Sennacherib’s Experiment: Cotton Reaches the West
G. Goossens recalls the Assyrian monarchs, noted for their ferocity, great libraries, and achievements in agriculture and engineering.
At the end of the 8th century B.C, when the Assyrian Empire ranged from Iran to Egypt and from Anatolia to Babylon, while Greek colonization had just encircled the Mediterranean, and Rome was slowly emerging as a small city-state, the hegemony of civilization was about to pass from East to West. The Assyrian Empire was then at its height, and with complacency King Sargon (721-705 B.C.) enumerated his titles and the countries over which he claimed dominion: