Editing Assyria (section)

=== Personal identity and continuity ===
{{Main|Assyrian people|Assyrian continuity}}
[[File:Ashurbanipal wall relief, 7th century BC, from Nineveh, the British Museum.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35 |A 7th-century BC relief depicting [[Ashurbanipal]] ({{reign}}669–631&nbsp;BC) and two royal attendants]]
[[Ethnicity]] and [[culture]] are largely based in self-perception and self-designation.{{sfn|Novák|2016|p=132}} A distinct Assyrian identity seems to have formed already in the Old Assyrian period, when distinctly Assyrian burial practices, foods and dress codes are attested{{Sfn|Düring|2020|p=39}} and Assyrian documents appear to consider the inhabitants of Assur to be a distinct cultural group.{{sfn|Michel|2017|p=81}} A wider Assyrian identity appears to have spread across northern Mesopotamia under the Middle Assyrian Empire, since later writings concerning the reconquests of the early Neo-Assyrian kings refer to some of their wars as liberating the Assyrian people of the cities they reconquered.{{Sfn|Düring|2020|p=145}}

Surviving evidence suggests that the ancient Assyrians had a relatively open definition of what it meant to be Assyrian. Modern ideas such as a person's ethnic background, or the Roman idea of legal citizenship, do not appear to have been reflected in ancient Assyria.{{sfn|Novák|2016|p=132}} Although Assyrian accounts and artwork of warfare frequently describe and depict foreign enemies, they are not depicted with different physical features,{{Efn|The only example of ancient Assyrian art depicting foreigners with different physical features than the Assyrians themselves is the reliefs made in the reign of Ashurbanipal. Possibly influenced by Egyptian art, which did depict foreigners differently, Ashurbanipal's reliefs show Elamites and Urartians as stockier, Urartians with larger noses, and Arabs with long straight hair (in contrast to the curly hair of the Assyrians). Inscriptions and annals from Ashurbanipal's time however offer no evidence that foreigners were seen as racially or ethnically different in terms of biology or [[physiognomy]].{{sfn|Bahrani|2006|p=57}}}} but rather with different clothing and equipment. Assyrian accounts describe enemies as [[Barbarian|barbaric]] only in terms of their behavior, as lacking correct religious practices, and as doing wrongdoings against Assyria.{{Sfn|Bahrani|2006|pp=56–57}}

All things considered, there does not appear to have been any well-developed concepts of ethnicity or [[Race (human categorization)|race]] in ancient Assyria.{{Sfn|Bahrani|2006|pp=56–57}} What mattered for a person to be seen by others as Assyrian was mainly fulfillment of obligations, such as military service, being affiliated with the Assyrian Empire politically, and maintaining loyalty to the Assyrian king. One of the inscriptions that attest to this view, as well as royal Assyrian policies enacted to encourage assimilation and cultural mixture, is Sargon II's account of the construction of Dur-Sharrukin.{{sfn|Novák|2016|p=132}} One of the passages of the inscription reads:{{sfn|Novák|2016|p=132}}

{{Blockquote| quote = Subjects of (all) four (parts of the world), of foreign tongues, with different languages without similarity, people from mountainous regions and plains, so many (different people) as the light of the gods,{{efn|Referring to the sun god [[Shamash]].{{sfn|Novák|2016|p=132}}}} lord above all, supervises, I let dwell inside [my new city] on the command of Ashur my lord [...]. Born Assyrians, experienced in all professions, I set above them as supervisors and guides to teach them how to work properly and respect the gods and the king.{{sfn|Novák|2016|p=132}}}}

Although the text clearly differentiates the new settlers from those that had been "born Assyrians", the aim of Sargon's policy was also clearly to transform the new settlers into Assyrians through appointing supervisors and guides to teach them.{{sfn|Novák|2016|p=132}} Though the expansion of the Assyrian Empire, in combination with resettlements and deportations, changed the ethno-cultural make-up of the Assyrian heartland, there is no evidence to suggest that the more ancient Assyrian inhabitants of the land ever disappeared or became restricted to a small elite, nor that the ethnic and cultural identity of the new settlers was anything other than "Assyrian" after one or two generations.{{sfn|Novák|2016|p=132}}

{{Multiple image
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| image1 = AssyrianAkitu2008.jpg
| image2 = An Assyrian girl celebrating Akitu DSF8475.jpg
| footer = The [[Akitu]] festival being celebrated in [[Duhok]] in 2008, and an Assyrian woman celebrating Akitu in 2019
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Although the use of the term "Assyrian" by the modern [[Assyrian people]] has historically been the target of misunderstanding and controversy, both politically and academically,{{Sfn|Butts|2017|p=599}} Assyrian continuity is generally scholarly accepted{{sfn|Novák|2016|p=132}}{{sfn|Benjamen|2022|p=2}}{{Sfn|Parpola|2004|pp=16–17}}{{sfn|Saggs|1984|p=290}}{{sfn|Biggs|2005|p=10}}{{sfn|Travis|2010|p=149}}{{sfn|Jupp|2001|p=175}}{{sfn|Odisho|1988|p=10}} based on both historical{{sfn|Hauser|2017|p=241}} and genetic evidence{{sfn|Travis|2010|p=149}} in the sense that the modern Assyrians are regarded to be descendants of the population of the ancient Assyrian Empire.{{sfn|Benjamen|2022|p=2}}<!-- I.e. they are generally regarded to be the descendants of people who lived under the rule of the Assyrian Empire; Assyrian inscriptions suggest that all people under Assyrian rule who adopted Assyrian culture were officially seen as Assyrians. --> Though the ancient Akkadian language and cuneiform script did not survive for long in Assyria after the empire was destroyed in 609 BC, Assyrian culture clearly did.{{sfn|Novák|2016|p=132}} The old Assyrian religion continued to be practised at Assur until the 3rd century AD, and at other sites for centuries thereafter, gradually losing ground to [[Christianity]]. At [[Mardin]], believers in the old religion are known from as late as the 18th century.{{sfn|Parpola|2004|p=21}}

