The concrete expression of the Assyrian imperial ideology can be found in its celebrative system. The latter was directed to both an internal and external audience, while we stand as its anomalous and accidental audience. Scholars have often wondered about the actual accessibility of these celebrative expressions to their intended audience. In particular, scholars have wondered about the problem of the accessibility of royal inscription to a largely illiterate public (since cuneiform remained a knowledge reserved for the scribal class). Those who could access these texts and understand them in full were mainly those who wrote them. From a more practical point of view, the placement of many inscriptions prevented public access (especially foundation texts, buried under the corners of buildings). The texts themselves are addressed to a surreal or as yet inaccessible audience, such as the gods or future kings. These observations are indeed correct, but it still remains impossible to separate the overall aim of the Assyrian celebrative system, namely, to justify the king’s actions (which is evident to anyone looking at any Assyrian celebrative inscription), from its ability to reach its target audience. Moreover, the channels and expressions through which this system is known to us are inaccurate (and biased) and do not cover the entire spectrum.
It is necessary, then, to establish the various circles of potential audiences and the corresponding forms of communication. The most internal circle was that of the scribes and palace functionaries. The latter were the administrators and managers of the Assyrian state, and the authors and audience of these texts, in a process of self-education, fundamental for the stability of the empire’s elite. This internal circle was not only the only one able to read these texts, but also the only one able to understand the ideological subtleties written in them. Then, there was a larger circle of residents of the Assyrian cities. Despite their illiteracy, the latter were affected by the content of these celebrative expressions and the reasons provided for the king’s interventions in two ways. Firstly, these messages were orally transmitted. Secondly, they were expressed during celebrations (such as after expeditions or during regular festivals) with parades of prisoners and exotic products. For instance, the ‘letters to Ashur’ could have been written for a public celebration in which the king read his report to the god out loud in the presence of the priesthood and several representatives of the population. This second circle ofAssyrian citizens and foreign visitors (envoys, merchants, and messengers) was also affected by an effective visual channel. The latter was made of the monumental temples and palaces, as well as their decorative scheme, which emphasised Assyrian opulence, power, and might, and the miserable fate (and the ferocious treatment) of rebels.
Finally, there was a third circle, made of farmers living in the countryside. The latter constituted the majority of the population. This circle was not only illiterate, but also lacked the means to participate in festivals in the cities. Therefore, farmers only felt the repercussions of these events and their motivations. They only knew that in the distant capital, which they had heard of, but never seen, the king ensured his good relations with the gods, that dangerous enemies had been removed from the borders, and so on. These mere simplifications of the celebrative apparatus were enough for the position of this circle in the
Assyrian political hierarchy. Therefore, each member of the system received the type of message that he was able to gather, thus receiving a level of understanding of the system that was appropriate to his position. As a secondary and intrusive audience of these messages, we are forced to base our understanding of the Assyrian celebrative apparatus from the expressions reserved for the ‘first’ circle. Therefore, we tend to underestimate the simpler and more effective means implemented to spread the message to the rest of the population.
It has already been mentioned that celebrative texts (such as royal inscriptions, both annals and summaries, which usually were votive inscriptions for new buildings) are quite sophisticated and contain subtle political messages. Admittedly, this is not immediately evident. The texts have a simple narrative structure (which would only become more stylistically complex under Ashurbanipal), based on the obvious cycle starting with an initial offence (a rebellion or other), followed by the decision to intervene and the acquisition of the necessary materials and divine support. The cycle peaked with the victory and the reinstatement of the correct order, which resulted in a triumph and celebration. Each individual episode is repetitive and outcomes are predictable. It seems that the choice of words and phrases used was so rooted in the ancient scribal conventions to leave little space to the narrator’s creativity or the details of the episode. Only when we have various versions of the same episode, we are able to see how the process of rewriting responded to some subtle changes that took place over time, and how the omission or addition of some details did not take place by chance. These changes led to a complete reformulation (or even omission) of episodes that could not be presented the way they were in the past. In other words, the past was constantly rewritten in response to present events. This is the typical way for totalitarian regimes to manipulate the past.
In this regard, titulature was an area displaying visible changes. At first, one gets the impression that titles were chosen at random and taken from a long legacy of ancient titles. Therefore, they were added one on top of the other to emphasise the quantity, rather than the meaning, of titles. On the contrary, the choice of titles was the result of a conscious and ideologically aware selection. Apart from the basic, relatively fixed, titles (such as ‘great king, mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters’), each king chose the titles characterising his policies at the beginning of his reign. These titles were meant either to differentiate a king from his predecessor, or to deliberately imitate the latter. Moreover, specific titles were only acquired after a particular achievement. For instance, an allusion to Assyrian control ‘from the Lower Sea to the Upper Sea’, as stereotypical as it may seem, had to be justified through campaigns in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. This leads to a two-way interaction: titles mirrored a king’s intentions and actual achievements, and the latter were planned and executed in order to be able to use a title. An equally careful selection concerns gods, chosen according to the location in which the inscription was placed, the type of achievement celebrated, the relations with the city of a certain deity, and so on.
