The Assyrian royal list is a list of Assyrian kings, compiled by the Assyrians themselves throughout their millennia-long history. It has come down to us in three copies and two fragments, quite similar to each other.
The first kings, “who lived in tents,” date from the latter part of the third millennium b.e.v. The last king recorded in the lists, Sin-shar-ishkun, died in 612 b.e.v., the date when Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, was taken by the Medes (the ancestors of today's Kurds) and the Neo-Babylonians (i.e., the Chaldeans), after a 4-5 year war of revolt. The date of the taking of Nineveh is the starting date of the Kurdish calendar.
