The Battle of Nineveh is conventionally dated between 613 to 611 BCE, with 612 BCE being the most supported date.

An allied army composed of Medes and Persians, rebelling Chaldeans and Babylonians, together with Scythians and Cimmerians, besieges it and sacks it, leading to the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire over the next six years as the dominant state in the Ancient Near East, as well as the destruction of what is at this time the greatest city in the world, covering 750 hectares.

After this battle the archeological record shows that the capital of the once mighty Assyrian Empire was extensively de-urbanized and depopulated.Babylon becomes the imperial center of Mesopotamia for the first time in over a thousand years, leading to the Neo-Babylonian empire, claiming imperial continuity as a new dynasty.