title: Italian irredentism

text: During World War II, large parts of Dalmatia were annexed by Italy into the Governorship of Dalmatia from 1941 to 1943. Corsica and Nice were also administratively annexed by Italy in November 1942. Malta was heavily bombed, but was not occupied due to Erwin Rommel's request of diverting to North Africa the forces that had been prepared for the invasion of the island.


title: Italian irredentism

text: Dalmatia was a strategic region during World War I that both Italy and Serbia intended to seize from Austria-Hungary. Italy joined the Triple Entente Allies in 1915 upon agreeing to the London Pact that guaranteed Italy the right to annex a large portion of Dalmatia in exchange for Italy's participation on the Allied side. From 5–6 November 1918, Italian forces were reported to have reached Vis, Lastovo, Šibenik, and other localities on the Dalmatian coast. By the end of hostilities in November 1918, the Italian military had seized control of the entire portion of Dalmatia that had been guaranteed to Italy by the London Pact and by 17 November had seized Fiume as well. In 1918, Admiral Enrico Millo declared himself Italy's Governor of Dalmatia. Famous Italian nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio supported the seizure of Dalmatia and proceeded to Zadar in an Italian warship in December 1918.


title: Italian irredentism

text: The last city with a significant Italian presence in Dalmatia was the city of Zara (now called Zadar). In the Austro-Hungarian census of 1910, the city of Zara had an Italian population of 9,318 (or 69.3% out of the total of 13,438 inhabitants). In 1921 the population grew to 17,075 inhabitants, of which 12,075 Italians (corresponding to 70,76%).


title: Italian irredentism

text: In 1941, during the Second World War, Yugoslavia was occupied by Italy and Germany. Dalmatia was divided between Italy, which constituted the Governorate of Dalmatia, and the Independent State of Croatia, which annexed Dubrovnik and Morlachia. After the Italian surrender (8 September 1943) the Independent State of Croatia annexed the Governorate of Dalmatia, except for the territories that had been Italian before the start of the conflict, such as Zara. In 1943, Josip Broz Tito informed the Allies that Zadar was a chief logistic centre for German forces in Yugoslavia. By overstating its importance, he persuaded them of its military significance. Italy surrendered in September 1943 and over the following year, specifically between 2 November 1943 and 31 October 1944, Allied Forces bombarded the town fifty-four times. Nearly 2,000 people were buried beneath rubble: 10–12,000 people escaped and took refuge in Trieste and slightly over 1,000 reached Apulia. Tito's partisans entered Zadar on 31 October 1944 and 138 people were killed. With the Peace Treaty of 1947, Italians still living in Zadar followed the Italian exodus from Dalmatia and only about 100 Dalmatian Italians now remain in the city.


title: Italian irredentism

text: Under the Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947, Istria, Kvarner, most of the Julian March as well as the Dalmatian city of Zara was annexed by Yugoslavia causing the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus, which led to the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 of local ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians), the others being ethnic Slovenians, ethnic Croatians, and ethnic Istro-Romanians, choosing to maintain Italian citizenship.


title: Italian irredentism

text: After World War II, Italian Irredentism diminished along with the defeated Fascists and the Monarchy of the House of Savoy. After the Treaty of Paris (1947) and the Treaty of Osimo (1975), all territorial claims were abandoned by the Italian State (see Foreign relations of Italy). Today, Italy, France, Malta, Greece, Croatia and Slovenia are all members of the European Union, while Montenegro and Albania are candidates for accession.


title: Italian irredentism

text: The often cited the then-Italian Deputy Gianfranco Fini, who in Senigallia in 2004 gave an interview to the "Slobodna Dalmacija" daily newspaper at the 51st gathering of the Italians who left Yugoslavia after World War II, in which he was reported to have said: "From the son of an Italian from Fiume I learned that those areas were and are Italian, but not because at any particular historical moment our army planted Italians there. This country was Venetian, and before that Roman". Rather than issuing an official rebuttal of those words, Carlo Giovanardi, then Parliamentary Affairs Minister in Berlusconi's government, affirmed Fini's words by saying "that he told the truth".


title: Italian irredentism

text: These sources pointed out that on the 52nd gathering of the same association, in 2005, Carlo Giovanardi was quoted by the "Večernji list" daily newspaper as saying that Italy would launch a cultural, economic and touristic invasion in order to restore "the Italianness of Dalmatia" while participating in a roundtable discussion on the topic "Italy and Dalmatia today and tomorrow". Giovanardi later declared that he had been misunderstood and sent a letter to the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in which he condemned nationalism and ethnic strife.


title: Italian irredentism

text: They underlined that Alleanza Nazionale (a former Italian conservative party) derived directly from the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist party. In 1994, Mirko Tremaglia, a member of the MSI and later of Alleanza Nazionale, described Rijeka, Istria and Dalmatia as "historically Italian" and referred to them as "occupied territories", saying that Italy should "tear up" the 1975 Treaty of Osimo with the former Yugoslavia and block Slovenia and Croatia's accession to European Union membership until the rights of their Italian minorities were respected.


title: Italian irredentism

text: In 2001, Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi gave the gold medal (for the aerial bombings endured during World War II) to the last Italian administration of Zadar (Zara in Italian), represented by its Gonfalone, owned by the association "Free municipality of Zara in exile". Croatian authorities complained that he was awarding a fascist institution, even if the motivations for the golden medal explicitly recalled the contribution of the city to the Resistance against Fascism. The motivations were contested by several Italian right-wing associations, such as the same "Free municipality of Zara in exile" and the Lega Nazionale.


title: Italian irredentism

text: On 12 December 2007, the Italian post office issued a stamp with a photo of the Croatian city of Rijeka and with the text "Fiume – eastern land once part of Italy" (""Fiume-terra orientale già italiana""). Some Croatian sources said that ""già italiana"" could also mean "already Italian", but according to Italian syntaxis the correct meaning, in this case, is only "previously Italian". 3.5 million copies of the stamp were printed, but it was not delivered by the Italian Post Office in order to forestall a possible diplomatic crisis with Croatian and Slovenian authorities. Nevertheless, some of the stamps leaked out and came in official use, and it became widely known.


title: Nanna Blondell

text: Blondell earned a degree from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. As a child she wanted to be an actress, but she didn't believe that there was a future for her in Sweden's entertainment industry as a black woman.


title: Nanna Blondell

text: Blondell made her on screen debut in the SVT drama series "Livet enligt Rosa" in 2005. After working for a while as a VJ with MTV Sweden she landed a role in an episode of police procedural "Beck" the following year, and a recurring role in soap opera "Andra avenyn".


title: Nanna Blondell

text: She raised her profile when she joined the cast of popular sci-fi drama "Real Humans", a TV series that was exported around the world including the United Kingdom and France.


title: Nanna Blondell

text: She made her English language debut with "Ø", an English-Language French TV series filmed in Denmark.


title: Nanna Blondell

text: In 2018, she landed one of the roles in French feature film "" ("Sisters in Arms"), inspired by a real military unit with female Kurdish, Yezidi and resistance fighters taking on ISIS, and was the only actress who did not speak any French. She portrayed an African-American sniper.


title: Nanna Blondell

text: She can also be seen in "Immortal" as Sha Dishi - the leader of nation of immortals. This was also an English language French production, and could be seen via the French streaming app .


title: Nanna Blondell

text: Blondell had the female co-lead in gritty crime drama "Hassel" alongside actor Ola Rapace, and "Twin" starring Kristofer Hivju.


title: Nanna Blondell

text: Her latest project is "Red Dot", the first Netflix feature film from Sweden, co-starring Anastasios Soulis.


title: Nanna Blondell

text: Blondell debuted as the adult Laena Velaryon in episode six of the first season of HBO's "House of the Dragon", the prequel show to the highly popular "Game of Thrones".


title: Nanna Blondell

text: She runs the podcast "Fenomenala kvinnor" (Phenomenal Women), where she interviews successful Swedish non-white women.


title: Nanna Blondell

text: In 2016, she made her directorial debut with the short film "Noni & Elizabeth". This film was in official selection at LA Film Festival, Palm Springs ShortFest and Giffoni Film Festival.


title: Nanna Blondell

text: Her agent is Finnish-Swedish talent manager Laura Munsterhjelm, the same agent as Swedish actresses Rebecca Ferguson and Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: Happy-Go-Lucky is a 2008 British comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh. The screenplay focuses on a cheerful and optimistic primary school teacher and her relationships with those around her. The film was well received by critics and resulted in a number of awards for Mike Leigh's direction and screenplay, lead actress Sally Hawkins's performance, and Eddie Marsan's performance in a supporting role.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: Thirty years old and single, Pauline "Poppy" Cross shares a London flat with her best friend Zoe, a fellow teacher. Poppy is free-minded, high-spirited and kind-hearted. The film opens with Poppy trying to engage a shop employee in conversation. He ignores her, yet his icy demeanour does not bother her. She maintains her good mood even when she discovers her bicycle has been stolen. Her main concern is not getting a new one or finding the bicycle, but that she did not get a chance to say goodbye to it. This prompts her to decide to learn how to drive.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: When Poppy takes driving lessons for the first time, her positive attitude contrasts starkly with her gloomy, intolerant and cynical driving instructor, Scott. He is emotionally repressed, has anger problems and becomes extremely agitated by Poppy's casual attitude towards driving. As Poppy gets to know him, it becomes evident that Scott believes in conspiracy theories. His beliefs are partly attributable to his racist and misogynistic views, which make it hard for him to get along with others. Scott seems to be angered by Poppy's sunny personality and what he perceives as a lack of responsibility and concern for driving safety. Scott is exceptionally irritated by Poppy's choice of footwear (a pair of high-heeled boots), which he feels compromises her ability to drive. From the outset, he feels Poppy does not take her lessons seriously and is careless.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: Poppy, however, does have the capacity to be responsible. At school, Poppy observes one of her pupils bullying one of his classmates. Rather than becoming angry, she worries about him and takes the appropriate action. After speaking with her pupil, she comes to the correct conclusion that he is being abused at home. A social worker, Tim, is brought in to handle the boy's case. Through Tim and the pupil's interactions, the latter reveals that his mother's boyfriend has been beating him. Tim and Poppy begin dating.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: Poppy, Zoe, and Poppy's younger sister, Suzy, go to visit another sister, Helen, who lives with her husband in Southend-on-Sea and is pregnant. Helen proves to be a very judgmental person and tells Poppy she needs to "take life seriously", "not get drunk every night" and plan for the future. Poppy responds that she is happy with her life as it is. Helen tries to convince Poppy to be more responsible condescendingly telling her she is too childish, but Poppy insists that she is happy and ignores her advice.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: Returning home, Poppy sees Scott standing across the street from her flat, and when she calls his name, he runs away. When she confronts him he insists he had been visiting his mother in Stevenage at the time she saw him. Scott later sees Poppy with her new boyfriend, Tim, and he becomes angry. During Poppy's subsequent driving lesson, Scott drives erratically while ranting about other drivers and society. When he gives Poppy the keys to his car, she tells him he is in no condition to give a driving lesson, and she will drive him home. Scott tries to get his keys back and physically attacks Poppy. She manages to escape his grasp, then in a long, rambling diatribe Scott accuses Poppy of trying to seduce him, revealing his romantic feelings for her. Using patience and understanding to teach him a lesson, Poppy waits until he has calmed down then gives the keys back, telling him this lesson will be their last.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: The film ends with Poppy and Zoe together manoeuvering a rowing boat in Regent's Park, as Zoe advises Poppy she "can't make everyone happy." Poppy cheerfully dismisses the advice, then takes a mobile call from Tim and asks him, "Missing me already?"


