years and fined $10,000 after being convicted on charges of aggravated sexual assault and sexual assault.


text: In the morning of July 26, 1953, 102 Arizona state police officers and National Guard soldiers raided the fundamentalist Mormon community of Short Creek, Arizona. They arrested the entire populace, including 236 children. Of those 236 children, 150 were not allowed to return to their parents for more than two years. Other parents never regained custody of their children.


text: The Short Creek raid was the largest mass arrest of polygamists in American history, and it received a great deal of press coverage. After the raid, polygamists continued to live there; in 1960, Short Creek was renamed Colorado City.


text: In April 2008, acting on the outcry of an alleged teen victim of physical and sexual abuse at the FLDS compound in Schleicher County, Texas, Texas Child Protective Services and Department of Public Safety officers entered the compound to serve search and arrest warrants and carry out court orders designed to protect children. Over the course of several days, from April 3 through April 10, Texas CPS removed 439 children under age 18 from the church's YFZ Ranch, while law enforcement, including Texas Rangers, executed their search and arrest warrants on the premises. The April 2008 events at the YFZ Ranch generated intense press coverage in the U.S., especially in the Southwest, and also garnered international attention.


text: On April 18, 2008, following a two-day hearing, Judge Barbara Walther of the 51st Judicial District Court ordered all of the FLDS children to remain in the temporary custody of Child Protective Services. Judge Walther's ruling was subsequently reversed by the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin, Texas in a ruling that Texas CPS was not justified in removing every child from the ranch. The 3rd Court of Appeals granted mandamus relief and ordered the trial court to vacate the portion of its order giving CPS temporary custody of the FLDS children. CPS petitioned the Texas Supreme Court requesting that the 3rd Court of Appeals' ruling be overturned, but the Texas Supreme Court, in a written opinion issued May 29, 2008, declined to overturn the ruling of the 3rd Court of Appeals.


text: The abuse hotline calls that prompted the raid are now believed to have been made by Rozita Swinton, a non-FLDS woman with no known connection to the FLDS community in Texas. Nevertheless, the search warrants executed at the YFZ compound were determined by the court to have been legally issued and executed, and the evidence seized cannot be excluded on the basis that the initial outcry may have been a hoax.


text: In November 2008, 12 FLDS men were charged with offenses related to alleged underage marriages conducted during the years since the sect built the YFZ Ranch. As of June 2010, six FLDS members had been convicted of felonies and received sentences ranging from seven to 75 years' imprisonment.


text: On November 5, 2009, a Schleicher County, Texas jury found Raymond Merril Jessop, 38, guilty of sexual assault of a child. According to evidence admitted at trial, Jessop sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl to whom he had been "spiritually married" when the girl was 15 years old. The same jury sentenced Jessop to 10 years in prison and assessed a fine of $8,000.


text: On December 18, 2009, a Schleicher County, Texas jury found Allan Keate guilty of sexual assault of a child. Keate fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl. According to documents admitted at trial, Keate had also given three of his own daughters away in "spiritual" or "celestial" marriage, two of them at 15 and one at 14, to older men. The youngest of the three went to Warren Jeffs. He was sentenced to 33 years in prison. The conviction and sentence was later upheld on appeal.


text: On January 22, 2010, Michael George Emack pleaded no contest to sexual assault charges and was sentenced to seven years in prison. He married a 16-year-old girl at YFZ Ranch on August 5, 2004. She gave birth to a son less than a year later.


text: On March 17, 2010, a Tom Green County, Texas jury found Merril Leroy Jessop guilty of sexual assault of a child after deliberating only one hour. Evidence admitted at the criminal trial proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Jessop, 35, sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl while living at the FLDS Ranch in Schleicher County, Texas. The jury sentenced Jessop to 75 years in prison and assessed a $10,000 fine.


text: On April 6, 2010, Arizona officials executed search warrants at governmental offices of the towns of Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah. According to one report, the warrants involved the misuse of funds and caused the Hildale Public Safety Department to be shut down. According to another report, city personnel and volunteers were ordered out of the buildings while the search was being conducted, prompting protests from Colorado City Fire Chief Jake Barlow. Despite these protests, public safety did not appear to be affected, as the county law enforcement agencies involved routed calls for emergency service through the county offices. A search warrant was also executed at Jake Barlow's residence.


text: The search warrant affidavit states that the Mohave County District Attorney sought records relating to personal charges on an agency credit card from the Colorado City Fire Department under the open records laws. Chief Barlow indicated that there were no personal charges, therefore there were no records to disclose. Records obtained by subpoena from the banks involved showed a series of purchases made by Chief Barlow and Darger that are questionable, including diapers, child's clothing, and food, although the firefighters are not fed by the department.


text: In November 2012, the Texas Attorney General's Office instituted legal proceedings to seize the FLDS ranch property in Eldorado, Texas. The basis for the forfeiture and seizure proceeding was cited as the use of FLDS property as "...a rural location where the systemic sexual assault of children would be tolerated without interference from law enforcement authorities", therefore, the property is contraband and subject to seizure. On April 17, 2014, Texas officials took physical possession of the property.


text: In June 2014, the Arizona Office of the Attorney General filed a motion in U.S. District Court seeking to dissolve the local police forces and "the disbandment of the Colorado City, Arizona/Hildale, Utah Marshal's Office and the appointment of a federal monitor over municipal functions and services." As the basis for the legal proceeding, the Arizona Attorney General stated that "[t]he disbandment of the Colorado City/Hildale Marshal's Office is necessary and appropriate because this police department has operated for decades, and continues to operate, as the de facto law enforcement arm of the FLDS Church."


text: The FLDS Church teaches the doctrine of plural marriage, which states that a man having multiple wives is ordained of and a commandment by God; the doctrine requires it in order for a man to receive the highest form of salvation. In the church it is generally believed that a man should have a minimum of three wives in order to fulfill this requirement. Connected with this doctrine is the patriarchal doctrine, the belief that wives are required to be subordinate to their husbands.


text: The church currently practices placement marriage, whereby a young woman of marriageable age is assigned a husband by revelation from God to the leader of the church, who is regarded as a prophet. The prophet elects to take wives from men as well as give wives to men according to their worthiness. This practice is also called the law of placing.


text: In general, women do not cut their hair short or wear makeup, trousers, or any skirt above the knees. Men wear plain clothing, usually long-sleeved collared shirt and full-length trousers. Men and women are forbidden to have any tattoos or body piercings. Women and girls usually wear pastel-colored homemade long-sleeved prairie dresses, with hems between ankle and mid-calf, along with long stockings or trousers underneath, usually keeping their hair coiffed.


text: Brooke Adams of "The Salt Lake Tribune" said "Photographs from the 1953 raid on Short Creek, now the twin towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona, show men, women and children dressed like anyone else of that era." FLDS dress for members evolved as time passed. Early Short Creek community leaders taught that members should dress in the style of long, Mormon "priesthood" religious undergarments worn by mainstream LDS denominations up until the 1920s. By the later part of the twentieth century, this more conservative style of modesty became increasingly common, through custom and eventually through official edicts by the denomination's leadership.


text: The land and houses occupied by the FLDS Church on the Utah/Arizona border are owned by the United Effort Plan (UEP), which was once a subsidiary organization of the church. The UEP also owns most of the property of the businesses that are controlled by FLDS Church members in that area. The church views this "United Order" as a means of living the traditional Latter Day Saint doctrine of the "Law of Consecration". The Attorney General of Utah filed a lawsuit and seized the holdings of the UEP for the current residents of Colorado City and Hildale. The Attorney General is seeking to distribute the assets of the UEP to the FLDS Church members and ex-members who contributed to the UEP. In 2005, a court order froze the UEP pending a resolution of the lawsuit. At the time of the court order, the UEP was worth $100 million.


text: In 2000, the Colorado City Unified School District had more than 1,200 students. When Warren Jeffs ordered that FLDS Church members remove their children from public schools, the number declined to around 250.


text: At the time of his death, church leader Rulon Jeffs was confirmed to have married 22 women and fathered more than 60 children. It was estimated in 2018 that Warren Jeffs might have over 79 wives. Because the type of polygamy which is practiced is actually polygyny, critics of this lifestyle claim that the practice of it inevitably leads to bride shortages, child marriages, incest, and child abuse.


text: Critics of the church point out that its members violate laws when they practice polygamy. Additionally, critics of the church claim that incest and child sexual abuse are also prevalent among its members.


text: In 2015, Lyle Jeffs' estranged wife Charlene Jeffs claimed in a custody dispute that the group currently enforces a doctrine which only allows women to have sex with men who are members of the group which is appointed to be "seed bearers", defined as "elect" men of a "worthy blood line chosen by the Priesthood to impregnate" women. Under this doctrine, men no longer are allowed to have children with their wives. Charlene Jeffs wrote in her custody petition: "It is the husband's responsibility to hold the hands of their wives while the seed bearer 'spreads his seed'. In layman terms, the husband is required to sit in the room while the chosen seed bearer, or a couple of them, rape his wife or wives." She also described the "Law of Sarah", in which FLDS women perform sex acts on each other in order to prepare for a sexual encounter with a man who is in the FLDS leadership. Lorin Holm, who claimed to have been part of Jeffs' "inner circle" before he was excommunicated from the group in 2011, later described the "Law of Sarah" practice in Jeffs' community as being akin to a lesbian sex show with Jeffs participating and sermonizing. Holm also said that mothers who would not take part were sent away to "redeem themselves", and their children were given to other women. This interpretation of the "Law of Sarah" differs from the description of it which was given in the 1843 polygamy revelation of Joseph Smith, because Joseph Smith only referred to it as a basis for consent to polygamous marriages by wives.


text: In 2022, church leader Samuel Bateman was found to have 20 wives, which included underage girls, and, according to his family, also sought to marry his teenage daughter. According to criminal charges which were filed against him for destroying evidence linked to a federal sex abuse investigation, Bateman, who acted as the self-proclaimed "prophet" of a Colorado City-based splinter sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, used his position in the church to also sexually abuse 10 underage girls who he took as his wives in "atonement" ceremonies.


text: The church has been suspected of trafficking underage female children across state lines, and it has also been suspected of trafficking underage girls across the US borders with Canada and Mexico, for the purpose of sometimes involuntary plural marriage and sexual abuse. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police also suspects that the FLDS Church trafficked more than 30 under-age girls from Canada to the United States between the late 1990s and 2006 so they could be entered into polygamous marriages. RCMP spokesman Dan Moskaluk said of the FLDS's activities: "In essence, it's human trafficking in connection with illicit sexual activity." According to the "Vancouver Sun," it is unclear whether Canada's anti-human trafficking statute can be effectively applied against the FLDS's pre-2005 activities, as it may not apply retroactively. An earlier three-year-long investigation by local authorities in British Columbia into allegations of sexual abuse, human trafficking, and forced marriages by the FLDS resulted in no charges, but did result in legislative change.


text: Church leaders have encouraged their flock to take advantage of government assistance in the form of welfare and the WIC (woman-infant-child) programs. Since the government only recognizes one woman as the legal wife of a man, the rest of his wives are considered single mothers and as a result, they are eligible to receive government assistance. The more wives and children one has, the more welfare checks and food stamps one can receive. By 2003, for example, more than $6 million in public funds were being channeled into the community of Colorado City, Arizona. In his book "Under the Banner of Heaven" (p. 15), Jon Krakauer writes that, "Fundamentalists call defrauding the government 'bleeding the beast' and regard it as a virtuous act." Carolyn Campbell ("Inside Polygamy in the '90s", 102) adds, "The attitude of some polygamists is 'the government is untrustworthy and corrupt, and I'm above it, but give me those food stamps and free medical care.


text: Former members have reported that the FLDS Church has excommunicated more than 400 teenage boys for offenses such as dating or listening to rock music. Some former members claim that the real reason for these excommunications is the fact that there are not enough women for each male to receive three or more wives. Six men, aged 18 to 22, filed a conspiracy lawsuit against Jeffs and Sam Barlow, a former Mohave County deputy sheriff and close associate of Jeffs, for the "systematic excommunication" of young men to reduce competition for wives.


text: Boys in the FLDS sect of Mormonism have been kicked out even at the young age of 15 years old. With the few experiences they have with the world outside of the FLDS, they are left to fend for themselves. Lost boys tend to stay around the area of Hildale, Utah. As they are banished from the world they know they are thrown into situations and things they were never familiar with. Most of those who are banished tend to delve into things such as partying and alcohol. Lost boys tend to stay away from the FLDS life after because they are not wanted by those in the community.


text: In its Spring 2005 Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center added the FLDS Church to its list of hate groups because of the church's racist doctrines, which include its fierce condemnation of interracial relationships. Warren Jeffs has said, "the black race is the people through which the devil has always been able to bring evil unto the earth".


text: Former FLDS Church member Robert Richter reported to the "Phoenix New Times" that Warren Jeffs has repeatedly alluded to the 19th-century teaching of "blood atonement" in church sermons. Under the doctrine of blood atonement, certain serious sins, such as murder, can only be atoned for by the sinner's death. There was concern that one of the sins requiring blood atonement is apostasy.


text: The Colorado City/Hildale area has the world's highest incidence of fumarase deficiency, an extremely rare genetic condition. Geneticists attribute this to the prevalence of cousin marriages between descendants of two of the town's founders, Joseph Smith Jessop and John Yeates Barlow. It causes encephalopathy, severe intellectual disability, unusual facial features, brain malformation, and epileptic seizures.


text: On April 20, 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor assessed fines which totaled US$1.96 million against a group of FLDS church members, including Lyle Jeffs, a brother of the church's controversial leader, Warren Jeffs, for alleged child labour violations which were committed during the church's 2012 pecan harvest at an orchard near Hurricane, Utah.


text: In April 2017, filings in U.S. District Court stated that Paragon Contractors, a company with ties to the Fundamentalist LDS Church, and Brian Jessop agreed to pay $200,000 in federal fines over the following year. These fines were levied against Paragon Contractors because it previously violated federal child labor laws. This settled a dispute with the U.S. Department of Labor hours before Paragon Contractors was due to face a potential contempt of court citation before a federal judge. The company was facing sanctions because in 2012, hundreds of children who were members of the Hildale-based Fundamentalist LDS Church were put to work harvesting pecans on a farm which was located in southern Utah under orders from FLDS leaders.


text: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has said that "the polygamists and polygamist organizations in parts of the western United States and Canada have no affiliation whatsoever with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and it has also said that polygamy is strictly prohibited by the LDS church. Additionally, the church states that the term "Mormon" is incorrectly applied to the FLDS and it also discourages its own members from using the term "Mormon" as a descriptive term for the LDS church. Which name originates as a colloquial term to refer to those who believe in the Book of Mormon.


title: Babylonia

text: Babylonia (; Akkadian: , "māt Akkadī") was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. 1894 BCE. During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was called "the country of Akkad" ("Māt Akkadī" in Akkadian), a deliberate archaism in reference to the previous glory of the Akkadian Empire.


