the assyrian presence in iran goes back 4,000 years to ancient times, and assyria was involved in the history of ancient iran even before the arrival of the modern iranian peoples to the region circa 1000 bc. during the old assyrian empire (c.2025-1750 bc) and middle assyrian empire (1365-1020 bc) the assyrians ruled over parts of "pre-iranic" northern and western iran. the neo-assyrian empire (911-605 bc) saw assyria conquer the iranic persians, medes and parthians into their empire, together with the ancient "pre-iranic" elamites, kassites, manneans and gutians, and also the iranic cimmerians of asia minor and scythians of the caucasus. the home of the assyrians in iran has traditionally been along the western shore of lake urmia from the salmas area to the urmia plain.