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: The film is Mike Leigh's first film shot in the 2.35 aspect ratio anamorphic format. It was made and distributed with the assistance of National Lottery funding through the UK Film Council, with £1.2 million awarded to the production company, and a further £210,000 awarded to the film's UK distributor.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: The film was shot on location in Camden Lock, Camden Market, Regent's Park, Stroud Green, Finsbury Park, Lambeth, and Tufnell Park in London and Southend-on-Sea in Essex.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: In "Behind the Wheel of Happy-Go-Lucky", a bonus feature on the DVD release of the film, director Leigh, cinematographer Dick Pope, and stars Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan discuss the logistics of filming the lengthy scenes in which Poppy is learning how to drive. Five miniature cameras were hidden throughout the vehicle, and at times Leigh was wedged on the floor behind the front seats. Although the actors were required to adhere to basic plot premises, a large percentage of their dialogue was improvised, forcing them to react to stimuli outside the car and interact in character while concentrating on their driving.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: In "Happy-in-Character", another DVD bonus feature, Leigh and the actors discuss how the director works with his cast one-on-one to help them fully create their characters before actual filming begins. Because Scott is such a troubled individual, Eddie Marsan thought he was preparing for a heavy drama, and it was not until he started working with Sally Hawkins that he realised how funny the film actually was.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and was shown at the Dublin Film Festival before going into theatrical release in the UK on 18 April 2008. It later was featured at the Telluride Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, the Athens Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, the Morelia Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival, the Warsaw International FilmFest, and the Tokyo International Film Festival.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 92% based on 159 reviews, with an average rating of 7.73/10. The critical consensus states that "Mike Leigh's latest partially-improvised film is a light-hearted comedy with moments that bite, and features a brilliant star turn by Sally Hawkins." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 84, based on 34 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim."


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" rated the film four out of five stars and said, "Mike Leigh's trademarked cartoony dialogue, as ever lending a neo-Dickensian compression and intensity to the proceedings, is an acquired taste and I have gladly acquired it, though some haven't. I am not quite sure what I think about the big, final confrontation between Poppy and Scott. It is well-acted and composed, and Marsan is ferociously convincing, yet the episode is closed off a little too neatly, and Poppy seems eerily unaffected by this or anything else. The effect is a kind of odd and steely invulnerability: not unattractive exactly, but disconcerting. Hawkins plays it superbly though: exactly right for the part and utterly at ease with a role that is uniquely demanding. In the factory-farmed blandness of the movies, "Happy-Go-Lucky" has a strong, real taste."


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: Philip French of "The Observer" called the film "as funny, serious, life-affirming and beautifully performed as anything Leigh has done, but with a lightness of touch only previously found in his Gilbert and Sullivan movie, "Topsy-Turvy"."


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: Manohla Dargis of the "New York Times" called the film "so closely tuned to the pulse of communal life, to the rhythms of how people work, play and struggle together, it captures the larger picture along with the smaller. Like Poppy, the bright focus of this expansive, moving film, Mr. Leigh isn’t one to go it alone. Played by a glorious Sally Hawkins – a gurgling, burbling stream of gasps, giggles and words – Poppy . . . keeps moving forward and dancing and jumping and laughing and nodding her dark, delicate head as if she were agreeing not just with this or that friend but also with life itself. She's altogether charming or perhaps maddening – much depends on whether you wear rose-colored specs – recognizably human and every inch a calculated work of art."


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" rated the film four stars and called Sally Hawkins "a joy to behold." He added, "This is Mike Leigh's funniest film since "Life Is Sweet". Of course he hasn't ever made a "completely" funny film, and "Happy-Go-Lucky" has scenes that are not funny, not at all. There are always undercurrents and oddness."


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" rated the film 3 out of four stars and commented, "Get ready for Sally Hawkins, a dynamo of an actress who will have her way with you in "Happy-Go-Lucky", leaving you enchanted, enraged to the point of madness and utterly dazzled. No list of the year's best performances should be made without her." He added, "In lesser hands, the film would go off the deep end into cheap theatrics. But Leigh . . . keeps the emotions in balance by keeping them real. There's something raw in Hawkins that wins our empathy for Poppy. Thanks to her, "Happy-Go-Lucky" is more than a movie, it's a gift."


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: Ruthe Stein of the "San Francisco Chronicle" stated, "The key to enjoying the film, a minor effort by Leigh, is warming up to Poppy. Her bubbly personality may be too much for some. She's like a walking, talking smiley face. Fortunately, as Leigh proved in "Secrets & Lies" and "Vera Drake", he has a keen eye for actresses, and he has found in Sally Hawkins the consummate Poppy."


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: "Time Out London" observed "You know you’re watching something both delightfully light-footed and acutely meaningful when Leigh moves so nimbly between scenes at Poppy's school, her flamenco class and her driving lessons . . . It's a funny film . . . and, crucially, it aches with truth."


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: The name "En-ra-ha," a driver safety teaching tool used repeatedly by Marsan's character, Scott, as a reminder for the driver to look in the car's mirrors, has become a catch phrase associated both with the film and with Marsan as an actor. During a lesson, Scott explains to Poppy that "En-ra-ha" is a fallen angel and refers to "the all-seeing eye" at the top of a "golden triangle" formed by a car's rearview mirror and side mirrors. Scott tells Poppy, "You see. You remember. You will remember Enraha till the day you die and I would have done my job." The name "En-ra-ha" was invented by Marsan during his improvisational preparation for the film, inspired by a recording of the English occultist Aleister Crowley.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: The film was cited as one of the ten best films of 2008 by many critics, including Manohla Dargis, Stephen Holden, and A.O. Scott of the "New York Times", Liam Lacey of "The Globe and Mail", Ray Bennett of "The Hollywood Reporter", Shawn Levy of "The Oregonian", Carrie Rickey of "The Philadelphia Inquirer", David Edelstein of "New York", Elizabeth Weitzman of the "New York Daily News", Kimberly Jones of "The Austin Chronicle", Michael Sragow of "The Baltimore Sun", Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times", Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post", Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly", Dennis Harvey of "Variety", and Steve Rea of "The Philadelphia Inquirer". Also, Armond White of the "New York Press" named "Happy Go Lucky" the best film of 2008.


title: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008 film)

text: The Region 1 DVD was released on 10 March 2009. It is in anamorphic widescreen format with an audio track in English and subtitles in English and Spanish. Bonus features include commentary by screenwriter/director Mike Leigh, "Behind the Wheel of Happy-Go-Lucky", and "Happy-in-Character".


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: "Super Street Fighter II" was followed in 1994 by "Super Street Fighter II Turbo", a fifth version of "Street Fighter II", which further balances the characters and adds features.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: All twelve World Warriors from the previous "Street Fighter II" games return, many with basic and special techniques refined to adjust the overall balance. Some of the characters received new special techniques such as Ryu's "Fire Hadōken" (renamed "Shakunetsu Hadōken" in the "Street Fighter Alpha" series), a flaming "Shoryuken" for Ken, Zangief's "Atomic Buster", and M. Bison's "Devil Reverse".


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: Four newcomers are introduced: T. Hawk, a Native American warrior from Mexico whose ancestral homeland was taken from him by Shadaloo; Fei Long, a Hong Kong movie star who wishes to test his martial arts against real opponents; Dee Jay, a kickboxing musician from Jamaica seeking inspiration for his next song; and Cammy, a 19-year-old female special forces agent from England with a mysterious past tied to M. Bison. Eight opponents are chosen at random, followed by the four Shadaloo Bosses (Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison).


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: The HUD and all of the stages and character portraits feature new graphics. The original opening sequence and unused sequence, which has two generic characters fighting in front of a crowd, was replaced by a new opening featuring lead character Ryu launching a "Hadouken" projectile toward the screen. . The music and sound effects were remade and a new announcer was introduced, who also recorded new voice samples for Ken, Guile, and Sagat.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: "Super Street Fighter II" features a new scoring system tracking combos, first attacks, reversals, and recoveries made by the player, and awards bonus points accordingly.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: Players choose one of eight character color schemes: the character's original color scheme, their color scheme from "Champion Edition" and "Hyper Fighting", or one of five new color schemes.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: The faster game speed introduced in "Hyper Fighting" was reduced to the same speed level as "Champion Edition". The faster game speed would later return in "Super Turbo".