title: Babylonia

text: It was often involved in rivalry with the older state of Assyria to the north and Elam to the east in Ancient Iran. Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi (fl. c. 1792–1752 BCE middle chronology, or c. 1696–1654 BCE, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire. The Babylonian Empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi and reverted to a small kingdom.


title: Babylonia

text: Like Assyria, the Babylonian state retained the written Akkadian language (the language of its native populace) for official use, despite its Northwest Semitic-speaking Amorite founders and Kassite successors, who spoke a language isolate, not being native Mesopotamians. It retained the Sumerian language for religious use (as did Assyria), but already by the time Babylon was founded, this was no longer a spoken language, having been wholly subsumed by Akkadian. The earlier Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in Babylonian and Assyrian culture, and the region would remain an important cultural center, even under its protracted periods of outside rule.


title: Babylonia

text: Mesopotamia had already enjoyed a long history prior to the emergence of Babylon, with Sumerian civilization emerging in the region c. 3500 BC, and the Akkadian-speaking people appearing by the 30th century BC.


title: Babylonia

text: During the 3rd millennium BC, an intimate cultural symbiosis occurred between Sumerian and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian and vice versa is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium as a "sprachbund".


title: Babylonia

text: Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere around the turn of the third and the second millennium BC (the precise timeframe being a matter of debate).


title: Babylonia

text: From c. 3500 BC until the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 24th century BC, Mesopotamia had been dominated by largely Sumerian cities and city states, such as Ur, Lagash, Uruk, Kish, Isin, Larsa, Adab, Eridu, Gasur, Assur, Hamazi, Akshak, Arbela and Umma, although Semitic Akkadian names began to appear on the king lists of some of these states (such as Eshnunna and Assyria) between the 29th and 25th centuries BC. Traditionally, the major religious center of all Mesopotamia was the city of Nippur where the god Enlil was supreme, and it would remain so until replaced by Babylon during the reign of Hammurabi in the mid-18th century BC.


title: Babylonia

text: The Akkadian Empire (2334–2154 BC) saw the Akkadian Semites and Sumerians of Mesopotamia unite under one rule, and the Akkadians fully attain ascendancy over the Sumerians and indeed come to dominate much of the ancient Near East.


title: Babylonia

text: The empire eventually disintegrated due to economic decline, climate change, and civil war, followed by attacks by the Gutians from the Zagros Mountains. Sumer rose up again with the Third Dynasty of Ur in the late 22nd century BC, and ejected the Gutians from southern Mesopotamia in 2161 BC as suggested by surviving tablets and astronomical simulations. They also seem to have gained ascendancy over much of the territory of the Akkadian kings of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia for a time.


title: Babylonia

text: Followed by the collapse of the Sumerian "Ur-III" dynasty at the hands of the Elamites in 2002 BC, the Amorites ("Westerners"), a foreign Northwest Semitic-speaking people, began to migrate into southern Mesopotamia from the northern Levant, gradually gaining control over most of southern Mesopotamia, where they formed a series of small kingdoms, while the Assyrians reasserted their independence in the north. The states of the south were unable to stem the Amorite advance, and for a time may have relied on their fellow Akkadians in Assyria for protection.


title: Babylonia

text: King Ilu-shuma (c. 2008–1975 BC) of the Old Assyrian period (2025–1750 BC) in a known inscription describes his exploits to the south as follows:


title: Babylonia

text: However, when Sargon I (1920–1881 BC) succeeded as king in Assyria in 1920 BC, he eventually withdrew Assyria from the region, preferring to concentrate on continuing the vigorous expansion of Assyrian colonies in Anatolia and the Levant, and eventually southern Mesopotamia fell to the Amorites. During the first centuries of what is called the "Amorite period", the most powerful city-states in the south were Isin, Eshnunna and Larsa, together with Assyria in the north.


title: Babylonia

text: Around 1894 BC, an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum appropriated a tract of land which included the then relatively small city of Babylon from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu, of which it had initially been a territory, turning his newly acquired lands into a state in its own right. His reign was concerned with establishing statehood amongst a sea of other minor city-states and kingdoms in the region. However, Sumu-abum appears never to have bothered to give himself the title of "King of Babylon", suggesting that Babylon itself was still only a minor town or city, and not worthy of kingship.


title: Babylonia

text: He was followed by Sumu-la-El, Sabium, and Apil-Sin, each of whom ruled in the same vague manner as Sumu-abum, with no reference to kingship of Babylon itself being made in any written records of the time. Sin-Muballit was the first of these Amorite rulers to be regarded officially as a "king of Babylon", and then on only one single clay tablet. Under these kings, the nation in which Babylon lay remained a small nation which controlled very little territory, and was overshadowed by neighbouring kingdoms that were both older, larger, and more powerful, such as; Isin, Larsa, Assyria to the north and Elam to the east in ancient Iran. The Elamites occupied huge swathes of southern Mesopotamia, and the early Amorite rulers were largely held in vassalage to Elam.


title: Babylonia

text: Babylon remained a minor town in a small state until the reign of its sixth Amorite ruler, Hammurabi, during 1792–1750 BC (or c. 1728–1686 BC in the short chronology). He conducted major building work in Babylon, expanding it from a small town into a great city worthy of kingship. A very efficient ruler, he established a bureaucracy, with taxation and centralized government. Hammurabi freed Babylon from Elamite dominance, and indeed drove the Elamites from southern Mesopotamia entirely. He then systematically conquered southern Mesopotamia, including the cities of Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna, Kish, Lagash, Nippur, Borsippa, Ur, Uruk, Umma, Adab, Sippar, Rapiqum, and Eridu. His conquests gave the region stability after turbulent times, and coalesced the patchwork of small states into a single nation; it is only from the time of Hammurabi that southern Mesopotamia acquired the name "Babylonia".


title: Babylonia

text: Hammurabi turned his disciplined armies eastwards and invaded the region which a thousand years later became Iran, conquering Elam, Gutians, Lullubi and Kassites. To the west, he conquered the Amorite states of the Levant (modern Syria and Jordan) including the powerful kingdoms of Mari and Yamhad.


title: Babylonia

text: Hammurabi then entered into a protracted war with the Old Assyrian Empire for control of Mesopotamia and dominance of the Near East. Assyria had extended control over much of the Hurrian and Hattian parts of southeast Anatolia from the 21st century BC, and from the latter part of the 20th century BC had asserted itself over the northeast Levant and central Mesopotamia. After a protracted struggle over decades with the powerful Assyrian kings Shamshi-Adad I and Ishme-Dagan I, Hammurabi forced their successor Mut-Ashkur to pay tribute to Babylon c. 1751 BC, giving Babylonia control over Assyria's centuries-old Hattian and Hurrian colonies in Anatolia.


title: Babylonia

text: One of Hammurabi's most important and lasting works was the compilation of the Babylonian law code, which improved the much earlier codes of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria. This was made by order of Hammurabi after the expulsion of the Elamites and the settlement of his kingdom. In 1901, a copy of the Code of Hammurabi was discovered on a stele by Jacques de Morgan and Jean-Vincent Scheil at Susa in Elam, where it had later been taken as plunder. That copy is now in the Louvre.


