In the first millennium bce the Assyrians brought foreign craftsmen into Mesopotamia. Either out of curiosity or in search of the picturesque, the sculptors of bas-reliefs portrayed foreigners distinctly: Negro slaves were very recognizable and Palestinian women with their typical clothes. Later the Persians were concerned about giving accurate images of the prisoners and the bearers of offerings, with the assistance of Greek sculptors, for instance on the Persepolis reliefs. At that time Aramaic became the official language of the empire, and it is well known that the Persian kings tolerated several religions.
In the field of religious beliefs, the god Marduk’s exaltation that began at the time of the first dynasty of Babylon reached its peak when the Creation Epic was composed, probably toward the end of the second millennium. This epic was intended to glorify the god Marduk who, following his victorious fight against chaos, obtained the primacy over the other gods and became the national god of Babylon. The Babylonian kings, who wanted to rule over Lower Mesopotamia in its entirety, did not neglect the ancient gods of Sumer, Enlil, Utu, and Inanna. We may conjecture that this pantheon, structured and organized into a hierarchy, is at the root of a form of religious nationalism.
In contrast to Babylonia, from the beginning of the second millennium the Assyrians invoked the god Assur in their historical inscriptions. He was also a national god, but the Assyrians nevertheless kept praying to the old gods, Adad and Siamas, and they revered the Sumerian god Enlil and above all the war goddess Ishtar. The building and restoring of the temples in honor of these deities did not stop.
World History