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: An alternate version of "Super Street Fighter II" features eight-player single-elimination tournament gameplay. "Super Street Fighter II: The Tournament Battle" requires four networked arcade cabinets. This edition consists of three sets of four simultaneous matches: the initial eliminations, the semifinals, and the finals. After the first set, the players are re-arranged by outcome. The winning players are sent to either of the first two cabinets, and losing players are sent to the others. In the finals, the players competing for first place are sent to the first cabinet, the third-place players to the second cabinet, and so on.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: The Super NES version of "Super Street Fighter II", released on June 25, 1994 in Japan, and during the same month in North America and Europe, is the third "Street Fighter" game released for the console, following the original "Street Fighter II" and "Street Fighter II Turbo" (a port of "Hyper Fighting"). It is on a 32 megabit cartridge supporting the XBAND online network. It has several new game modes such as Group Battle and Time Challenge, and the eight-player Tournament mode from the arcade version, in addition to the previous games' Arcade and Versus modes. Like in the SNES version of "Turbo", the background music stops between rounds and restarts from the beginning at the next round. Unlike the Sega Genesis version, the SNES port has the blood for the character's beat up portraits removed or replaced with sweat due to Nintendo's strict censorship policy at the time. This version was re-released on the Wii Virtual Console in Japan on November 8, 2011, the PAL region on April 12, 2012, and in North America on April 26, 2012. The Japanese version appeared on the Super Famicom Classic Edition, but was replaced by "Street Fighter II Turbo" in the SNES Classic Edition.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: The Mega Drive/Genesis version was released simultaneously with its SNES counterpart in all three regions, almost identical. Like the SNES version, the Genesis port supports the XBAND online network although only for its North American release. The Genesis version is on a 40 Megabit cartridge, with additional voice clips of the announcer such as stating the names of the fighters (in place of "you win" or "you lose" on the SNES version), although the audio quality is not of the same level as the original arcade and SNES versions. In the Options menu, the player can choose to play the Super Battle mode on "Normal" or "Expert" difficulty; the latter increases the number of opponents from the arcade version's 12 to all 16 characters. Several levels of speed can also be chosen.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: The X68000 version was released exclusively in Japan on September 30, 1994. The graphics are reproduced faithfully from the arcade version, with only a few omissions made (the message when a new challenger interrupts a match in 1-Player mode has differently-colored fonts, and the aurora in Cammy's stage is a different color). For voices, all the spatial processing and echo processing specific to the CP System II hardware were removed. Like the X68000 version of "", the game is compatible with multiple pulse-code modulation (PCM) drivers on a X68030 or higher models. A message from the game's sound team is hidden in one of the ADPCM sound files containing music. Like the previous X68000 port, it was sold with an adapter for the CPS Fighter joystick controller.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: The FM Towns version was released exclusively in Japan on October 28, 1994. The player characters reproduced faithfully from the arcade version, but the backgrounds lack the original's parallax scrolling effect. The Q-Sound soundtrack of the arcade version is reproduced faithfully in this port, with an arranged version offered as an alternative (this version later featured in the 3DO port of "Super Turbo" and console versions of "Hyper Street Fighter II"). A color edit that allows players to alter each character's color scheme was added. Like the X68000 version, it also included an adapter for the CPS Fighter joystick controller.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: "Super Street Fighter II" was ported by Eurocom to MS-DOS CD-ROM and Amiga in North America and Europe in 1995. Both ports were based on the SNES version.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: It is in the original "Street Fighter Collection" for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn, released in 1997. However, this version lacks the 8-player tournament that appeared in the arcade and on other ports.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: A home arcade cabinet featuring "Super Street Fighter II", "Turbo", and "Champion Edition", was released by Arcade1Up.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: It is in the "Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection" for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: In Japan, "Game Machine" listed "Super Street Fighter II" in its November 1, 1993 issue as being the most-popular table arcade game at the time. It became the sixth highest-grossing arcade game of 1994 in Japan.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: In North America, Capcom launched the game with up to 1,000 "Super Street Fighter II" units distributed to arcade operators on a revenue-sharing basis. "RePlay" reported that "Super Street Fighter II" was the most-popular arcade game in November 1993. "Play Meter" later listed "Super Street Fighter II" as the eighth most-popular arcade video game and fifth top arcade conversion kit in January 1994.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: In early 1994, Capcom projected sales of "Super Street Fighter II" to reach 100,000 arcade units sold worldwide.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: In Japan, the Super Famicom version was the third best-selling video game of 1994 with 941,000 sales that year, In North America, it topped the Sega Genesis and Super NES sales charts for two months in 1994, from July to August. By the end of the year, the Sega Genesis version had outsold the SNES version in the United States, with the Genesis version becoming one of the year's top ten best-selling video games in the region. Eventually, copies were sold worldwide.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: "GamePro" gave a generally positive review of the Genesis version. They wrote that it was a solid conversion of the arcade game, but ""Super" was never the game it could have been in the arcades, and the same imbalances and flaws that hurt the coin-op still affect the home versions." They said the new features were "pretty cosmetic or just downright boring and unimportant", and that music and voices of the Genesis version were all inferior to the SNES version, but concluded ""Super" is still "Street Fighter"" and ""Street Fighter" is still the best fighting game ever made". They gave a more positive review for the SNES version, while citing some of the same issues with the core game.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: "Electronic Gaming Monthly" gave the SNES version 28 out of 40 (7 out of 10 average), with all four reviewers concurring that though it was the best version of "Street Fighter II" to date, the additions were limited given how many versions had already been released, and Capcom should have put out a "Street Fighter III" with new mechanics instead. They made similar comments on the Genesis version, and two of the reviewers additionally criticized it more than the Super NES version, such as the poor quality of the digitized voices.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: In the February 1994 issue of "Gamest", "Super Street Fighter II" was nominated for Best Game of 1993, ultimately ranked at third. In the category of Best Fighting Games, "Super" won three more third-place prizes in the categories of "Best Fighting Games", "Best Graphics", and "Best VGM" (video game music). Cammy, who was introduced in "Super", placed fifth in the list of Best Characters of 1993, with Dee Jay and T. Hawk at 36 and 37.


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: In 1994, "Mega" magazine listed "Super Street Fighter II" as the second Best Game of All Time. In 1995, Total! rated the game 6th on its "Top 100 SNES Games." They lauded "Super Street Fighter II" writing: "One of the finest beat-‘em-ups and one of the most well-crafted games ever." In 2018, Complex ranked the game 26th on their "The Best Super Nintendo Games of All Time."


title: Super Street Fighter II

text: In 2009, "Official Nintendo Magazine" ranked the game 10th on a list of the greatest Nintendo games of all time.


title: Joe's Apartment

text: Joe's Apartment is a 1996 American musical black comedy film written and directed by John Payson (in his feature directorial debut), based on his 1992 short film of the same name, and starring Jerry O'Connell and Megan Ward. The first MTV Films production, it was the only one not to involve Paramount Pictures (the 2019 film "Eli", which was distributed by Netflix, still had the involvement of Paramount).


title: Joe's Apartment

text: The main focus of the story is the fact that, unbeknownst to many humans, cockroaches can talk, but prefer not to, as humans "smush first and ask questions later". They also sing and even have their own public-access television cable TV channel. Actors providing the roaches' voices included Billy West (in his feature film debut), Jim Turner, Rick Aviles (in his final film role before his death), Tim Blake Nelson, BD Wong, and Dave Chappelle. The film received generally negative reviews from critics and it was a box office bomb.


title: Joe's Apartment

text: Penniless and straight out of the University of Iowa, Joe (Jerry O'Connell) moves to New York needing an apartment and a job. With the fortuitous death of Mrs. Grotowski, an artist named Walter Shit (Jim Turner) helps Joe to take over the last rent controlled apartment in a building slated for demolition by convincing everyone that Mrs. Grotowski was Joe's mother. If Senator Dougherty (Robert Vaughn) can empty the building, he can make way for the prison he intends to build there, and uses thug Alberto Bianco (Don Ho) and his nephews, Vlad (Shiek Mahmud-Bey) and Jesus (Jim Sterling), to intimidate tenants.


title: Joe's Apartment

text: Joe discovers he has twenty to thirty thousand roommates, all of them talking, singing cockroaches grateful that a slob has moved in. Led by Ralph (Billy West), the sentient, tune-savvy insects scare away the thugs in an act of enlightened self-interest that endears them to their human meal ticket. Tired of living on handouts from mom back in Iowa and after a series of dead-end jobs ruined by his well-intentioned six-legged roomies, Joe finds himself the unskilled drummer in Walter Shit's band. Hanging posters for SHIT, he encounters Senator Dougherty's daughter Lily (Megan Ward) promoting her own project, a community garden to occupy the vacant site surrounding Joe's building.


title: Joe's Apartment

text: A gift to Lily while working on her garden is enough to woo her back to Joe's apartment. However, the cockroaches break a promise to keep out of his business and a panicked Lily flees, only to discover the garden she'd worked on has been burned to the ground. During a fight with his roommates over his spoiled romantic evening, the building suffers the same fate as the garden. A mutual truce between the hapless and now homeless roommates leads the cockroaches to "call in favors from every roach, rat and pigeon in New York City" to try to make amends to Joe. Overnight, the roaches scour New York to gather materials to convert the entire area into a garden and take care of all the necessary paperwork to ensure harmony reigns over all.


title: Joe's Apartment

text: John Payson originally created the short film "Joe's Apt." in 1992, which aired on MTV as filler in-between commercial breaks. Payson said he was inspired by a 1987 short film called "Those Damn Roaches" and the 1987 Japanese film "Twilight of the Cockroaches", the latter crossing hand-drawn animation and live action. After the short received a CableACE Award, MTV executives were impressed enough to discuss producing a feature adaptation with Payson. In 1993, MTV made a deal with Geffen Pictures during development to produce films based on the network's properties and release them through Warner Bros. While "Joe's Apartment" was put into production with a $13 million budget, a feature film adaptation of "Beavis and Butt-Head" was also put into development.


title: Joe's Apartment

text: "Joe's Apartment" was the first feature film Blue Sky Studios was involved in, having produced company logos and animated commercials before. Under Chris Wedge's supervision, Blue Sky produced computer-animated sequences of the cockroaches. The film also blended them with scenes of puppetry, real cockroaches, and stop-motion animation (including the TV roach porn). Executives at 20th Century Fox were impressed enough with "Joe's Apartment" to acquire Blue Sky, and eventually the studio became a feature-animation company.


title: Joe's Apartment

text: Even with the enthusiastic billing as "MTV's first feature movie" and the support of the company, "Joe's Apartment" bombed when it opened on July 26, 1996. Opening to 1,512 theaters but earning a dismal $1.8 million, the film closed all screenings in the middle of August and finished with only $4.6 million. Warner sold distribution rights for later MTV Film productions back to MTV's parent company, Viacom, not long after.


title: Joe's Apartment

text: Reviews were almost universally negative, mostly distaste at the blending of grimy gross-out gags and up-beat musical humor. Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four, stating ""Joe's Apartment" would be a very bad comedy even without the roaches, but it would not be a disgusting one. No, wait: I take that back. Even without the roaches, we would still have the subplot involving the pink disinfectant urinal cakes." Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "B+" on a scale of A+ to F. "Joe's Apartment" has an approval rating of based on professional reviews on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of . Its critical consensus reads, "Audiences will want their security deposit back from "Joe's Apartment", a lame comedy whose dancing cockroaches are more charming than the human characters."


title: Petrov's Defence

text: Petrov's Defence or the Petrov Defence (also called Petroff Defence, Petrov's Game, Russian Defence, or Russian Game – ) is a chess opening characterised by the following moves:


title: Petrov's Defence

text: Though this response has a long history, it was first popularised by Alexander Petrov, a Russian chess player in the mid-19th century. In recognition of the early investigations by the Russian masters Petrov and Carl Jaenisch, this opening is called the Russian Game in some countries.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: The Petrov has a drawish reputation; however, it offers attacking opportunities for both sides, and a few lines are quite . Often a trade occurs and Black, after gaining a tempo, has a well-placed knight. Pillsbury's game in 1895 against Emanuel Lasker testifies to this. The Black counterattack in the centre also avoids the Ruy Lopez, Giuoco Piano (and other lines of the Italian Game), and the Scotch Game. The Petrov has been adopted by many of the world's leading players, including world champions Vasily Smyslov, Tigran Petrosian, Anatoly Karpov, and Vladimir Kramnik.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: The "Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings" codes for Petrov's Defence are C43 (for 3.d4) and C42 (for all other lines).


title: Petrov's Defence

text: White's two main choices for move three are 3.Nxe5, the Classical Variation and 3.d4, the Steinitz Variation. 3.Nxe5 is more popular but they often lead to similar positions and "there is no clear reason to prefer one move over the other".


title: Petrov's Defence

text: 3.Nc3 may transpose to the Four Knights Game or the Three Knights Game. 3.Bc4 may lead to the Boden–Kieseritzky Gambit or transpose to the Two Knights Defence. Occasionally seen is the 3.d3.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: After 3.Nxe5, the Classical Variation, Black should not continue to copy White's moves and try to restore the balance immediately with 3...Nxe4. After 4.Qe2 Black cannot play 4...Nf6 because 5.Nc6+ wins the queen, and after 4...d5?! 5.d3 Qe7 6.dxe4 Qxe5 7.exd5 Black loses a pawn. Relatively best for Black is 4...Qe7 5.Qxe4 d6 6.d4 dxe5 7.dxe5 Nc6, and after for example 8.Nc3 (8.Bb5 is also good) 8...Qxe5 9.Qxe5+ Nxe5 10.Nb5 (or 10.Bf4) White has a clear advantage. If Black plays 3...Qe7?! then 4.d4 d6 5.Nf3 Qxe4+ 6.Be2 is better for White. Consequently, by far the most popular move for Black is 3...d6.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: Most often, White follows the main line 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 (5.Bd3 is also playable, known as the Millennium Attack) d5 6.Bd3, where he will try to drive Black's advanced knight from e4 with moves like c4 and Re1. If White achieves this, then he is up two tempi (Nf6–e4–f6, plus the tempo White starts the game with). In practice White is usually able to achieve this, but at some structural cost such as having to play c4, which balances out. White can also force simplification with Lasker's 5.Qe2 Qe7 6.d3. This is generally only good enough for a draw, which Black should be satisfied with. Another possibility, explored by Keres, is 5.c4, known as the Kauffmann Attack.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: A completely different approach is to meet 4...Nxe4 with 5.Nc3 Nxc3 6.dxc3 with rapid and castling. For instance, White can plan a quick Be3, Qd2, and 0-0-0, and play for a attack, trusting that his doubled c-pawns will help protect his king, and that his and attacking potential will offset the longterm disadvantage of having doubled pawns. In the 5.Nc3 line, Black must avoid 5...Bf5?? 6.Qe2! which wins a piece due to the pin (if 6...Qe7 7.Nd5, forcing 7...Qd7 because of the threat to the c7-pawn; then 8.d3 wins the piece). Viswanathan Anand resigned after only six moves after falling for this against Alonso Zapata at Biel in 1988.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: The Cochrane Gambit, 4.Nxf7, is labelled "speculative but entertaining" by Nick de Firmian in "Modern Chess Openings–14". He evaluates the position in Veselin Topalov–Vladimir Kramnik, Linares 1999 as offering chances for both sides after 4...Kxf7 5.Nc3 c5!? 6.Bc4+ Be6 7.Bxe6+ Kxe6 8.d4 Kf7 9.dxc5 Nc6.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: The Paulsen Variation, 4.Nc4, is labelled "ineffective" by de Firmian in "MCO", but is occasionally seen at grandmaster level. US master Andrew Karklins has experimented with 4.Nd3!?, now called the Karklins–Martinovsky Variation. This was played in the World Chess Championship 2018 between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: The Stafford Gambit, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 Nc6, is considered dubious, but it sets a few traps. After 4.Nxc6 dxc6, White wins a pawn but must play carefully. After 5.e5 (5.d3 is better) Ne4 6.d3?? (White should play 6.Nc3, 6.d4, or 6.Qe2) 6...Bc5! and White resigned in Lowens-Stafford, US correspondence game 1950.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: 3.d4 was favoured by Wilhelm Steinitz, and is sometimes called the Steinitz Variation, although it was known earlier. Black can capture either pawn; also possible is 3...d6, transposing into the Philidor Defence.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: After 3...exd4 4.e5 (4.Bc4 transposes into the Urusov Gambit) 4...Ne4 (4...Qe7?! 5.Be2 is better for White) 5.Qxd4 d5 6.exd6 Nxd6 7.Nc3 Nc6 8.Qf4 the game is approximately . After the other capture, 3...Nxe4, 4.Bd3 d5 (4...Nc6!? 5.Bxe4 d5, intending 6.Bd3 e4, is also possible) 5.Nxe5, when either 5...Nd7 or 5...Bd6 gives roughly equal chances.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: A long and complicated tactical sequence which has frequently been seen in master games is 3...Nxe4 4.Bd3 d5 5.Nxe5 Bd6 6.0-0 0-0 7.c4 Bxe5 8.dxe5 Nc6 9.cxd5 Qxd5 10.Qc2 Nb4 11.Bxe4 Nxc2 12.Bxd5 Bf5 13.g4 Bxg4 14.Be4 Nxa1 15.Bf4 f5 16.Bd5+ Kh8 17.Rc1 c6 18.Bg2 Rfd8 19.Nd2 ("diagram") and White has the slightly better endgame after either 19...Rxd2 20.Bxd2 Rd8 21.Bc3 Rd1+ 22.Rxd1 Bxd1 or 19...h6 20.h4.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: 3.Nc3 is the Three Knights Game of Petrov's Defence. It can also be reached via 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 (the Vienna Game). Commonly, after 3...Nc6, the opening transposes to the Four Knights Game. With the reply 3...Bb4 (or some others), it remains the Three Knights Game proper.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: 3.Bc4 is the Italian Variation of Petrov's Defence. With 3...Nc6, it transposes to the Two Knights Defence.


