A living archive for the names, places, and stories encoded across generations.
Begin in the Assyrian heartland—Ashur, Kalhu, Dur-Sharrukin, and Nineveh—then follow what families carried forward: names, villages, faith, language, and kinship.
In the Northwest Palace at Kalhu, the stylized tree appears beside the king and winged protective beings. Its exact meaning is debated, but the image is closely tied to royal ritual and the flourishing of the land.
Kalhu (Nimrud) · Reign of Ashurnasirpal II, 883–859 BCEAt Nineveh, Ashurbanipal assembled more than 30,000 cuneiform tablets and fragments—royal letters, medicine, divination, astronomy, literature, and the Epic of Gilgamesh—creating the greatest surviving scholarly collection of ancient Mesopotamia.
Nineveh · 7th century BCEAshur was the religious and first imperial capital. Kalhu, Dur-Sharrukin, and Nineveh became royal centers whose palaces, reliefs, archives, engineering, and administration projected Assyrian power across Western Asia.
Northern Mesopotamia · The Tigris heartlandEmpires fall, but people endure. Assyrian identity continues through families, churches, language, villages, songs, food, records, and the names handed from one generation to the next—across the homeland and the diaspora.
Ancient homeland · Living global communityBegin with yourself. Follow every branch, village, photograph, and memory as far back as your family can remember.
