This paper is a study of descriptions of foreign conquest of the Mesopotamian centre in two Sumer... more This paper is a study of descriptions of foreign conquest of the Mesopotamian centre in two Sumerian-Akkadian bilingual texts concerning Tukulti-Ninurta I and Nebuchadnezzar I. Both texts present these deviant spaces resulting from these conquests in terms of a peripheralization of the centre. Having established similarities in the presentation of the topoi in the two texts, the paper then analyses the different contexts in which these topoi are placed in the two texts to explore how their significance differs. In the Tukulti-Ninurta Bilingual, the conquest of Assyria by its enemies would create a deviant space at the centre, and the god Ashur must therefore prevent it. In the Nebuchadnezzar Bilingual, Babylonia has already become a deviant space. The abandonment of the land by its gods and its destruction by foreign enemies therefore serves as a necessary transitional stage in the transformation of deviant space into correct space.
This paper is a study of the topos of the king burning captives in the Assyrian royal inscription... more This paper is a study of the topos of the king burning captives in the Assyrian royal inscriptions. This punishment is notable for both its rarity and its cruelty, being the only time that the royal inscriptions describe violence towards children. I approach this topic in terms of Donald Black's model of social control, in which the form and severity of social control, including violence, varies in relation to the "social geometry" that separates the parties involved in a dispute or conflict. I argue that in the royal inscriptions burning is inflicted on those that the Assyrians saw as "uncivilized": peoples inhabiting poorer cities in mountain regions who lacked the infrastructure necessary to stockpile prestige goods, such as precious metals, and were separated at a greater distance from Assyria by "social geometry" than other foreigners. These findings provide a useful insight into Assyrian conceptions of the other and give a better understanding of the variations in the severity of punishments inflicted by the Assyrians on their enemies.
This paper is a study of the rebellion against the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II in the city of ... more This paper is a study of the rebellion against the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II in the city of Ḫalziluḫa in 882 bc, which is an unusual instance of a rebellion by Assyrians being recorded in the Assyrian royal inscriptions. This paper explores the significance of the rebellion from two angles: the ideological problem of rebellion by Assyrians, and the psychological impact on Assyrian troops of killing their fellow Assyrians. Within the ideology of the royal inscriptions, Assyrians did not normally rebel against the incumbent king, who was in all ways presented as a model ruler. It will be argued that Ashurnasirpal therefore made efforts in his inscriptions to stress that the Assyrian rebels in Ḫalziluḫa inhabited territory that had been lost to Assyria prior to his reign, and had become “de-Assyrianised” and “uncivilised.” It will be argued that a similar message was conveyed to the Assyrian soldiers through the ceremonies surrounding the creation of a monument at the source of the River Subnat, and that this message helped the soldiers to “morally disengage” from the act of killing other Assyrians, thus avoiding “moral self-sanctions” for an otherwise morally problematic act. Full article at: https://doi.org/10.1017/irq.2020.4
The inscription of Adad-nārārī II commemorating the renovation of the Gula Temple at Aššur, 2 her... more The inscription of Adad-nārārī II commemorating the renovation of the Gula Temple at Aššur, 2 hereafter the "Gula Temple Inscription", is an unusual example of an Assyrian royal inscription. The text contains elements of both the "summary" and "annalistic" styles of royal inscription, beginning with a geographically-ordered summary section outlining the king's earlier campaigns, 3 followed by a chronologically-ordered annalistic account of the later years of his reign. 4 The inclusion of both annalistic and summary sections in a text is not particularly unusual in itself. Several other royal inscriptions, especially those from the early Neo-Assyrian period, contain both summary and annalistic elements. 5 The closest parallel to the structure of the Gula Temple Inscription comes from two inscriptions of Shalmaneser III which each contain a summary section, followed by
Despite the frequency of rebellions against the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib, very few events in... more Despite the frequency of rebellions against the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib, very few events in his annals are described as such. Instead rebels are often described as having never submitted to Sennacherib before. This reluctance to write about rebellion is unusual in Assyrian inscriptions, but has not been commented upon in the previous scholarship. This study investigates the reasons for this peculiarity of Sennacherib's inscriptions. It is argued that the description of rebels in this fashion was intended to draw attention away from the connection between these events and the death of Sennacherib's father, Sargon II. A second instance of a death in Sennacherib's family affecting the content of his inscriptions is also identified. His son Aššur-nādin-šumi's death followed a pair of campaigns to the borders of Tabal, the location of Sargon's death. Because of this it was viewed as a " punishment " for undertaking these campaigns to regions tainted by association with Sargon. After his death, Aššur-nādin-šumi is never mentioned in the same inscription as these campaigns. Although Sennacherib generally avoids mentioning rebellion, overcoming such events was an important facet of Assyrian royal ideology. Because of this, events in some ideologically or historically significant regions are explicitly stated to be rebellions in the annals. Sennacherib's inscriptions therefore demonstrate, perhaps better than those of any other Assyrian king, the two sides of rebellion's ideological importance as both an obstacle overcome by a heroic king, and as a punishment for a poor one. His attempts to obscure some occurrences of rebellion demonstrate a fear of the more negative ideological aspect of rebellion which is not usually present in the inscriptions of other kings. This provides new insight into the factors which influenced the composition of Sennacherib's inscriptions.
