Old Assyrian Empire which included the power to detain people and confiscate property. At the beginning of the reign of an Assyrian king, the limmu, an appointed royal official, would preside over the New Year festival at the capital city. The eponym dating system was a calendar system for Assyria, for a period of over one thousand years. Every year was associated with the name, an eponym, of the limmu, the individual holding office. The dating system is thought to have originated in the ancient city of Assur, and remained the official dating system in Assyria until the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire
History of the city a primarily religious focus. Some cities had large dense populations, whereas others carried out urban activities in the realms of politics or religion without having large associated populations. Theories that attempt to explain ancient urbanism by a single factor, such as economic benefit, fail to capture the range of variation documented by archaeologists. Ancient Mesopotamia, the area of the Tigris and Euphrates within modern day Iraq and Syria, was home to numerous cities by the third millennium BC. These cities formed the basis of the Sumerian and subsequent cultures. Cities such as Jericho, Uruk, Ur, Ninevah, and Babylon, made legendary