If inscriptions allowed control over the terminology used and precise connotative effects, the other category of celebrative works, the sculpted reliefs, also display several conventions and expressions. Despite belonging to a different technical sphere, they insisted on the same themes and the same results. It has often been noted how texts and reliefs to a certain extent overlap, especially in terms of themes and connotations. This overlap of themes mainly concerns the recurrence of standard themes (such as the overcoming of a difficult route, the reaching of the edge of the world, the reception of tributes, the account of killed enemies, and many others). However, it also concerns the representation of single episodes, with their unique and recognisable features, often described in captions. An actual overlap rarely took place (mainly under Ashurnasirpal II, while it was avoided later on), with the texts carved over the reliefs, but without a precise reference to the episodes accounted.
Just like texts, reliefs were the expression of a coherent celebrative program. However, the latter remains less evident for us due to the state in which the reliefs have survived after a long series of ancient destructions and more modern dispersions. The reconstruction of each relief in the right iconographic cycle clarifies the main principles of Assyrian celebrative programs. It has to be pointed out, however, that the placement of these reliefs inside palaces (at least in the case of more complex cycles) excludes their role as a ‘poor man’s Bible’ (like in the case of depictions in medieval cathedrals). Only those who had access to the palace could see these reliefs. It has been posited that, in terms of foreign audience, the reliefs must have been seen by foreign envoys, who had the opportunity to meditate over the ferocious scenes depicted in the corridor and antechamber of the throne room in the palace of Kalhu (Figure 29.7).
Having lost the oral accounts and ceremonial aspects of this celebrative apparatus, the last clues survive in the palaces and temples, as well as the urban plans themselves, especially in the case of new and ‘artificial’ capitals. The ideological message concealed behind the architecture and plans of buildings and cities is emphasised by the names given to the buildings and their parts. These names normally contained celebrative indications. For instance, there are the names of the gates of Nineveh or Dur-Sharrukin, which emphasise Assyrian opulence and a sense of security and defence. These are pertinent
Figure 29.7 Assyrian ‘terror’ propaganda. Above and Centre: Atrocities inflicted by the Assyrians on their prisoners; Below: Counting chopped heads.
Topics for gates and city walls. Texts also help us to define the positive aspects of the kings’ building programs. They insist on the substitution of something small with something larger, of something bent with something straight, of something precarious with something solid, of something superficial with something profound, of something unadorned with something decorated (Figure 29.8). Therefore, texts emphasise order and perfection. Comparing city districts that developed spontaneously (such as in the case of Ashur) with the regular plan of the newly founded citadels, it becomes possible to see how urban planning was meant to convey a message of cosmic perfection. This was in marked contrast with the chaos of what existed beforehand.
Architectural and urban interventions were concentrated in the centre of the Assyrian world, mainly its capital and, to a lesser extent, the other Assyrian cities. However, there are some examples from the periphery, mainly those provincial palaces mentioned earlier. In these cases, the contrast of the Assyrian palaces with the overall decay of the surrounding world (a decay which the Assyrians contributed to with destructions and plunders) is even more evident, almost reaching the effect of a ‘cathedral in the desert’. This was an exemplary statement of that order the Assyrians wanted to spread throughout the world. The realisation of this order, however, was hindered by the rebellions in the chaotic periphery, which only true champions could overcome. When the Assyrian king reached the far end of the world, at the source of the Tigris, or a mountain close to the sea, or another typically ‘liminal’ location, it was not necessary to build a palace. It was enough to leave a stele commemorating the achievement and marking the new border. This border marked the frontier of the cosmos over chaos. Since this border coincided with the far end of the world, it ensured the fact that the expansion was complete, and that no further lands had to be reached or ordered. In terms of propaganda, the rock steles left at the edge of the world were not useful and were seen by few people. However, they would be mentioned by future kings who would reach the same location and leave their own stele.
In contrast with the spread of the central presence of the Assyrian king in the periphery, there was the celebrative concentration of elements of the periphery in the centre. This aspect had an important and visible economic significance, marking the influx of resources (raw materials, labour, and so on) from the periphery to the centre of the empire. However, it was also expressed in ceremonial and symbolic terms. Firstly, there was the emphasis of the universal provenance of the carpenters building Assyrian palaces, and
Figure 29.8 The transportation of a colossal bull, from a relief of Sennacherib in Nineveh.
Of the valuable and exotic raw material with which they were built. Then, there was the concentration of exotic plants and animals in actual parks, the predecessors of the ‘paradises’ of the Achaemenid kings. In these parks, the Assyrian kings tried to recreate exotic landscapes (through irrigation) with animals from all over the world. These animals were used both for the royal hunt (which was also a symbolic event) and to affirm universal control, achieved through an exemplary sample collected and imprisoned in the centre of the empire.
World History