This paper is a study of descriptions of foreign conquest of the Mesopotamian centre in two Sumer... more This paper is a study of descriptions of foreign conquest of the Mesopotamian centre in two Sumerian-Akkadian bilingual texts concerning Tukulti-Ninurta I and Nebuchadnezzar I. Both texts present these deviant spaces resulting from these conquests in terms of a peripheralization of the centre. Having established similarities in the presentation of the topoi in the two texts, the paper then analyses the different contexts in which these topoi are placed in the two texts to explore how their significance differs. In the Tukulti-Ninurta Bilingual, the conquest of Assyria by its enemies would create a deviant space at the centre, and the god Ashur must therefore prevent it. In the Nebuchadnezzar Bilingual, Babylonia has already become a deviant space. The abandonment of the land by its gods and its destruction by foreign enemies therefore serves as a necessary transitional stage in the transformation of deviant space into correct space.
This paper is a study of the topos of the king burning captives in the Assyrian royal inscription... more This paper is a study of the topos of the king burning captives in the Assyrian royal inscriptions. This punishment is notable for both its rarity and its cruelty, being the only time that the royal inscriptions describe violence towards children. I approach this topic in terms of Donald Black's model of social control, in which the form and severity of social control, including violence, varies in relation to the "social geometry" that separates the parties involved in a dispute or conflict. I argue that in the royal inscriptions burning is inflicted on those that the Assyrians saw as "uncivilized": peoples inhabiting poorer cities in mountain regions who lacked the infrastructure necessary to stockpile prestige goods, such as precious metals, and were separated at a greater distance from Assyria by "social geometry" than other foreigners. These findings provide a useful insight into Assyrian conceptions of the other and give a better understanding of the variations in the severity of punishments inflicted by the Assyrians on their enemies.
This paper is a study of the rebellion against the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II in the city of ... more This paper is a study of the rebellion against the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II in the city of Ḫalziluḫa in 882 bc, which is an unusual instance of a rebellion by Assyrians being recorded in the Assyrian royal inscriptions. This paper explores the significance of the rebellion from two angles: the ideological problem of rebellion by Assyrians, and the psychological impact on Assyrian troops of killing their fellow Assyrians. Within the ideology of the royal inscriptions, Assyrians did not normally rebel against the incumbent king, who was in all ways presented as a model ruler. It will be argued that Ashurnasirpal therefore made efforts in his inscriptions to stress that the Assyrian rebels in Ḫalziluḫa inhabited territory that had been lost to Assyria prior to his reign, and had become “de-Assyrianised” and “uncivilised.” It will be argued that a similar message was conveyed to the Assyrian soldiers through the ceremonies surrounding the creation of a monument at the source of the River Subnat, and that this message helped the soldiers to “morally disengage” from the act of killing other Assyrians, thus avoiding “moral self-sanctions” for an otherwise morally problematic act. Full article at: https://doi.org/10.1017/irq.2020.4
The inscription of Adad-nārārī II commemorating the renovation of the Gula Temple at Aššur, 2 her... more The inscription of Adad-nārārī II commemorating the renovation of the Gula Temple at Aššur, 2 hereafter the "Gula Temple Inscription", is an unusual example of an Assyrian royal inscription. The text contains elements of both the "summary" and "annalistic" styles of royal inscription, beginning with a geographically-ordered summary section outlining the king's earlier campaigns, 3 followed by a chronologically-ordered annalistic account of the later years of his reign. 4 The inclusion of both annalistic and summary sections in a text is not particularly unusual in itself. Several other royal inscriptions, especially those from the early Neo-Assyrian period, contain both summary and annalistic elements. 5 The closest parallel to the structure of the Gula Temple Inscription comes from two inscriptions of Shalmaneser III which each contain a summary section, followed by
Despite the frequency of rebellions against the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib, very few events in... more Despite the frequency of rebellions against the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib, very few events in his annals are described as such. Instead rebels are often described as having never submitted to Sennacherib before. This reluctance to write about rebellion is unusual in Assyrian inscriptions, but has not been commented upon in the previous scholarship. This study investigates the reasons for this peculiarity of Sennacherib's inscriptions. It is argued that the description of rebels in this fashion was intended to draw attention away from the connection between these events and the death of Sennacherib's father, Sargon II. A second instance of a death in Sennacherib's family affecting the content of his inscriptions is also identified. His son Aššur-nādin-šumi's death followed a pair of campaigns to the borders of Tabal, the location of Sargon's death. Because of this it was viewed as a " punishment " for undertaking these campaigns to regions tainted by association with Sargon. After his death, Aššur-nādin-šumi is never mentioned in the same inscription as these campaigns. Although Sennacherib generally avoids mentioning rebellion, overcoming such events was an important facet of Assyrian royal ideology. Because of this, events in some ideologically or historically significant regions are explicitly stated to be rebellions in the annals. Sennacherib's inscriptions therefore demonstrate, perhaps better than those of any other Assyrian king, the two sides of rebellion's ideological importance as both an obstacle overcome by a heroic king, and as a punishment for a poor one. His attempts to obscure some occurrences of rebellion demonstrate a fear of the more negative ideological aspect of rebellion which is not usually present in the inscriptions of other kings. This provides new insight into the factors which influenced the composition of Sennacherib's inscriptions.
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Papers by Ben Dewar
Full article at: https://doi.org/10.1017/irq.2020.4
Full article at: https://doi.org/10.1017/irq.2020.4