title: Petrov's Defence

text: Another possibility is 3.Bc4 Nxe4 4.Nc3, the Boden–Kieseritzky Gambit. It is not considered wholly sound, since Black has several viable options. Black can accept the gambit with 4...Nxc3 5.dxc3 f6, but must play carefully after 6.0-0 (for example 6...Bc5?? 7.Nxe5! is disastrous; 6...d6 and 6...Nc6 are good). Another more aggressive try is 6.Nh4, where White goes for a quick assault on Black's king, but Black can maintain a small advantage if he plays cautiously via 6...g6 7.f4 Qe7 8.f5 Qg7 9.Qg4 Kd8. Another possibility is returning the gambit pawn with 4...Nxc3 5.dxc3 c6 6.Nxe5 d5, which equalises. A third possibility is transposing to the Italian Four Knights Game with 4...Nc6, and if 5.Nxe4, 5...d5. If 5.Bxf7+?, then 5...Kxf7 6.Nxe4 d5 gives Black the and control of the . If 5.0-0, Black plays 5...Nxc3 6.dxc3 and now Black can play 6...Qe7!, after which Bobby Fischer wrote that "White has no compensation for the Pawn", or 6...f6 transposing to the main line of the Boden–Kieseritzky. Black also has lines beginning 6...Be7 and 6...h6.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The Middle Assyrian Empire was the third stage of Assyrian history, covering the history of Assyria from the accession of Ashur-uballit I 1363 BC and the rise of Assyria as a territorial kingdom to the death of Ashur-dan II in 912 BC. The Middle Assyrian Empire was Assyria's first period of ascendancy as an empire. Though the empire experienced successive periods of expansion and decline, it remained the dominant power of northern Mesopotamia throughout the period. In terms of Assyrian history, the Middle Assyrian period was marked by important social, political and religious developments, including the rising prominence of both the Assyrian king and the Assyrian national deity Ashur.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The Middle Assyrian Empire was founded through Assur, a city-state through most of the preceding Old Assyrian period, and the surrounding territories achieving independence from the Mitanni kingdom. Under Ashur-uballit, Assyria began to expand and assert its place as one of the great powers of the Ancient Near East. This aspiration chiefly came into fruition through the efforts of the kings Adad-nirari I ( 1305–1274 BC), Shalmaneser I ( 1273–1244 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I ( 1243–1207 BC), under whom Assyria expanded to for a time become the dominant power in Mesopotamia. The reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I marked the height of the Middle Assyrian Empire and included the subjugation of Babylonia and the foundation of a new capital city, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, though it was abandoned after his death. Though Assyria was left largely unscathed by the direct effects of the Late Bronze Age collapse of the 12th century BC, the Middle Assyrian Empire began to experience a significant period of decline roughly at the same time. The assassination of Tukulti-Ninurta I 1207 BC led to inter-dynastic conflict and a significant drop in Assyrian power.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Even during its period of decline, Middle Assyrian kings continued to be assertive geopolitically; both Ashur-dan I ( 1178–1133 BC) and Ashur-resh-ishi I ( 1132–1115 BC) campaigned against Babylonia. Under Ashur-resh-ishi I's son and successor Tiglath-Pileser I (1114–1076 BC), the Middle Assyrian Empire experienced a period of resurgence, owing to wide-ranging campaigns and conquests. Tiglath-Pileser's armies marched as far from the Assyrian heartland as the Mediterranean. Though the reconquered and newly conquered lands were held on to for some time, the empire experienced a second and more catastrophic period of decline after the death of Tiglath-Pileser's son Ashur-bel-kala (1073–1056 BC), which saw the loss of most of the empire's territories outside of its heartlands, partly due to invasions by Aramean tribes. Assyrian decline began to be reversed again under Ashur-dan II ( 934–912 BC), who campaigned extensively in the peripheral regions of the Assyrian heartland. The successes of Ashur-dan II and his immediate successors in restoring Assyrian rule over the empire's former lands, and in time going far beyond them, is used by modern historians to mark the transition from the Middle Assyrian Empire to the succeeding Neo-Assyrian Empire.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Theologically, the Middle Assyrian period saw important transformations of the role of Ashur. Having originated as a deified personification of the city of Assur itself sometime centuries earlier in the Early Assyrian period, Ashur in the Middle Assyrian period became equated with the old Sumerian head of the pantheon, Enlil, and was as a result of Assyrian expansionism and warfare transformed from a primarily agricultural god into a military one. The transition of Assyria from a city-state into an empire also had important administrative and political consequences. While the Assyrian rulers of the Old Assyrian period had governed with the title "iššiak" ("governor") jointly with a city assembly made up of influential figures from Assur, the Middle Assyrian kings were autocratic rulers who used the title "šar" ("king") and sought equal status to the monarchs of other empires. The transition into an empire also led to the development of various necessary systems, such as a sophisticated road system, various administrative divisions of territory and a complex web of royal administrators and officials.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Assyria became an independent territorial state under Ashur-uballit I 1363 BC, having previously been under the suzerainty of the Mitanni kingdom. Though the transition of Assyria from being merely a city-state around Assur (as it was throughout most of the preceding Old Assyrian period) had begun already in the last few decades under Mittani suzerainty, it is the independence achieved under Ashur-uballit, as well as Ashur-uballit's conquests of nearby territories, such as the fertile region between the Tigris, the foothills of the Taurus Mountains and the Upper Zab, which modern historians use to mark the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Ashur-uballit was the first native Assyrian ruler to claim the royal title "šar" ("king"), and the first ruler of Assur to do so since the time of the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I in the 18th century BC. Shortly after achieving independence, he further claimed the dignity of a great king on the level of the pharaohs and the Hittite kings. Ashur-uballit's claim to be a great king meant that he also embedded himself in the ideological implications of that role; a great king was expected to expand the borders of his realm to incorporate "uncivilized" territories, ideally eventually ruling the entire world. On account of political realism however, the true situation was most often diplomacy with adversaries of equal rank, such as Babylonia, and conquest only of smaller and military inferior states in the near vicinity. Ashur-uballit's reign was often regarded by later generations of Assyrians as the true birth of Assyria. The term "land of Ashur" ("māt Aššur"), i.e. designating Assyria as comprising a larger kingdom, is first attested as being used in his time.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The rise of Assyria was intertwined with the decline and collapse of its former suzerain, Mitanni. Assyria was subjugated by Mittani 1430 BC, and as such spent about 70 years under Mitanni rule. Chiefly responsible for bringing an end to Mitanni dominance in northern Mesopotamia was the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma I, whose 14th century BC war with Mitanni over control of Syria effectively led to the beginning of the end of the Mitanni kingdom. It was in this struggle for supremacy and hegemony that Ashur-uballit secured independence. The Mittani-Hittite conflict was preceded by a period of weakness in the Mitanni kingdom; the heir to the Mitanni throne, Artashumara, was murdered in the 14th century BC, which led to the accession of the otherwise minor figure Tushratta. Tushratta's rise to power led to internal conflict within the Mittani kingdom as different factions vied with each other to depose him. During the wars that followed Tushratta's accession, multiple rivals came to rule Mitanni, such as Artatama II and Shuttarna III. The Assyrians sometimes fought them and sometimes allied with them. Shuttarna III secured Assyrian support, but had to pay heavily for it in silver and gold.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Ashur-uballit, doubtlessly watching the conflict between Mitanni and the Hittites closely out of interest in expanding Assyria, directed much of his attention to the lands south of his realm. Successful campaigns were directed against both Arrapha and Nuzi, which was destroyed by Assyrian troops in the 1330s BC or before. Neither city was formally incorporated into Assyria; the Assyrian army probably withdrew to the Little Zab, allowing Babylonia to conquer the sites. In the centuries to come, Assyrian kings often found themselves as rivals of the Babylonian kings. Ashur-uballit himself did not wish to engage in long-lasting conflicts with the Babylonians, clearly illustrated since he married his daughter Muballitat-Serua to the Babylonian king Burnaburiash II. Prior to achieving peace, Burnaburiash had been a prominent enemy of the Assyrians. At one point, he had attempted to tarnish Assyrian diplomatic and trade relations with Egypt by sending a letter to the pharaoh Akhenaten wherein he falsely claimed that the Assyrians were his vassals. After several years of peaceful co-existence between Assyria and Babylonia, the Babylonian king Kara-hardash, son of Burnaburiash and Muballitat-Serua, was overthrown. Muballitat-Serua was most likely killed at the same time, which prompted Ashur-uballit to march south and restore order. The usurper who had taken Babylonia in the meantime, Nazi-Bugash, was overthrown and replaced by the Assyrians with Kurigalzu II, another son of Burnaburiash.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Ashur-uballit's successors Enlil-nirari ( 1327–1318 BC) and Arik-den-ili ( 1317–1306 BC) were less successful than Ashur-uballit in expanding and consolidating Assyrian power, and as such the new kingdom developed somewhat haltingly and remained fragile. Kurigalzu did not remain loyal to the Assyrians and instead fought with Enlil-nirari. His treason and betrayal resulted in deep trauma, still referenced in Assyrian writings concerning diplomacy and wars against Babylonia more than a century later; it was seen by many later Assyrians as the starting point of the historical enmity between the two civilizations. At one point, Kurigalzu reached as far into the Assyrian lands as Sugagu, a settlement located only a day's journey from Assur. Although the Assyrians drove him away, an incursion this deep into the Assyrian heartland left an impression on the Assyrians, who in future conflicts often focused on Babylonian border outposts along the eastern Tigris river as a preventive measure.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Under the warrior-kings Adad-nirari I ( 1305–1274 BC), Shalmaneser I ( 1273–1244 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I ( 1243–1207 BC), Assyria began to realize its aspirations of becoming a significant regional power. Though the other powers of the Ancient Near East, such as Egypt, the Hittites and Babylonia, had at first been reluctant to view the new Assyrian kingdom as their equal, from the time of Adad-nirari I onwards, when Assyria grew to take the place of Mitanni, its status as one of the major kingdoms became undeniable. Adad-nirari I was the first Assyrian king to march against the remnants of the Mitanni kingdom and the first Assyrian king to include lengthy narratives of his campaigns in his royal inscriptions. Adad-nirari early in his reign defeated Shattuara I of Mitanni and forced him to pay tribute to Assyria as a vassal ruler. Given that the Assyrian army extensively plundered and destroyed portions of Mitanni during this campaign, it is unlikely that there at this point were any plans to outright annex and consolidate the Mitanni lands. Sometime later, Shattuara's son Wasashatta rebelled against the Assyrians, though was defeated by Adad-nirari who, as punishment, annexed several cities alongside the Khabur river. At Taite, a former Mitanni capital, Adad-nirari constructed a royal palace for himself.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The primary focus of Adad-nirari was the conquest and/or pacification of Babylonia. Not only did Babylonia present a more immediate threat, but conquering southern Mesopotamia would also be more prestigious. Through military focus on Babylonian border towns, such as Lubdi and Rapiqu, it is clear that Adad-nirari's ultimate goal was to subdue the Babylonians and achieve hegemony over all of Mesopotamia. Adad-nirari's temporary occupations of Lubdi and Rapiqu were met with an attack by the Babylonian king Nazi-Maruttash, though Adad-nirari defeated him at the Battle of Kār Ištar 1280 BC and the Assyro-Babylonian border was redrawn in Assyria's favor. Under Adad-nirari's son Shalmaneser I, Assyrian campaigns against its neighbors and equals intensified. According to his own inscriptions, Shalmaneser conquered eight countries (likely minor states) in the first year of his reign. Among the sites captured was the fortress Arinnu, which Shalmaneser razed to the ground and turned into dust. Some of the dust from Arinnu was collected and symbolically brought back to Assur.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: After the new Mitanni king Shattuara II rebelled against Assyrian authority, assisted by the Hittites, further campaigns were conducted against Mitanni in order to suppress the resistance. Shalmaneser's campaign against Mitanni was a great success; the Mitanni capital of Washukanni was sacked and, realizing that the Mitanni lands were clearly not controllable through allowing the local rulers to continue to govern as vassals, the kingdom's lands were with some reluctance annexed into the Assyrian kingdom. The lands were not annexed directly into the royal domains, but rather placed under the rule of a viceroy who bore the title of grand vizier and king of Hanigalbat. The first such ruler was Shalmaneser's brother, Ibashi-ili, whose descendants later continued to occupy the position. This arrangement, placing the Mitanni lands under the rule of a lesser branch of the royal family, suggests that the Assyrian elites in the heartland had only a marginal interest in the new conquests. Though Shalmaneser boasted of brutal acts against the defeated Mitanni armies, in one inscription claiming to have blinded over 14,000 prisoners of war, he was also one of the first Assyrian kings to take prisoners in the first place instead of simply executing captured enemies. Adad-nirari was also a great builder; among his most significant construction projects was the construction of the city of Nimrud, a highly significant site in later Assyrian history.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Under Shalmaneser, the Assyrians also conducted significant campaigns against the Hittites. Already in the time of Adad-nirari, Assyrian envoys had been treated poorly at the court of the Hittite king Mursili III. When Mursili's successor Hattusili III reached out to Shalmaneser in an attempt to forge an alliance, probably due to recent losses against Egypt, he was insultingly rejected and called a "substitute of a great king". The strained relations between the two empires sometimes erupted into war; Shalmaneser warred several times against Hittite vassal states in the Levant. The hostilities reached their zenith under Shalmaneser's son and successor Tukulti-Ninurta I, who defeated the Hittites at the Battle of Nihriya 1237 BC. The Hittite defeat at Nihriya marked the beginning of the end of their influence in northern Mesopotamia.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Shalmaneser I's son Tukulti-Ninurta I became king 1243 BC. He had, according to historian Stefan Jakob, "an unconditional will to create something that would last forever" and his wide-ranging conquests brought the Middle Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent. Even before he became king, neighboring kingdoms had been wary of his accession; when he assumed the throne, the Hittite king Tudḫaliya IV sent him a letter of congratulations but secretly also sent a letter to the Assyrian grand vizier Babu-aha-iddina in which he implored the vizier to dissuade Tukulti-Ninurta from attacking the Hittite territories in the mountains northwest of Assyria and to work on improving relations. Tudḫaliya's letter did little to dissuade him, who saw through the empty flatteries and attacked and conquered the lands in question in his first few years as king. According to his inscriptions, the conquest was widely celebrated as one of his outstanding early achievements.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: As for his predecessors, Tukulti-Ninurta's main focus was on Babylonia. His first act in regard to his southern neighbor, Kashtiliash IV, was to escalate conflict through claiming "traditionally Assyrian" lands along the eastern Tigris. Tukulti-Ninurta shortly thereafter invaded Babylonia through what modern historians generally regard to be an unprovoked attack. In the contemporary "Tukulti-Ninurta Epic", a propaganda epic used to justify his exploits, the king is described as acting according to divine order against Kashtiliash, who is described as vile ruler, abandoned by the gods. In the text, he is accused of various atrocities, including attacking Assyria, violating temples, and deporting or killing civilians. Though there is no evidence for these accusations, they might well have been based on real events, albeit probably exaggerated. According to the "Tukulti-Ninurta" epic, he marched south to the Diyala River and began targeting Babylonian cities, including Sippar and Dur-Kurigalzu. Kashtiliash then attacked the Assyrians, confident that he would be victorious, but he was defeated and then avoided conflict himself for the rest of the war. Tukulti-Ninurta eventually emerged as the winner, conquering Babylonia 1225 BC, dragging Kashtiliash back to Assyria as a prisoner, and assuming the ancient title "king of Sumer and Akkad". Given that some inscriptions report "Assyrian refugees" from Babylonia and that some soldiers were "starving", it appears that the victory was a costly one. Tukulti-Ninurta's rule over Babylonia, which nominally placed territories as far south as the Persian Gulf under Assyrian rule, lasted for several years and began the apex of Middle Assyrian power, though Assyrian domination appears to have been rather indirect.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Tukulti-Ninurta experienced some difficulties in keeping his empire together, particularly in Babylonia. Though the period after Kashtiliash's deposition is poorly attested in Babylonia, it appears that there was a second Assyrian campaign directed towards the south 1222 BC, after the rule of Tukulti-Ninurta's vassal kings Enlil-nadin-shumi and Kadashman-Harbe II, which resulted in the accession of another vassal, Adad-shuma-iddina. Because Tukulti-Ninurta was able to come to Babylon as a guest in 1221 BC and make offerings to the Babylonian gods, it is clear that Adad-shuma-iddina enjoyed Assyrian support for his rule. Though this campaign was followed by several years of peace, it is clear that Adad-shuma-iddina eventually stopped acting like a puppet ruler. Though Tukulti-Ninurta forgave him for a revolt in which he seized the city of Lubdi, a second revolt by Adad-shuma-iddina in 1217 BC was met with a third campaign against Babylon, in which Tukulti-Ninurta looted the city and carried off the religiously important Statue of Marduk (Marduk being Babylonia's national deity) to Assyria. He assumed the further style "king of the extensive mountains and plains" and claimed to rule from the "Upper Sea to the Lower Sea" and that he received tribute "from the four quarters". In one of his inscriptions, Tukulti-Ninurta went as far as proclaiming himself to be the sun-god Shamash incarnated, titling himself "šamšu kiššat niše" ("sun[god] of all people"). This claim was highly unusual for an Assyrian king to make as the Assyrian rulers were generally not regarded to be divine figures themselves.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The last Babylonian campaign did not resolve all of Tukulti-Ninurta's problems; the Assyrian army at times had to be deployed to the mountains to the northwest and northeast of the Assyrian heartland to quell uprisings and soon enough, a Babylonian uprising led by Adad-shuma-usur, perhaps a son of Kashtiliash IV, drove the Assyrians out of Babylonia 1216 BC. Tukulti-Ninurta is recorded to have complained to the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma II, at this point an ally of Assyria and expected to cooperate militarily, that he had "remained silent" on the "illegal seizure of power" of Adad-shuma-usur.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: In addition to his campaigns and conquests, Tukulti-Ninurta is also famous for the most dramatic construction project of the entire Middle Assyrian period: the construction of a new capital city, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, named after himself (the name meaning "fortress of Tukulti-Ninurta"). Founded in the eleventh year of his reign ( 1233 BC), the construction and brief occupation of the city was the only time the Assyrian capital was moved before the Neo-Assyrian period, centuries later. After Tukulti-Ninurta's death, the capital was transferred back to Assur.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Inscriptions from the late reign of Tukulti-Ninurta showcase increasing internal isolation, as many among the powerful nobility of Assyria grew dissatisfied with his rule, especially after the loss of Babylonia. In some of his own inscriptions, Tukulti-Ninurta appears to lament the losses since his glory days. His long and prosperous reign ended with his assassination, which was followed by inter-dynastic conflict and a significant drop in Assyrian power. Though some historians have attributed the assassination to Tukulti-Ninurta's moving the capital away from Assur, a possibly sacrilegious act, it is more probable that it was the result of the growing dissatisfaction during his late reign. Later chroniclers blame the assassination on his son Ashur-nasir-apli, perhaps a misspelled version of the name of his successor Ashur-nadin-apli ( 1206–1203 BC). Another leader of the conspiracy appears to have been the grand vizier and vassal king of Hanigalbat Ili-ipadda, who retained a prominent position at the court for years thereafter. Ashur-nadin-apli was after his short reign succeeded by two of his brothers, Ashur-nirari III ( 1202–1197 BC) and Enlil-kudurri-usur ( 1196–1192 BC), who also ruled only briefly and were unable to maintain Assyrian power. Though the line of Assyrian kings continued uninterrupted over the course of the decline, Assyria became restricted mostly to just the Assyrian heartland. The decline of the Middle Assyrian Empire broadly coincided with the Late Bronze Age collapse, a time when the Ancient Near East experienced monumental geopolitical changes; within a single generation, the Hittite Empire and the Kassite dynasty of Babylon had fallen, and Egypt had been severely weakened through losing its lands in the Levant. Modern researchers tend to varyingly ascribe the collapse to large-scale migrations, invasions by the mysterious Sea Peoples, new warfare technology and its effects, starvation, epidemics, climate change and unsustainable exploitation of the working population.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Enlil-kudurri-usur enjoyed a much poorer relationship with the line of vassal rulers of Hanigalbat, perhaps because he might not have supported the assassination of his father. Such a poor relationship was dangerous given that these vassal rulers were also members of the Assyrian royal family, as descendants of Adad-nirari I. At some point during Enlil-kudurri-usur's reign, Ili-ipadda's son Ninurta-apal-Ekur traveled to Babylonia where he met with Adad-shuma-usur. With Babylonian support, Ninurta-apal-Ekur then invaded Assyria and defeated Enlil-kudurri-usur in battle. According to the Babylonian Chronicles, he was captured and surrendered to the Babylonians by his own people. Ninurta-apal-Ekur then became king, ending the line of rulers who were direct descendants of Tukulti-Ninurta. During his reign, 1191–1179 BC, Ninurta-apal-Ekur proved to be, like his immediate predecessors, unable to do much about the collapse of the empire. In the reign of his son, Ashur-dan I ( 1178–1133 BC), the situation improved somewhat as can be gathered from a campaign directed by Ashur-dan I against the Babylonian king Zababa-shuma-iddin, illustrating that hopes for gaining control of at least some southern lands and reasserting superiority over Babylonia had not been completely abandoned.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: After Ashur-dan's death in 1133 BC, his two sons Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur and Mutakkil-Nusku struggled for power, with Mutakkil-Nusku emerging victorious but then only ruling for less than a year. Mutakkil-Nusku began a conflict with the Babylonian king Itti-Marduk-balatu over control of the city of Zanqi or Zaqqa, which continued in the reign of his son and successor Ashur-resh-ishi I (1132–1115 BC). In the Synchronistic History (a later Assyrian document), further tensions at Zanqi are described between Ashur-resh-ishi and the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar I, which included a battle in which the Babylonians burned down their own siege engines so that they would not be captured by the Assyrians. Though the Synchronistic History describes Assyria as in danger of Babylonian aggression in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar's father and predecessor Ninurta-nadin-shumi, it casts Ashur-resh-ishi as a savior of the empire, who defeated Nebuchadnezzar in several battles and was able to defend the southern Assyrian border. Ashur-resh-ishi as such began to reverse the decades of Assyrian decline and in his inscriptions claimed the epithet "avenger of Assyria" ("mutēr gimilli māt Aššur").