title: Babylonia

text: From before 3000 BC until the reign of Hammurabi, the major cultural and religious center of southern Mesopotamia had been the ancient city of Nippur, where the god Enlil was supreme. Hammurabi transferred this dominance to Babylon, making Marduk supreme in the pantheon of southern Mesopotamia (with the god Ashur, and to some degree Ishtar, remaining the long-dominant deity in northern Mesopotamian Assyria). The city of Babylon became known as a "holy city" where any legitimate ruler of southern Mesopotamia had to be crowned. Hammurabi turned what had previously been a minor administrative town into a large, powerful and influential city, extended its rule over the entirety of southern Mesopotamia, and erected a number of impressive buildings.


title: Babylonia

text: The Amorite-ruled Babylonians, like their predecessor states, engaged in regular trade with the Amorite and Canaanite city-states to the west, with Babylonian officials or troops sometimes passing to the Levant and Canaan, and Amorite merchants operating freely throughout Mesopotamia. The Babylonian monarchy's western connections remained strong for quite some time. Ammi-Ditana, great-grandson of Hammurabi, still titled himself "king of the land of the Amorites". Ammi-Ditana's father and son also bore Amorite names: Abi-Eshuh and Ammi-Saduqa.


title: Babylonia

text: Southern Mesopotamia had no natural, defensible boundaries, making it vulnerable to attack. After the death of Hammurabi, his empire began to disintegrate rapidly. Under his successor Samsu-iluna (1749–1712 BC) the far south of Mesopotamia was lost to a native Akkadian-speaking king Ilum-ma-ili who ejected the Amorite-ruled Babylonians. The south became the native Sealand Dynasty, remaining free of Babylon for the next 272 years.


title: Babylonia

text: Both the Babylonians and their Amorite rulers were driven from Assyria to the north by an Assyrian-Akkadian governor named Puzur-Sin c. 1740 BC, who regarded king Mut-Ashkur as both a foreign Amorite and a former lackey of Babylon. After six years of civil war in Assyria, a native king named Adasi seized power c. 1735 BC, and went on to appropriate former Babylonian and Amorite territory in central Mesopotamia, as did his successor Bel-bani.


title: Babylonia

text: Amorite rule survived in a much reduced Babylon, Samshu-iluna's successor Abi-Eshuh made a vain attempt to recapture the Sealand Dynasty for Babylon, but met defeat at the hands of king Damqi-ilishu II. By the end of his reign Babylonia had shrunk to the small and relatively weak nation it had been upon its foundation, although the city itself was far larger than the small town it had been prior to the rise of Hammurabi.


title: Babylonia

text: He was followed by Ammi-Ditana and then Ammi-Saduqa, both of whom were in too weak a position to make any attempt to regain the many territories lost after the death of Hammurabi, contenting themselves with peaceful building projects in Babylon itself.


title: Babylonia

text: Samsu-Ditana was to be the last Amorite ruler of Babylon. Early in his reign he came under pressure from the Kassites, a people speaking an apparent language isolate originating in the mountains of what is today northwest Iran. Babylon was then attacked by the Indo-European-speaking, Anatolia-based Hittites in 1595 BC. Shamshu-Ditana was overthrown following the "sack of Babylon" by the Hittite king Mursili I. The Hittites did not remain for long, but the destruction wrought by them finally enabled their Kassite allies to gain control.


title: Babylonia

text: The date of the sack of Babylon by the Hittites under king Mursili I is considered crucial to the various calculations of the early chronology of the ancient Near East, as it is taken as a fixed point in the discussion. Suggestions for its precise date vary by as much as 230 years, corresponding to the uncertainty regarding the length of the "Dark Age" of the much later Late Bronze Age collapse, resulting in the shift of the entire Bronze Age chronology of Mesopotamia with regard to the Egyptian chronology. Possible dates for the sack of Babylon are:


title: Babylonia

text: Mursili I, the Hittite king, first conquered Aleppo, capital of Yamhad kingdom to avenge the death of his father, but his main geopolitical target was Babylon. The Mesopotamian Chronicle 40, written after 1500 BC, mentions briefly the sack of Babylon as: "During the time of Samsu‐ditana, the Hittites marched on Akkad." More details can be found in another source, the Telepinu Proclamation, a Hittite text from around 1520 BC, which states:


title: Babylonia

text: The movement of Mursili's troops was around 800 km from the conquered Aleppo to reach the Euphrates, located to the east, and then to the south along the course of the river to reach finally Babylon. His conquest of Babylon brought to an end the dynasty of Hammurabi, and although the Hittite text, Telipinu Proclamation, does not mention Samsu-ditana, and the Babylonian Chronicle 20 does not mention a specific Hittite king either, Trevor Bryce concludes that there is no doubt that both sources refer to Mursili I and Samsu-ditana.


title: Babylonia

text: The Hittites, when sacking Babylon, removed the images of the gods Marduk and his consort Zarpanitu from the Esagil temple and they took them to their kingdom. The later inscription of Agum-kakrime, the Kassite king, claims he returned the images; and another later text, the Marduk Prophesy, written long after the events, mentions that the image of Marduk was in exile around twenty-four years.


title: Babylonia

text: After the conquest, Mursili I did not attempt to convert the whole region he had occupied from Aleppo to Babylon as a part of his kingdom; he instead made an alliance with the Kassites, and then a Kassite dynasty was established in Babylonia.


title: Babylonia

text: The Kassite dynasty was founded by Gandash of Mari. The Kassites, like the Amorite rulers who had preceded them, were not originally native to Mesopotamia. Rather, they had first appeared in the Zagros Mountains of what is today northwestern Iran.


title: Babylonia

text: The ethnic affiliation of the Kassites is unclear. Still, their language was not Semitic or Indo-European, and is thought to have been either a language isolate or possibly related to the Hurro-Urartian language family of Anatolia, although the evidence for its genetic affiliation is meager due to the scarcity of extant texts. That said, several Kassite leaders may have borne Indo-European names, and they may have had an Indo-European elite similar to the Mitanni elite that later ruled over the Hurrians of central and eastern Anatolia.


title: Babylonia

text: The Kassites renamed Babylon Karduniaš and their rule lasted for 576 years, the longest dynasty in Babylonian history.


title: Babylonia

text: This new foreign dominion offers a striking analogy to the roughly contemporary rule of the Hyksos in ancient Egypt. Most divine attributes ascribed to the Amorite kings of Babylonia disappeared at this time; the title "god" was never given to a Kassite sovereign. Babylon continued to be the capital of the kingdom and one of the "holy cities" of western Asia, where the priests of the ancient Mesopotamian religion were all-powerful, and the only place where the right to inheritance of the short lived old Babylonian empire could be conferred.


title: Babylonia

text: Babylonia experienced short periods of relative power, but in general proved to be relatively weak under the long rule of the Kassites, and spent long periods under Assyrian and Elamite domination and interference.


title: Babylonia

text: It is not clear precisely when Kassite rule of Babylon began, but the Indo-European Hittites from Anatolia did not remain in Babylonia for long after the sacking of the city, and it is likely the Kassites moved in soon afterwards. Agum II took the throne for the Kassites in 1595 BC, and ruled a state that extended from Iran to the middle Euphrates; The new king retained peaceful relations with Erishum III, the native Mesopotamian king of Assyria, but successfully went to war with the Hittite Empire, and twenty-four years after, the Hittites took the sacred statue of Marduk, he recovered it and declared the god equal to the Kassite deity Shuqamuna.


title: Babylonia

text: Burnaburiash I succeeded him and drew up a peace treaty with the Assyrian king Puzur-Ashur III, and had a largely uneventful reign, as did his successor Kashtiliash III.


