Old Assyrian Empire to place the settlement along the southern bend of the Kızılırmak River. Alişar Hüyük, which has also been suggested as a location, is an archeological site near the present-day village of Alişar. Alişar Hüyük was occupied from the Copper Age (c. 5000 BC — c. 3300 BC) then well into the Bronze Age (c. 3300 BC – c. 1200 BC.) A number of Hittite-era cuneiform tablets written in the Old Assyrian cuneiform script of the Cappadocia-type have been found here. Mention in those tablets of “Ankuwa” has caused speculation that the archaeological site is the Ankuwa mentioned in other Hittite
Middle Assyrian Empire and the source of the Khabur river, but by the end of his reign many of the areas of Syria and Phoenicia-Canaan to the west of these regions as far as the Mediterranean, previously under firm Assyrian control, were eventually lost by the Assyrian Empire. The Bronze Age Collapse from 1200 BC to 900 BC was a dark age for the entire Near East, North Africa, Asia Minor, Caucasus, Mediterranean, and Balkan regions, with great upheavals and mass movements of people. Assyria and its empire were not unduly affected by these tumultuous events for 150 years, perhaps the only ancient