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Ashur-resh-ishi's son and successor Tiglath-Pileser I (1114–1076 BC) inaugurated a second period of Middle Assyrian ascendancy. Owing to his father's victories against Babylon, Tiglath-Pileser was free to divert his attention to other regions and not worry about a southern attack. Texts written already during his first few regnal years demonstrate that Tiglath-Pileser ruled with more confidence than his predecessors, using titles such as "unrivalled king of the universe, king of the four quarters, king of all princes, lord of lords" and epithets such as "splendid flame which covers the hostile land like a rain storm". In his first year as king, Tiglath-Pileser defeated the Mushki, a tribe who had taken control of various lands in the north fifty years prior. The inscriptions mention that no king had defeated them in battle before and that their 20,000 men strong army, led by five kings, was defeated by Tiglath-Pileser, who however allowed the 6,000 surviving enemies to settle in Assyria as his subjects. One of the Mushki strongholds, the city of Katmuḫu in the northeast, continued to be troublesome for a few years before it was reconquered, looted and its king, Errupi, was deported. Numerous other sites in the northeast were also conquered and incorporated into his empire.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Tiglath-Pileser also went on significant campaigns in the west. The cities of northern Syria, which had ceased to pay tribute decades prior, were reconquered and the Kaskians and Urumeans, tribes who had also settled in the region, voluntarily submitted to him immediately upon the arrival of his army. He also waged war on the Nairi people in the Armenian highlands. Famed for their knowledge of horse breeding, his self-admitted goal of this campaign was to acquire more horses for the Assyrian army. It is clear from his inscriptions that the goal of the campaigns were to instill respect among the rulers of the lands formerly subordinate to Assyria, to reconquer the old Assyrian borders, and to go beyond them; "Altogether, I conquered 42 lands and their rulers from the other side of the Lower Zab in distant mountainous regions to the other side of the Euphrates River, people of Ḫatti, and the Upper Sea in the west – from my accession year to my fifth regnal year. I subdued them to one authority, took hostages from them, (and) imposed upon them tribute and impost".


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Tiglath-Pileser's inscriptions are the first Assyrian inscriptions to describe punitive measures against rebelling cities and regions in any detail. A more important innovation was increasing the size of the Assyrian cavalry and introducing war chariots on a grander scale than previous kings. Chariots were also increasingly used by Assyria's enemies. In the final years of his reign, he twice engaged the Babylonian king Marduk-nadin-ahhe in battles with a great number of chariots. Though he did not conquer Babylonia, several cities, including Babylon itself, were successfully attacked and looted. He was probably unable to conquer Babylonia since a significant amount of attention needed to be diverted to the Aramean tribes in the west. Though he was one of the most powerful kings of the Middle Assyrian period, succeeding in imposing tribute from as far away as Phoenicia, his achievements were not long-lasting and several territories, especially in the west, were likely lost again before his death.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: As a result of Tiglath-Pileser's campaigns, Assyria became somewhat overstretched and his successors had to adapt to be on the defensive. His son and successor Asharid-apal-Ekur (1075–1074 BC) ruled too briefly to do anything and his successor Ashur-bel-kala (1073–1056 BC), another son of Tiglath-Pileser, managed to only briefly follow in his father's footsteps. Ashur-bel-kala campaigned in the mountains to the northeast and the Levant and is recorded to have received gifts from Egypt. Though political objectives had thus not changed since Tiglath-Pileser's time, Ashur-bel-kala too had to divert significant attention to the Arameans. Due to the Aramean tactics of avoiding open battle and instead attacking the Assyrians in numerous minor skirmishes, the Assyrian army could not take advantage of their technical and numerial superiority. The Arameans were not Ashur-bel-kala's only enemies in the west, given that he is also recorded to have fought against Tukulti-Mer, king of Mari. The conflict with Marduk-nadin-ahhe in Babylonia continued under Ashur-bel-kala, though it was eventually resolved diplomatically. After the death of Marduk-nadin-ahhe's successor Marduk-shapik-zeri in 1065 BC, Ashur-bel-kala was even able to intervene and install the unrelated Adad-apla-iddina as king of Babylon. Adad-apla-iddina's daughter then married Ashur-bel-kala, bringing peace to the two kingdoms. Though he shared his father's ambition, and claimed the title "lord of all" after his victorious campaigns in Syria, Babylonia and the northeastern mountains, Ashur-bel-kala was ultimately unable to surpass Tiglath-Pileser and his successes were built on shaky foundations.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Ashur-bel-kala's son and successor Eriba-Adad II (1056–1054 BC), and generations of kings thereafter, were unable to maintain the achievements of their predecessors. The period of decline initiated after Ashur-bel-kala's death was not reversed until the middle of the 10th century BC. Though this period is poorly documented, it is clear that Assyria underwent a major crisis.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Although Assyria was only marginally affected by the Late Bronze Age collapse, the collapse caused great changes in the geopolitics of the lands surrounding Assyria. In large part, the power vacuum left by the Hittites and Egyptians in Anatolia and the Levant allowed various ethno-tribal communities and states to take their place. In northern Anatolia and northern Syria, the Luwians seized power, forming the Syro-Hittite states. In Syria, the Arameans grew increasingly prominent. In Palestine, the Philistines and Israelites carved out realms of their own, eventually coalescing into the Kingdom of Israel. Though cuneiform had previously been the main writing system of these regions, the rise of new peoples and realms led to cuneiform being replaced in the west by more simple alphabetic writing systems. Out of the new players on the scene, the Arameans, through their at times eastward movements, had the most effect on Assyria. Documents as old as from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I demonstrate that even at that early stage, Aramean raids penetrated deep into the Assyrian heartland, at one point reaching Assur itself. The Arameans were tribal and their attacks were uncoordinated raids carried out by individual groups. As such, Assyrian kings were able to defeat several Aramean groups in battle. The guerilla tactics and ability of the Arameans to quickly withdraw into difficult terrain however prevented Assyrian armies from ever achieving a lasting decisive victory. From the death of Ashurnasirpal I (1049–1031 BC) to the end of the Middle Assyrian period more than a century later, no surviving Assyrian royal inscriptions describe any military activities whatsoever. Though kings from this time, such as Shalmaneser II (1030–1019 BC) and Ashur-rabi II (1012–972 BC), used names that proudly echoed those of earlier successful rulers, suggesting a desire to restore old glory, later Assyrian documents saw this time as one of painful losses of territory. By 1000 BC, Assyria was at the low point of its power, with many previously large settlements lying in ruins and local rulers battling new tribal chiefs for control of lands that were previously part of the empire. The Assyrian heartland continued to remain intact, however, protected due to its geographical remoteness.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The Assyrian kings never ceased to believe that the lost lands would eventually be retaken. In the end, the collapse of the Hittites and the Egyptian lands in the Levant benefitted Assyria; with the old empires shattered, the fragmented territories surrounding the Assyrian heartland would eventually prove to be easy conquests for the Assyrian army. The reign of Ashur-dan II (934–912 BC) effectively terminated the poorly documented second period of Middle Assyrian decline. Multiple inscriptions survive from Ashur-dan's time, several of which describe campaigns in the peripheries of the Assyrian heartland, illustrating that Assyrian power was beginning to resurge. Ashur-dan's campaigns were mainly focused on the northeast and northwest. Among the victories recorded in his inscriptions was the conquest of Katmuḫu, which once again had gained independence during the decline. According to the inscription, Ashur-dan captured Katmuḫu, razed the city's royal palace, brought its king to Arbela, flayed and executed him, and then displayed his skin on the wall of one of his cities. Assyrian reconquest meant that a high level of threat had to be established in order to keep the vassals in line; an explanation for the brutality and violence of certain acts (such as Ashur-dan's treatment of the defeated king) committed by the Assyrian kings. The descriptions of such acts in inscriptions do not necessarily reflect the truth given that they also served as intimidating tools for propaganda and psychological warfare.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The campaigns of Ashur-dan paved the way of grander efforts to restore and expand Assyrian power, beginning in the reign of his son and successor Adad-nirari II (911–891 BC), whose accession conventionally marks the beginning of the succeeding Neo-Assyrian Empire. Although historically sometimes treated as a separate and distinct entity from the Middle Assyrian Empire, the Neo-Assyrian Empire was clearly the direct continuation of the Middle Assyrian civilization given that the line of kings and inhabitation of the Assyrian heartland was continuous. The inscriptions of early Neo-Assyrian kings typically treat their wars of expansions as reconquests of territory lost during the decline of the Middle Assyrian Empire.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: In the preceding Old Assyrian period, the Assyrian government was in many respects an oligarchy, with the king being a permanent, but not the only prominent, actor, presiding over the meetings of Assur's main administrative body, the city assembly. Perhaps partly inspired by the period of more autocratic rule when Assur was under the rule of the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I 1808–1776 BC, the influence of the city assembly had disappeared by the time of Ashur-uballit I's accession. Although the old traditional royal title "iššiak Aššur" ("governor [on behalf] of Ashur") continued to be used at times throughout the period, the Middle Assyrian kings had little in common with their Old Assyrian predecessors and were very much sole rulers. As Assyria's power grew, the kings began to employ an increasingly sophisticated array of royal titles far more autocratic in nature than the old "iššiak Aššur". Ashur-uballit I was the first to assume the style "šar māt Aššur" ("king of the land of Ashur") and his grandson Arik-den-ili introduced the style "šarru dannu" ("strong king"). The kings during Assyria's first major phase of expansion accelerated the adoption of new titles. Adad-nirari I's inscriptions required 32 lines to be devoted just to his titles, which included, among others, "nêr dapnūti ummān kaššî qutî lullumî u šubarî" ("defeater of the aggressive armies of the Kassites, Qutû, Lullumu, and Šubaru"), "šakanki ilāni" ("appointee of the gods") and "rubā’u ellu" ("holy prince"). The development reached its peak under the wide-ranging Tukulti-Ninurta I, who used various styles denoting the size of his domain, such as "king of Assyria and Karduniash", "king of Sumer and Akkad", "king of the Upper and the Lower Seas" and "king of all peoples". Royal titles and epithets were often highly reflective of current political developments and the achievements of individual kings; during the periods of decline, the royal titles used typically grew more simple again, only to grow grander once more as Assyrian power experienced resurgences.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: In addition to their roles as military leaders, the kings were religiously significant. Already in the Old Assyrian period, the kings were regarded to be the stewards of the Assyrian national deity Ashur, though this began to manifest itself even more in the Middle Assyrian period. The earliest Assyrian king known to have explicitly referred to himself as a priest ("šangû") was Adad-nirari I, who among his titles used the epithet "šangû ṣıru ša Enlil" ("exalted priest of the god Enlil"). Several sources emphasize the Assyrian king being close to Ashur, and their role as intermediaries between Ashur and mankind. The king was expected to, in conjunction with the Assyrian people, provide offerings to the god. Middle Assyrian kings were also expected to care for all the other gods; Shalmaneser I in his inscriptions mentions that he provided offerings for "all of the gods". From the time of Ashur-resh-ishi I onwards, the religious and cultic duties of the king were pushed somewhat into the background, though they were still prominently mentioned in accounts of building and restoring temples. Assyrian titles and epithets in inscriptions from then on generally emphasize the kings as powerful warriors.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Middle Assyrian kings were the supreme judicial authority in the empire, though they generally appear to have been less concerned with their role as judges than their predecessors in the Old Assyrian period were. The kings were however expected to ensure the welfare and prosperity of the Assyrian lands and people, often referring to themselves as "shepherds" ("re’û"). Middle Assyrian royal inscriptions also pay special attention to public works, with the building and repairs of temples being the primary concern, but construction of other works, such as palaces, also being mentioned. When rebuilding or constructing buildings, the kings often laid down foundation deposits with their names. Later rulers were expected to honor the works of their predecessors and anyone who did not was cursed. One of Tukulti-Ninurta's foundation deposits, relating to the construction of Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, included the message "He who destroys that wall, discards my monumental inscriptions and my inscribed name, abandons Kar‐Tukulti‐Ninurta, my capital, and neglects (it): may the god Ashur, my lord, overthrow his sovereignty, smash his weapons, bring about the defeat of his army, diminish his borders, decree the end of his reign, darken his days, vitiate his years (and) destroy his name and his seed from the land".


