Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

Why were Assyrian armies so powerful? Did the Assyrians produce the ancient world's greatest cultural treasure?

And what should we make of claims that they founded the world's first empire?

Here, in conversation with Spencer Mizzin, Paul Collins of the British Museum,

answers your questions on the ancient civilization.

So Paul, thank you very much for joining us today.

I wondered if you could start by introducing us to the ancient Assyrians.

Who were they? Where was their famous empire based?

And what kind of time frame are we talking about here?

So the ancient Assyrians really have their origins as far back as 5,000 years ago.

We're looking at a period around 2,800 BC when the city of Asher on the river Tigris,

in what is today northern Iraq became the center of a

sort of major trading center. They dominated a crossing of the river Tigris and so the inhabitants

of the city started to become very wealthy. And it's really from that beginning that we start

to see the Assyrians reaching out across the Middle

East initially as merchants and traders, but eventually, after a couple of thousand years,

developing a powerful military empire which came to dominate the entire Middle East.

Would it be possible? I know this empire spans a vast amount of time, but just to give our listeners

a real framework of the rise and fall of the empire, is there any way you could give us sort of

the five main landmark events in the story of ancient Assyria?

In a choice of finding sort of milestones to chart the rise and fall of

Assyria, I think I would begin in the 14th century BC, so around 1350 BC, when a king called

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