title: Babylonia

text: The Sealand Dynasty of southern Mesopotamia remained independent of Babylonia and in native Akkadian-speaking hands. Ulamburiash managed to attack it and conquered parts of the land from "Ea-gamil", a king with a distinctly Sumerian name, around 1450 BC, whereupon Ea-Gamil fled to his allies in Elam. The Sealand Dynasty region still remained independent, and the Kassite king seems to have been unable to finally conquer it. Ulamburiash began making treaties with ancient Egypt, which then was ruling southern Canaan, and Assyria to the north. Agum III also campaigned against the Sealand Dynasty, finally wholly conquering the far south of Mesopotamia for Babylon, destroying its capital Dur-Enlil in the process. From there Agum III extended farther south still, invading what was many centuries later to be called the Arabian Peninsula or Arabia, and conquering the "pre-Arab" state of Dilmun (in modern Bahrain).


title: Babylonia

text: Karaindash built a bas-relief temple in Uruk and Kurigalzu I (1415–1390 BC) built a new capital Dur-Kurigalzu named after himself, transferring administrative rule from Babylon. Both of these kings continued to struggle unsuccessfully against the Sealand Dynasty. Karaindash also strengthened diplomatic ties with the Assyrian king Ashur-bel-nisheshu and the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III and protected Babylonian borders with Elam.


title: Babylonia

text: Kadašman-Ḫarbe I succeeded Karaindash, and briefly invaded Elam before being eventually defeated and ejected by its king Tepti Ahar. He then had to contend with the Suteans, ancient Semitic-speaking peoples from the southeastern Levant who invaded Babylonia and sacked Uruk. He describes having "annihilated their extensive forces", then constructed fortresses in a mountain region called Ḫiḫi, in the desert to the west (modern Syria) as security outposts, and "he dug wells and settled people on fertile lands, to strengthen the guard".


title: Babylonia

text: Kurigalzu I succeeded the throne, and soon came into conflict with Elam, to the east. When Ḫur-batila, the successor of Tepti Ahar took the throne of Elam, he began raiding the Babylonia, taunting Kurigalzu to do battle with him at Dūr-Šulgi. Kurigalzu launched a campaign which resulted in the abject defeat and capture of Ḫur-batila, who appears in no other inscriptions. He went on to conquer the eastern lands of Elam. This took his army to the Elamite capital, the city of Susa, which was sacked. After this a puppet ruler was placed on the Elamite throne, subject to Babylonia. Kurigalzu I maintained friendly relations with Assyria, Egypt and the Hittites throughout his reign. Kadashman-Enlil I (1374–1360 BC) succeeded him, and continued his diplomatic policies.


title: Babylonia

text: Burna-Buriash II ascended to the throne in 1359 BC, he retained friendly relations with Egypt, but the resurgent Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC) to the north was now encroaching into northern Babylonia, and as a symbol of peace, the Babylonian king took the daughter of the powerful Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I in marriage. He also maintained friendly relations with Suppiluliuma I, ruler of the Hittite Empire.


title: Babylonia

text: He was succeeded by Kara-ḫardaš (who was half Assyrian, and the grandson of the Assyrian king) in 1333 BC, a usurper named Nazi-Bugaš deposed him, enraging Ashur-uballit I, who invaded and sacked Babylon, slew Nazi-Bugaš, annexed Babylonian territory for the Middle Assyrian Empire, and installed Kurigalzu II (1345–1324 BC) as his vassal ruler of Babylonia.


title: Babylonia

text: Soon after Arik-den-ili succeeded the throne of Assyria in 1327 BC, Kurigalzu II attacked Assyria in an attempt to reassert Babylonian power. After some impressive initial successes he was ultimately defeated, and lost yet more territory to Assyria. Between 1307 BC and 1232 BC his successors, such as Nazi-Maruttash, Kadashman-Turgu, Kadashman-Enlil II, Kudur-Enlil and Shagarakti-Shuriash, allied with the empires of the Hittites and the Mitanni (who were both also losing swathes of territory to the resurgent Assyrians), in a failed attempt to stop Assyrian expansion. This expansion, nevertheless, continued unchecked.


title: Babylonia

text: Kashtiliash IV's (1242–1235 BC) reign ended catastrophically as the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I (1243–1207 BC) routed his armies, sacked and burned Babylon and set himself up as king, ironically becoming the first "native" Mesopotamian to rule the state, its previous rulers having all been "non-Mesopotamian" Amorites and Kassites. Kashtiliash himself was taken to Ashur as a prisoner of war.


title: Babylonia

text: An Assyrian governor/king named Enlil-nadin-shumi was placed on the throne to rule as viceroy to Tukulti-Ninurta I, and Kadashman-Harbe II and Adad-shuma-iddina succeeded as Assyrian governor/kings, subject to Tukulti-Ninurta I until 1216 BC.


title: Babylonia

text: Babylon did not begin to recover until late in the reign of Adad-shuma-usur (1216–1189 BC), as he too remained a vassal of Assyria until 1193 BC. However, he was able to prevent the Assyrian king Enlil-kudurri-usur from retaking Babylonia, which, apart from its northern reaches, had mostly shrugged off Assyrian domination during a short period of civil war in the Assyrian empire, in the years after the death of Tukulti-Ninurta.


title: Babylonia

text: Meli-Shipak II (1188–1172 BC) seems to have had a peaceful reign. Despite not being able to regain northern Babylonia from Assyria, no further territory was lost, Elam did not threaten, and the Late Bronze Age collapse now affecting the Levant, Canaan, Egypt, the Caucasus, Anatolia, Mediterranean, North Africa, northern Iran and Balkans seemed (initially) to have little impact on Babylonia (or indeed Assyria and Elam).


title: Babylonia

text: War resumed under subsequent kings such as Marduk-apla-iddina I (1171–1159 BC) and Zababa-shuma-iddin (1158 BC). The long reigning Assyrian king Ashur-dan I (1179–1133 BC) resumed expansionist policies and conquered further parts of northern Babylonia from both kings, and the Elamite ruler Shutruk-Nakhunte eventually conquered most of eastern Babylonia. Enlil-nadin-ahhe (1157–1155 BC) was finally overthrown and the Kassite dynasty ended after Ashur-dan I conquered yet more of northern and central Babylonia, and the equally powerful Shutruk-Nahhunte pushed deep into the heart of Babylonia itself, sacking the city and slaying the king. Poetical works have been found lamenting this disaster.


title: Babylonia

text: Despite the loss of territory, general military weakness, and evident reduction in literacy and culture, the Kassite dynasty was the longest-lived dynasty of Babylon, lasting until 1155 BC, when Babylon was conquered by Shutruk-Nakhunte of Elam, and reconquered a few years later by the Nebuchadnezzar I, part of the larger Late Bronze Age collapse.


title: Babylonia

text: The Elamites did not remain in control of Babylonia long, instead entering into an ultimately unsuccessful war with Assyria, allowing Marduk-kabit-ahheshu (1155–1139 BC) to establish the Dynasty IV of Babylon, from Isin, with the very first native Akkadian-speaking south Mesopotamian dynasty to rule Babylonia, with Marduk-kabit-ahheshu becoming only the second native Mesopotamian to sit on the throne of Babylon, after the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I. His dynasty was to remain in power for some 125 years. The new king successfully drove out the Elamites and prevented any possible Kassite revival. Later in his reign he went to war with Assyria, and had some initial success, briefly capturing the south Assyrian city of Ekallatum before ultimately suffering defeat at the hands of Ashur-Dan I.


title: Babylonia

text: Itti-Marduk-balatu succeeded his father in 1138 BC, and successfully repelled Elamite attacks on Babylonia during his 8-year reign. He too made attempts to attack Assyria, but also met with failure at the hands of the still reigning Ashur-Dan I.


