sentences:  During the various periods of Assyrian conquest, such as the Assyrian Empire of Shamshi-Adad I (1813–1750 BC), Middle Assyrian Empire (1391–1056 BC) and Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC), Assyrian imperial propaganda proclaimed the supremacy of Ashur and declared that the conquered peoples had been abandoned by their own gods.When Assyria conquered Babylon in the Sargonid period (8th–7th centuries BC), Assyrian scribes began to write the name of Ashur with the cuneiform signs AN.ŠAR2, the ideograms for "whole heaven" in Sumerian, simplified into AN.ŠAR2 in Assyrian cuneiform, which came to be pronounced "Aššur" in the Assyrian dialect of Akkadian, the language of Assyria and Babylonia.The intention seems to have been to put Aššur at the head of the Babylonian pantheon, where Anshar and his counterpart Kishar ("whole earth") preceded even Enlil and Ninlil.