Individuals with names harkening back to ancient Mesopotamia are also attested at Assur until it was sacked for the last time in AD 240{{Sfn|Livingstone|2009|p=154}} and at other sites as late as the 13th century.{{sfn|Jackson|2020|loc=Chapter 1}} Though many foreign states ruled over Assyria in the millennia following the empire's fall, there is no evidence of any large scale influx of immigrants that replaced the original population,{{sfn|Novák|2016|p=132}} which instead continued to make up a significant portion of the region's people until the Mongol and Timurid massacres in the late 14th century.{{sfn|Filoni|2017|p=37}}

In pre-modern Syriac-language (the type of Aramaic used in Christian Mesopotamian writings) sources, the typical self-designations used are ''ʾārāmāyā'' ("Aramean")<!-- this is not denial of continuity - as is made expressly clear in the rest of the section continuity is supported and suryāyā is regarded to derive from "Assyrian"; this does not mean that the multiple names used in pre-modern sources should not be mentioned  --> and ''suryāyā'', with the term ''ʾāthorāyā'' ("Assyrian") rarely being used as a self-designation. The terms Assyria (''ʾāthor'') and Assyrian (''ʾāthorāyā'') were however used in several senses in pre-modern times; most notably being used for the ancient Assyrians and for the land surrounding Nineveh, and for the city of [[Mosul]], built next to Nineveh's ruins. In Syriac translations of the Bible, the term ''ʾāthor'' is also used to refer to the ancient Assyrian Empire. In the sense of a citizen of Mosul, the designation ''ʾāthorāyā'' were used for some individuals in the pre-modern period.{{Sfn|Butts|2017|p=600}}

The reluctance of Christians to use ''ʾāthorāyā'' as a self-designation could perhaps be explained by the Assyrians described in the Bible being prominent enemies of Israel;{{Efn|This phenomenon does not only apply to the Assyrians; the Christian Greek populace of the [[Byzantine Empire]] in the Middle Ages overwhelmingly self-identified as Romans (''Rhōmaîoi'') rather than Greeks since the term "Greek" was associated with the ancient Pagan Greeks.{{sfn|Cameron|2009|p=7}}}} the term ''ʾāthorāyā'' was sometimes employed in Syriac writings as a term for enemies of Christians.{{Sfn|Butts|2017|p=600}} In this context, the term was sometimes applied to the Persians of the Sasanian Empire. The 4th-century Syriac writer [[Ephrem the Syrian]] for instance referred to the Sasanian Empire as "filthy ''ʾāthor'', mother of corruption". In a similar fashion, the term was sometimes applied to the later Muslim rulers.{{Sfn|Butts|2017|p=601}}

The self-designation ''suryāyā'', ''suryāyē'' or ''sūrōyē'',{{sfn|Benjamen|2022|p=2}} sometimes translated as "Syrian",{{Sfn|Butts|2017|p=601}} is believed to be derived from the Akkadian term ''assūrāyu'' ("Assyrian"), which was sometimes even in ancient times rendered in the shorter form ''sūrāyu''.{{sfn|Benjamen|2022|p=2}}{{Sfn|Parpola|2004|pp=16–17}} Some medieval Syriac Christian documents used ''āsūrāyē'' and ''sūrāyē'', rather than ''āthōrāyē'', also for the ancient Assyrians.{{Sfn|acsya.org|}} Medieval and modern [[Armenian language|Armenian]] sources also connected ''assūrāyu'' and ''suryāyā'', consistently referring to the Aramaic-speaking Christians of Mesopotamia and Syria as ''Asori''.{{sfn|Becker|2015|p=328}}{{Sfn|Butts|2017|p=602}}

Despite the complex issue of self-designations, pre-modern Syriac-language sources at times identified positively with the ancient Assyrians{{sfn|Hauser|2017|p=241}} and drew connections between the ancient empire and themselves.{{Sfn|Butts|2017|p=601}} Most prominently, ancient Assyrian kings and figures long appeared in local folklore and literary tradition{{Sfn|Kalimi|Richardson|2014|p=5}} and claims of descent from ancient Assyrian royalty were forwarded both for figures in folklore and by actual living high-ranking members of society in northern Mesopotamia.{{sfn|Payne|2012|p=|pp=205, 217}} Visits by missionaries from western churches to the Assyrian heartland in the 18th century likely contributed to the Assyrian people more strongly relating their self-designation and identity to ancient Assyria.{{Sfn|Butts|2017|p=602}}

In the context of interactions with westerners who connected them to the ancient Assyrians, and due to an increasing number of atrocities and massacres directed against them, the Assyrian people experienced a cultural "awakening" or "renaissance" toward the end of the 19th century, which led to the development of a national ideology more strongly rooted in their descent from ancient Assyria and a re-adoption of self-designations such as ''ʾāthorāyā'' and ''ʾāsurāyā''.{{Sfn|Butts|2017|p=603}} Today, ''sūryōyō'' or ''sūrāyā'' are the predominant self-designations used by Assyrians in their native language, though they are typically translated as "Assyrian" rather than "Syrian".{{Sfn|Parpola|2004|p=11}}{{Efn|For alternate names and the name debate in the Syriac Christian community, see [[terms for Syriac Christians]]}}