title: Babylonia

text: Ninurta-nadin-shumi took the throne in 1137 BC, and also attempted an invasion of Assyria, his armies seem to have skirted through eastern Aramea (modern Syria) and then made an attempt to attack the Assyrian city of Arbela (modern Erbil) from the west. However, this bold move met with defeat at the hands of Ashur-resh-ishi I who then forced a treaty in his favour upon the Babylonian king.


title: Babylonia

text: Nebuchadnezzar I (1124–1103 BC) was the most famous ruler of this dynasty. He fought and defeated the Elamites and drove them from Babylonian territory, invading Elam itself, sacking the Elamite capital Susa, and recovering the sacred statue of Marduk that had been carried off from Babylon during the fall of the Kassites. Shortly afterwards, the king of Elam was assassinated and his kingdom disintegrated into civil war. However, Nebuchadnezzar failed to extend Babylonian territory further, being defeated a number of times by Ashur-resh-ishi I (1133–1115 BC), king of the Middle Assyrian Empire, for control of formerly Hittite-controlled territories in Aram and Anatolia. The Hittite Empire of the northern and western Levant and eastern Anatolia had been largely annexed by the Middle Assyrian Empire, and its heartland finally overrun by invading Phrygians from the Balkans. In the later years of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar I devoted himself to peaceful building projects and securing Babylonia's borders against the Assyrians, Elamites and Arameans.


title: Babylonia

text: Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his two sons, firstly Enlil-nadin-apli (1103–1100 BC), who lost territory to Assyria. The second of them, Marduk-nadin-ahhe (1098–1081 BC) also went to war with Assyria. Some initial success in these conflicts gave way to a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the powerful Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I (1115–1076 BC), who annexed huge swathes of Babylonian territory, thus further expanding the Assyrian Empire. Following this a terrible famine gripped Babylon, inviting attacks and migrations from the northwest Semitic tribes of Aramaeans and Suteans from the Levant.


title: Babylonia

text: In 1072 BC Marduk-shapik-zeri signed a peace treaty with Ashur-bel-kala (1075–1056 BC) of Assyria, however, his successor Kadašman-Buriaš was not so friendly to Assyria, prompting the Assyrian king to invade Babylonia and depose him, placing Adad-apla-iddina on the throne as his vassal. Assyrian domination continued until c. 1050 BC, with Marduk-ahhe-eriba and Marduk-zer-X regarded as vassals of Assyria. After 1050 BC the Middle Assyrian Empire descended into a period of civil war, followed by constant warfare with the Arameans, Phrygians, Neo-Hittite states and Hurrians, allowing Babylonia to once more largely free itself from the Assyrian yoke for a few decades.


title: Babylonia

text: However, East Semitic-speaking Babylonia soon began to suffer further repeated incursions from West Semitic nomadic peoples migrating from the Levant during the Bronze Age collapse, and during the 11th century BC large swathes of the Babylonian countryside was appropriated and occupied by these newly arrived Arameans and Suteans. Arameans settled much of the countryside in eastern and central Babylonia and the Suteans in the western deserts, with the weak Babylonian kings being unable to stem these migrations.


title: Babylonia

text: The ruling Babylonian dynasty of Nabu-shum-libur was deposed by marauding Arameans in 1026 BC, and the heart of Babylonia, including the capital city itself descended into anarchic state, and no king was to rule Babylon for over 20 years.


title: Babylonia

text: However, in southern Mesopotamia (a region corresponding with the old Dynasty of the Sealand), Dynasty V (1025–1004 BC) arose, this was ruled by Simbar-shipak, leader of a Kassite clan, and was in effect a separate state from Babylon. The state of anarchy allowed the Assyrian ruler Ashur-nirari IV (1019–1013 BC) the opportunity to attack Babylonia in 1018 BC, and he invaded and captured the Babylonian city of Atlila and some northern regions for Assyria.


title: Babylonia

text: The south Mesopotamian dynasty was replaced by another Kassite Dynasty (Dynasty VI; 1003–984 BC) which also seems to have regained control over Babylon itself. The Elamites deposed this brief Kassite revival, with king Mar-biti-apla-usur founding Dynasty VII (984–977 BC). However, this dynasty too fell, when the Arameans once more ravaged Babylon.


title: Babylonia

text: Babylonian rule was restored by Nabû-mukin-apli in 977 BC, ushering in Dynasty VIII. Dynasty IX begins with Ninurta-kudurri-usur II, who ruled from 941 BC. Babylonia remained weak during this period, with whole areas of Babylonia now under firm Aramean and Sutean control. Babylonian rulers were often forced to bow to pressure from Assyria and Elam, both of which had appropriated Babylonian territory.


title: Babylonia

text: Babylonia remained in a state of chaos as the 10th century BC drew to a close. A further migration of nomads from the Levant occurred in the early 9th century BC with the arrival of the Chaldeans, another nomadic northwest Semitic people described in Assyrian annals as the "Kaldu". The Chaldeans settled in the far southeast of Babylonia, joining the already long extant Arameans and Suteans. By 850 BC the migrant Chaldeans had established their own land in the extreme southeast of Mesopotamia.


title: Babylonia

text: From 911 BC with the founding of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) by Adad-nirari II, Babylon found itself once again under the domination and rule of its fellow Mesopotamian state for the next three centuries. Adad-nirari II twice attacked and defeated Shamash-mudammiq of Babylonia, annexing a large area of land north of the Diyala River and the towns of Hīt and Zanqu in mid Mesopotamia. He made further gains over Babylonia under Nabu-shuma-ukin I later in his reign. Tukulti-Ninurta II and Ashurnasirpal II also forced Babylonia into vassalage, and Shalmaneser III (859–824 BC) sacked Babylon itself, slew king Nabu-apla-iddina, subjugated the Aramean, Sutean and Chaldean tribes settled within Babylonia, and installed Marduk-zakir-shumi I (855–819 BC) followed by Marduk-balassu-iqbi (819–813 BC) as his vassals. It was during the late 850's BC, in the annals of Shalmaneser III, that the Chaldeans and Arabs are first mentioned in the pages of written recorded history.


title: Babylonia

text: Upon the death of Shalmaneser II, Baba-aha-iddina was reduced to vassalage by the Assyrian queen Shammuramat (known as Semiramis to the Persians, Armenians and Greeks), acting as regent to his successor Adad-nirari III who was merely a boy. Adad-nirari III eventually killed Baba-aha-iddina and ruled there directly until 800 BC until Ninurta-apla-X was crowned. However, he too was subjugated by Adad-Nirari III. The next Assyrian king, Shamshi-Adad V then made a vassal of Marduk-bel-zeri.


title: Babylonia

text: Babylonia briefly fell to another foreign ruler when Marduk-apla-usur ascended the throne in 780 BC, taking advantage of a period of civil war in Assyria. He was a member of the Chaldean tribe who had a century or so earlier settled in a small region in the far southeastern corner of Mesopotamia, bordering the Persian Gulf and southwestern Elam. Shalmaneser IV attacked him and retook northern Babylonia, forcing a border treaty in Assyria's favour upon him. However, he was allowed to remain on the throne, and successfully stabilised the part of Babylonia he controlled. Eriba-Marduk, another Chaldean, succeeded him in 769 BC and his son, Nabu-shuma-ishkun in 761 BC. Babylonia appears to have been in a state of chaos during this time, with the north occupied by Assyria, its throne occupied by foreign Chaldeans, and civil unrest prominent throughout the land.


