Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, taken to give way to Middle Aramaic by the 3rd century (a conventional date is the rise of the Sassanid Empire in 224 CE).Emerging as the language of the Aramaean city-states of the Levant in the Early Iron Age, Old Aramaic was adopted as a lingua franca (besides Assyrian) in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and in this role was inherited for official use by the Achaemenid Empire during Classical Antiquity.