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Concept
Assyrian continuity
Summary
Assyrian continuity is the study of continuity between the modern Assyrian people, an indigenous ethnic minority in the Middle East, and the people of ancient Assyria and Mesopotamia in general. Assyrian continuity is a key part of the identity of the modern Assyrian people. No archaeological, genetic, linguistic or written historical evidence exists of the original Assyrian and Mesopotamian population being exterminated, removed or replaced in the aftermath of the fall of the Assyrian Empire, modern contemporary scholarship almost unilaterally supports Assyrian continuity, recognizing the modern Assyrians as descendants of the East Aramaic-speaking populations of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Mesopotamia in general, which were composed of both the old native Assyrian population and of settlers in the Assyrian heartland.
Due to a long-standing shortage of sources beyond the Bible and some works by classical authors, many western historians prior to the early 19th century believed Assyrians to have been completely annihilated. Modern Assyriology has increasingly and successfully challenged this perception; today, Assyriologists recognize that Assyrian culture and people clearly survived the violent fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The last period of ancient Assyrian history is now regarded to be the long post-imperial period, during which the Akkadian language gradually went extinct but other aspects of Assyrian culture, such as religion, traditions, and naming patterns, survived in a reduced but highly recognizable form before giving way to Christianity.
The extinction of Akkadian and its replacement with Aramaic does not reflect the disappearance of the original Assyrian population; Aramaic was used not only by settlers but was also adopted by native Assyrians and Babylonians, in time even becoming used by the royal administration itself. In fact, the new language of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Imperial Aramaic, was itself a creation of the empire and its people, and with its retention of an Akkadian grammatical structure and Akkadian words, is distinct from the Aramaic of the Levant.
Official source
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