title: Babylonia

text: The Babylonian king Nabonassar overthrew the Chaldean usurpers in 748 BC, and successfully stabilised Babylonia, remaining untroubled by Ashur-nirari V of Assyria. However, with the accession of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC) Babylonia came under renewed attack. Babylon was invaded and sacked and Nabonassar reduced to vassalage. His successors Nabu-nadin-zeri, Nabu-suma-ukin II and Nabu-mukin-zeri were also in servitude to Tiglath-Pileser III, until in 729 BC the Assyrian king decided to rule Babylon directly as its king instead of allowing Babylonian kings to remain as vassals of Assyria as his predecessors had done for two hundred years.


title: Babylonia

text: It was during this period that Eastern Aramaic was introduced by the Assyrians as the lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and Mesopotamian Aramaic began to supplant Akkadian as the spoken language of the general populace of both Assyria and Babylonia.


title: Babylonia

text: The Assyrian king Shalmaneser V was declared king of Babylon in 727 BC, but died whilst besieging Samaria in 722 BC.


title: Babylonia

text: Marduk-apla-iddina II, a Chaldean malka (chieftain) of the far southeast of Mesopotamia, then fomented revolt against Assyrian domination, assisted by strong Elamite support. Marduk-apla-iddina managed to take the throne of Babylon itself between 721 and 710 BC whilst the Assyrian king Sargon II (722–705 BC) were otherwise occupied in defeating the Scythians and Cimmerians who had attacked Assyria's Persian and Median vassal colonies in ancient Iran. Marduk-apla-iddina II was eventually defeated and ejected by Sargon II of Assyria, and fled to his protectors in Elam. Sargon II was then declared king in Babylon.


title: Babylonia

text: Sennacherib (705–681 BC) succeeded Sargon II, and after ruling directly for a while, he placed his son Ashur-nadin-shumi on the throne. However, Merodach-Baladan and his Elamite protectors continued to unsuccessfully agitate against Assyrian rule. Nergal-ushezib, an Elamite, murdered the Assyrian prince and briefly took the throne. This led the infuriated Assyrian king Sennacherib to invade and subjugate Elam and to sack Babylon, laying waste to the region and largely destroying the city. While praying to the god Nisroch in Nineveh in 681 BC, Sennacherib was soon murdered by his own sons. The new Assyrian king Esarhaddon placed a puppet king Marduk-zakir-shumi II on the throne in Babylon. However, Marduk-apla-iddina returned from exile in Elam, and briefly deposed Marduk-zakir-shumi, whereupon Esarhaddon was forced to attack and defeat him. Marduk-apla-iddina once more fled to his masters in Elam, where he died in exile.


title: Babylonia

text: Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) ruled Babylon personally, he completely rebuilt the city, bringing rejuvenation and peace to the region. Upon his death, and in an effort to maintain harmony within his vast empire (which stretched from the Caucasus to Egypt and Nubia and from Cyprus to Iran), he installed his eldest son Shamash-shum-ukin as a subject king in Babylon, and his youngest, the highly educated Ashurbanipal (669–627 BC), in the more senior position as king of Assyria and overlord of Shamash-shum-ukin.


title: Babylonia

text: Despite being an Assyrian himself, Shamash-shum-ukin, after decades subject to his brother Ashurbanipal, declared that the city of Babylon (and not the Assyrian city of Nineveh) should be the seat of the immense empire. He raised a major revolt against his brother, Ashurbanipal. He led a powerful coalition of peoples also resentful of Assyrian subjugation and rule, including Elam, the Persians, Medes, the Babylonians, Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, the Arameans of the Levant and southwest Mesopotamia, the Arabs and Dilmunites of the Arabian Peninsula and the Canaanites-Phoenicians. After a bitter struggle Babylon was sacked and its allies vanquished, Shamash-shum-ukim being killed in the process. Elam was destroyed once and for all, and the Babylonians, Persians, Chaldeans, Arabs, Medes, Elamites, Arameans, Suteans and Canaanites were violently subjugated, with Assyrian troops exacting savage revenge on the rebelling peoples. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was placed on the throne to rule on behalf of the Assyrian king. Upon Ashurbanipal's death in 627 BC, his son Ashur-etil-ilani (627–623 BC) became ruler of Babylon and Assyria.


title: Babylonia

text: However, Assyria soon descended into a series of brutal internal civil wars which were to cause its downfall. Ashur-etil-ilani was deposed by one of his own generals, named Sin-shumu-lishir in 623 BC, who also set himself up as king in Babylon. After only one year on the throne amidst continual civil war, Sinsharishkun (622–612 BC) ousted him as ruler of Assyria and Babylonia in 622 BC. However, he too was beset by constant unremitting civil war in the Assyrian heartland. Babylonia took advantage of this and rebelled under Nabopolassar, a previously unknown "malka" (chieftain) of the Chaldeans, who had settled in southeastern Mesopotamia by c. 850 BC.


title: Babylonia

text: It was during the reign of Sin-shar-ishkun that Assyria's vast empire began to unravel, and many of its former subject peoples ceased to pay tribute, most significantly for the Assyrians; the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Scythians, Arameans and Cimmerians.


title: Babylonia

text: In 620 BC Nabopolassar seized control over much of Babylonia with the support of most of the inhabitants, with only the city of Nippur and some northern regions showing any loyalty to the beleaguered Assyrian king. Nabopolassar was unable to utterly secure Babylonia, and for the next four years he was forced to contend with an occupying Assyrian army encamped in Babylonia trying to unseat him. However, the Assyrian king, Sin-shar-ishkun was plagued by constant revolts among his people in Nineveh, and was thus prevented from ejecting Nabopolassar.


title: Babylonia

text: The stalemate ended in 615 BC, when Nabopolassar entered the Babylonians and Chaldeans into alliance with Cyaxares, an erstwhile vassal of Assyria, and king of the Iranian peoples; the Medes, Persians, Sagartians and Parthians. Cyaxares had also taken advantage of the Assyrian destruction of the formerly regionally dominant pre-Iranian Elamite and Mannean nations and the subsequent anarchy in Assyria to free the Iranic peoples from three centuries of the Assyrian yoke and regional Elamite domination. The Scythians from north of the Caucasus, and the Cimmerians from the Black Sea who had both also been subjugated by Assyria, joined the alliance, as did regional Aramean tribes.


title: Babylonia

text: In 615 BC, while the Assyrian king was fully occupied fighting rebels in both Babylonia and Assyria itself, Cyaxares launched a surprise attack on the Assyrian heartlands, sacking the cities of Kalhu (the Biblical Calah, Nimrud) and Arrapkha (modern Kirkuk), Nabopolassar was still pinned down in southern Mesopotamia and thus not involved in this breakthrough.


title: Babylonia

text: From this point on the coalition of Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Scythians, Cimmerians and Sagartians fought in unison against a civil war ravaged Assyria. Major Assyrian cities such as Ashur, Arbela (modern Irbil), Guzana, Dur Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad), Imgur-Enlil, Nibarti-Ashur, Gasur, Kanesh, Kar Ashurnasipal and Tushhan fell to the alliance during 614 BC. Sin-shar-ishkun somehow managed to rally against the odds during 613 BC, and drove back the combined forces ranged against him.


title: Babylonia

text: However, the alliance launched a renewed combined attack the following year, and after five years of fierce fighting Nineveh was sacked in late 612 BC after a prolonged siege, in which Sin-shar-ishkun was killed defending his capital.


title: Babylonia

text: House to house fighting continued in Nineveh, and an Assyrian general and member of the royal household, took the throne as Ashur-uballit II (612–605 BC). He was offered the chance of accepting a position of vassalage by the leaders of the alliance according to the Babylonian Chronicle. However, he refused and managed to successfully fight his way out of Nineveh and to the northern Assyrian city of Harran in Upper Mesopotamia where he founded a new capital. The fighting continued, as the Assyrian king held out against the alliance until 607 BC, when he was eventually ejected by the Medes, Babylonians, Scythians and their allies, and prevented in an attempt to regain the city the same year.


title: Babylonia

text: The Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II, whose dynasty had been installed as vassals of Assyria in 671 BC, belatedly tried to aid Egypt's former Assyrian masters, possibly out of fear that Egypt would be next to succumb to the new powers without Assyria to protect them, having already been ravaged by the Scythians. The Assyrians fought on with Egyptian aid until what was probably a final decisive victory was achieved against them at Carchemish in northwestern Assyria in 605 BC. The seat of empire was thus transferred to Babylonia for the first time since Hammurabi over a thousand years before.


title: Babylonia

text: Nabopolassar was followed by his son Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BC), whose reign of 43 years made Babylon once more the ruler of much of the civilized world, taking over portions of the former Assyrian Empire, with the eastern and northeastern portion being taken by the Medes and the far north by the Scythians.


title: Babylonia

text: Nebuchadnezzar II may have also had to contend with remnants of the Assyrian resistance. Some sections of the Assyrian army and administration may have still continued in and around Dur-Katlimmu in northwest Assyria for a time, however, by 599 BC Assyrian imperial records from this region also fell silent. The fate of Ashur-uballit II remains unknown, and he may have been killed attempting to regain Harran, at Carchemish, or continued to fight on, eventually disappearing into obscurity.


title: Babylonia

text: The Scythians and Cimmerians, erstwhile allies of Babylonia under Nabopolassar, now became a threat, and Nebuchadnezzar II was forced to march into Anatolia and rout their forces, ending the northern threat to his Empire.


title: Babylonia

text: The Egyptians attempted to remain in the Near East, possibly in an effort to aid in restoring Assyria as a secure buffer against Babylonia and the Medes and Persians, or to carve out an empire of their own. Nebuchadnezzar II campaigned against the Egyptians and drove them back over the Sinai. However, an attempt to take Egypt itself as his Assyrian predecessors had succeeded in doing failed, mainly due to a series of rebellions from the Israelites of Judah and the former kingdom of Ephraim, the Phoenicians of Caanan and the Arameans of the Levant. The Babylonian king crushed these rebellions, deposed Jehoiakim, the king of Judah and deported a sizeable part of the population to Babylonia. Cities like Tyre, Sidon and Damascus were also subjugated. The Arabs and other South Arabian peoples who dwelt in the deserts to the south of the borders of Mesopotamia were then also subjugated.


title: Babylonia

text: In 567 BC he went to war with Pharaoh Amasis, and briefly invaded Egypt itself. After securing his empire, which included marrying a Median princess, he devoted himself to maintaining the empire and conducting numerous impressive building projects in Babylon. He is credited with building the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon.


title: Babylonia

text: Amel-Marduk succeeded to the throne and reigned for only two years. Little contemporary record of his rule survives, though Berosus later stated that he was deposed and murdered in 560 BC by his successor Neriglissar for conducting himself in an "improper manner".


title: Babylonia

text: Neriglissar (560–556 BC) also had a short reign. He was the son in law of Nebuchadnezzar II, and it is unclear if he was a Chaldean or native Babylonian who married into the dynasty. He campaigned in Aram and Phoenicia, successfully maintaining Babylonian rule in these regions. Neriglissar died young however, and was succeeded by his son Labashi-Marduk (556 BC), who was still a boy. He was deposed and killed during the same year in a palace conspiracy.


title: Babylonia

text: Of the reign of the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus ("Nabu-na'id", 556–539 BC) who is the son of the Assyrian priestess Adda-Guppi and who managed to kill the last Chaldean king, Labashi-Marduk, and took the reign, there is a fair amount of information available. Nabonidus (hence his son, the regent Belshazzar) was, at least from the mother's side, neither Chaldean nor Babylonian, but ironically Assyrian, hailing from its final capital of Harran (Kharranu). His father's origins remain unknown. Information regarding Nabonidus is chiefly derived from a chronological tablet containing the annals of Nabonidus, supplemented by another inscription of Nabonidus where he recounts his restoration of the temple of the Moon-god Sin at Harran; as well as by a proclamation of Cyrus issued shortly after his formal recognition as king of Babylonia.


title: Babylonia

text: A number of factors arose which would ultimately lead to the fall of Babylon. The population of Babylonia became restive and increasingly disaffected under Nabonidus. He excited a strong feeling against himself by attempting to centralize the polytheistic religion of Babylonia in the temple of Marduk at Babylon, and while he had thus alienated the local priesthoods, the military party also despised him on account of his antiquarian tastes. He seemed to have left the defense of his kingdom to his son Belshazzar (a capable soldier but poor diplomat who alienated the political elite), occupying himself with the more congenial work of excavating the foundation records of the temples and determining the dates of their builders. He also spent time outside Babylonia, rebuilding temples in the Assyrian city of Harran, and also among his Arab subjects in the deserts to the south of Mesopotamia. Nabonidus and Belshazzar's Assyrian heritage is also likely to have added to this resentment. In addition, Mesopotamian military might had usually been concentrated in the martial state of Assyria. Babylonia had always been more vulnerable to conquest and invasion than its northern neighbour, and without the might of Assyria to keep foreign powers in check and Mesopotamia dominant, Babylonia was ultimately exposed.


title: Babylonia

text: It was in the sixth year of Nabonidus (549 BC) that Cyrus the Great, the Achaemenid Persian "king of Anshan" in Elam, revolted against his suzerain Astyages, "king of the Manda" or Medes, at Ecbatana. Astyages' army betrayed him to his enemy, and Cyrus established himself at Ecbatana, thus putting an end to the empire of the Medes and making the Persian faction dominant among the Iranic peoples. Three years later Cyrus had become king of all Persia, and was engaged in a campaign to put down a revolt among the Assyrians. Meanwhile, Nabonidus had established a camp in the desert of his colony of Arabia, near the southern frontier of his kingdom, leaving his son Belshazzar ("Belsharutsur") in command of the army.


title: Babylonia

text: In 539 BC Cyrus invaded Babylonia. A battle was fought at Opis in the month of June, where the Babylonians were defeated; and immediately afterwards Sippar surrendered to the invader. Nabonidus fled to Babylon, where he was pursued by Gobryas, and on the 16th day of Tammuz, two days after the capture of Sippar, "the soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting." Nabonidus was dragged from his hiding place, where the services continued without interruption. Cyrus did not arrive until the 3rd of "Marchesvan" (October), Gobryas having acted for him in his absence. Gobryas was now made governor of the province of Babylon, and a few days afterwards Belshazzar the son of Nabonidus died in battle. A public mourning followed, lasting six days, and Cyrus' son Cambyses accompanied the corpse to the tomb.


title: Babylonia

text: One of the first acts of Cyrus accordingly was to allow the Jewish exiles to return to their own homes, carrying with them their sacred temple vessels. The permission to do so was embodied in a proclamation, whereby the conqueror endeavored to justify his claim to the Babylonian throne.


title: Babylonia

text: Cyrus now claimed to be the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and the avenger of Bel-Marduk, who was assumed to be wrathful at the impiety of Nabonidus in removing the images of the local gods from their ancestral shrines to his capital Babylon.