Finally, the city of Assur wakes up and shakes off the dust of its centuries long obscurity, rising from minor Mitanni vassal to major world player in a single generation, thanks to the personal skill of king Assur-Uballit I. This is an episode of glorious conquest, and also one where we get to take a look at the bitter personal costs of those conquests. All this conquest is augmented expertly by some fascinating, though not always successful, diplomacy. Also, a door gets stolen, which apparently upset the Assyrians for generations to come.
For those interested in a bit of Assyria review, Assyrian history up until this point can be broken into three sections, the merchant empire, followed by Shamsi-Adad the conqueror, followed by centuries of relative obscurity.
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