has yet come to light in surviving documents, even by the Babylonians who vanquished them. Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562) appears to have employed an Assyrian scribe or two at his court, as Babylonian documents from 603 and 600 have been found in the Neo-Assyrian dialect.44 But overall, Assyria was simply swallowed up by the Neo-Babylonians, not to reemerge. Liverani captures the upheaval well: “What had once been the center of the world became a border area between conflicting empires; what had once