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Middle Assyrian royal palaces were prominent symbols of royal power, and the centers and main institutions of the Assyrian government. Though the main palace was located in Assur, kings had palaces at several different sites which they often traveled between. The most important surviving source concerning Middle Assyrian royal palaces are the Middle Assyrian palace decrees, a set of documents composed either late in the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I or in the reigns of his immediate successors. These documents contain a large number of regulations on the personnel of the palaces and their roles and duties, in particular the women. These regulations differentiate between the "wife of the king" ("aššat šarre"), what modern historians would term the "queen", and a group of "palace women" ("sinniltu ša ekalle"), i.e. a royal harem composed of women of lower rank. The life and court politics within the palaces followed strict rules, overseen by a council of appointed office holders closely linked to the royal court. Officials included "provincial governors" ("bēl pāḫete"), "palace administrators" ("rab ekalle"), "palace heralds" ("nāgir ekalle"), "chief supervisors" ("rab zāriqe") and "physicians of the Inner Quarters" ("asû ša betā nū"). These councilors supervised the conduct of other courtiers, who were divided into "ša-rēši" and "mazzāz pāni". The meaning of these designations are poorly understood, and some individuals are attested with both. It is possible that the "ša-rēši" were eunuchs, though this is disputed. The "mazzāz pāni" may have been close friends and confidants of the king.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The surviving palace decrees deal with rules and daily lives of the people who lived in the palaces. They include texts concerning admission requirements for male personnel and whether they should have access to the harem, the proper behavior of the palace women (both within and outside the palaces), custody of property and dispute resolution. Among the Middle Assyrian kings, Ninurta-apal-Ekur was responsible for a particularly large amount of decrees, perhaps because he wished to restore order after his usurpation of the throne. Curiously, one of his decrees is that any palace woman who "crused a descendant of Tukulti-Ninurta" should be mutilated; despite Ninurta-apal-Ekur having taken the throne by force from Enlil-kudurri-usur, the last of Tukulti-Ninurta I's descendants to rule Assyria.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The chief administrator of the palaces were the stewards ("mašennu"), identified in writings as "great stewards" ("mašennu rabi’u") from the late 12th century BC onwards to distinguish from stewards of smaller households. The stewards were in charge of the large storage facilities of the palaces, where craftsmen produced various products gathered from raw materials. The stewards also served as organizers of long-distance trade. Their main duty was to provie the palaces with metals, animals, animal skins and luzury goods (such as jewelry, wooden objects, textiles and perfume).


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Recognized as the intermediary between mankind and the gods, the Assyrian king was the head of the administration of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian period. Though there is no evidence that the Middle Assyrian kings had a cabinet of his highest officials, as might have been the case in the succeeding Neo-Assyrian period, the kings did surround themselves with a group of counselors that advised on politics and decisions. Among the most prominent such counselors were the viziers ("sukkallu"), who at times involved themselves in diplomatic matters. From at least the time of Shalmaneser I onwards there were also grand viziers ("sukkallu rabi’u"), superior to the ordinary viziers, who often also served as vassal rulers of the lands of the former Mitanni kingdom. The grand viziers were typically members of the royal family. Like many other administrative and bureaucratic offices, the position was hereditary, with sons succeeding their fathers. Other bureaucrats were drawn from the "ša-rēši" of the palaces and were tasked with various fields of responsibility to aid the king in keeping contact with various institutions throughout the empire, including keeping track of crop yields and the number of farm animals, allocating royal gifts, certifying private sales of land, and noting down amounts of tribute, prisoners of war and levies. If they so wished, the king could intervene at any level at any time, either in person, through a command, by issuing a decree, or by sending a representative. The most powerful officials had representatives of their own, termed "qepū".


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The territory of the Middle Assyrian Empire was divided into a set of provinces or districts ("pāḫutu"), first attested during the reign of Ashur-uballit I. In some 13th-century BC sources there also appears another type of subdivision, the "ḫalṣu" (fortifications/districts), but these were soon thereafter replaced completely with "pāḫutu". The number of provinces changed as the territory of Assyria expanded and contracted, with the highest number of provinces being recorded in the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I. Each province was headed by a provincial governor ("bel pāḫete") who was responsible for the local economy and public safety and order. Another important task of the governors was to store and distribute the goods produced in the province, which were inspected and collected by royal representatives once a year. Through this system, the central government remained informed about current stocks of supplies throughout the empire. The governors also supervised local craftsmen and farmers, organizing their activities and ensuring that they had enough food and other supplies to live. If rations were low, governors requested support from the king and other governors, and were in turn required to provide such support for others as well. In addition to taxes, provinces had to supply offerings to the god Ashur, marking their affiliation and allegiance to the Assyrian government. The offerings were quite small and mainly symbolic.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Some regions of the Assyrian realm were outside of the provincial framework but still subject to the Assyrian kings, these included vassal states ruled by lesser kings, such as the Mitanni lands governed by the grand viziers. Under the provincial governors, cities also had their own administrations, headed by mayors ("ḫazi’ānu"), appointed by the kings but representing the local city elite. Similar to the governors, though less important, the mayors were mostly responsible for local economy, including overseeing rations, agriculture and organization of labor.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The Assyrians also employed what they referred to as the "ilku" system, not entirely unlike the feudalism of Medieval Europe; the Assyrian kings had claims to most of the empire's lands, including private property, so in turn for providing attendants and personnel with arable lands to sustain themselves, the kings expected their service in return. The extent and nature of these services varied and was determined by the royal administration. If a landowner died or refused their agreed-upon duties, his families could lose the lands they had been given. It is not clear what factors determined the nature of the services, nor what determined how much land a particular individual or family were given. The most high-ranking officials were typically provided with large states, perhaps including entire villages and their people. In theory, the system ensured close links between landowners and their land, but numerous factors destabilized the system. These included that the duties did not have to be exercised in person, but could be fulfilled by paying money or by sending a representative, and that lands could be sold to a purchaser, who then had to take on the duties the previous owner had been demanded to undertake. Over long periods of time, this meant that the connection between duties and overseeing the land allotted was severed.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: Some influential Assyrian officials were as rewards for their services granted "dunnu" settlements, large estates that functioned as large farmsteads and were exempt from taxation on their produce. Such estates are most common in the empire's western territories, were local governors and representatives required greater autonomy to deal with local geopolitics and challenges. The most well-known site today that at one point functioned as a "dunnu" estate is Tell Sabi Abyad. Documents describe the estate as a large agricultural one, comprising about 3,600 hectares and employing around 100 free farmers and their families, as well as 100 unfree ("šiluhlu̮") farmers and their families.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: In order for the large construction projects and military activities of the Middle Assyrian kings to have been possible, the Middle Assyrian Empire employed a sophisticated system of recruiting and administrating personnel. To keep track of and administrate the diverse people under imperial control, a specific type of waxed tablets, dubbed "le’ānū" ("le’ū" in singular form), were employed. These tablets, attested from the time of Adad-nirari I onwards, summarized data on the available manpower, calculated required rations and provisions and documented responsibilities and tasks. According to administrative records on construction work at the royal palaces of Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta and Assur, these projects were completed with workforces of about 2,000 men, divided into recruits from various cities ("ḫurādu"), mostly gathered through the "ilku" system, engineers or architects ("šalimpāju"), carpenters and religious functionaries.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: The taxation system of the Middle Assyrian Empire is not yet fully understood. Though tax collectors are known to have existed, records of taxes being collected and what these were are lacking; the only currently confidently attested direct tax paid by individuals was an import tax, levied on imports of goods from foreign states. In at least one case, this tax amounted to about 25 percent of the purchase price. Some documents also mention the "ginā’u" tax, which had some connection to the provincial governments. Other economically important sources of money for the empire included plundering conquered territories, which reduced the cost of the campaign that had conquered them, continuous tribute ("madattu") from vassal states, as well as "audience gifts" ("nāmurtu") from foreign rulers and powerful individuals. These gifts could sometimes be carry large value for the empire itself; one documents attests that a gift given to Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur while he was still a prince in the reign of his father Ashur-dan I included 914 sheep.


title: Middle Assyrian Empire

text: There was no standing army in the Middle Assyrian period. Instead, the majority of soldiers used for military engagements were mobilized only when they were needed, such as for civil projects or in the time of campaigns. Large amounts of soldiers could be recruited and mobilized relative quickly on the basis of legal obligations and regulations. It is impossible to ascertain from the surviving inscriptions the extent to which Middle Assyrian levies were trained for their tasks, but it is unlikely that the Assyrian army would be able to be as successful as it was in the reigns of figures like Tukulti-Ninurta I and Tiglath-Pileser I without trained soldiers. In addition to the levies, who are called "ḫurādu" or "ṣābū ḫurādātu" in the inscriptions, there was also a more experienced class of "professional" soldiers, called the "ṣābū kaṣrūtu". It is not clear what exactly separated the "ṣābū kaṣrūtu" from the other soldiers; perhaps the term included some certain branches of the army, such as archers and charioteers, who required more extensive training than normal foot soldiers, probably part of the "ṣābū ḫurādātu". It is also clear from inscriptions that bands of mercenaries were recruited for some campaigns.