Religion and Ideology in Assyria

Description

Addressing the relationship between religion and ideology, and drawing on a range of literary, ritual, and visual sources, this book reconstructs the cultural discourse of Assyria from the third through the first millennium BCE. Ideology is delineated here as a subdiscourse of religion rather than as an independent category, anchoring it firmly within the religious world view. Tracing Assur's cultural interaction with the south on the one hand, and with the Syro-Anatolian horizon on the other, this volume articulates a "northern" cultural discourse that, even while interacting with southern Mesopotamian tradition, managed to maintain its own identity. It also follows the development of tropes and iconic images from the first city state of Uruk and their mouvance between myth, image, and royal inscription, historiography and myth, and myth and ritual, suggesting that, with the help of scholars, key royal figures were responsible for introducing new directions for the ideological discourse and for promoting new forms of historiography. Acknowledgments Contents Abbreviations 1 Introduction 1.1 Setting the Stage 1.2 Why This Book? 1.3 Fascination with the Assyrian Kings 1.4 Tradition, Cultural Discourse, and Ideology: How They Intertwine 1.5 The Mobility of the Scholars and their Role at the Royal Courts 1.6 The Scholars’ Literary Production at the Assyrian Court 1.7 Approaches and Method 2 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia and the Rise of Assyrian Cultural Discourse 2.1 Preliminary Remarks: Studying Aššur’s Early Beginnings 2.2 North-South Interaction and the Syro-Anatolian Impact on Assyrian Culture 2.3 Early Beginnings in the South and the Spread of the Cuneiform Tradition 2.4 The Spread of Mesopotamian Tradition to the North and its Interaction with the Hurrian Cultural Horizon 2.5 Excursus: The Cultural Impact of Treaties 2.6 The Dynasty of Akkad and the Creation of Charismatic Kingship 2.7 The Transformation of Tradition During the Ur III Period 3 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition 3.1 Where to Begin? 3.2 The Early History of the City of Aššur 3.3 Socio-Political Organization: North versus South 3.4 Third Millennium Ideological Discourse in Aššur 3.5 Šamši-Adad I and Daduša 3.5.1 Joining Forces to Conquer the Eastern Tigridian Region: The Impact of Politics on the Historiographic Discourse of Daduša and Šamši-Adad 3.5.2 Daduša and his Scholars’ Library as Predecessor to the Exorcist’s Library in Aššur 3.5.3 Šamši-Adad I’s Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia: Political Pragmatism and Cultural Discourse 3.5.3.1 The Eponym System and the Mari Chronicles 3.5.3.2 The Assyrian King List 3.5.3.3 Šamši-Adad I’s Rebuilding of the Aššur Temple and Aššur’s Enlilship 3.5.3.4 The Kings of Akkad as Models for Ambitious Rulers 4 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire 4.1 What is ‘Universal Control’? 4.2 Controlling the Land between the Rivers: The Sargon Legend and the First Macro-Regional State under Šamši-Adad I 4.3 Building an Empire: The Role of Hanigalbat in the Middle Assyrian Period 4.4 The Neo-Assyrian Empire: The King and His Cabinet 4.5 The Literarization of the Empire 4.6 The Assyrian Capital as the Epitome of the Empire 4.7 Excursus: The Babylonian Map of the World 5 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship 5.1 The Title ‘King’ and its Implications 5.2 Political and Religious Functions Intertwined: The Title šangû 5.3 Anchoring the Institution of Kingship in the Mythical Past 5.4 The Assyrian Notion of the King’s Shepherdship (re?ûtu) and Ashurbanipal’s Coronation Hymn 5.5 Conclusion: The Political and Religious Dimensions of Assyrian Kingship 6 Administrator, Hunter, Warrior: The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta 6.1 The Typification of Royal Roles: Homogeneity in Action between the Gods and the King 6.2 The “Divinity” of the King 6.3 The Interdependency of Myth and Royal Ideology 6.3.1 Ninurta as Enlil’s Administrator: A Model for Assyrian Kingship 6.3.2 Ninurta as Warrior: The Pervasive Rhetoric of the Combat Myth in Image and Text 6.4 The King as Hunter: The Middle Assyrian Contribution to Ideological Discourse 6.5 The Interface between Myth and Royal Inscriptions 6.6 War, Abundance, and the Astralization of the Warrior God 7 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge 7.1 Experience, Expertise and Knowledge: The King’s Place in the Cosmic Scheme 7.2 The Trope of Abundance and Technical Expertise 7.3 The chaîne opératoire of Royal Performance and the Assyrian Enthusiasm for Detail 8 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary 8.1 The Tropological Discourse of Royal Inscriptions 8.2 The Dual-Focus Pattern of the Assyrian Epic 8.3 The Fictive and the Imaginary: Myth versus Legend and Royal Inscriptions 8.4 The Dynamics of Literary Textual Production and Assyrian Royal Discourse 8.5 Making an Argument: The Intertextuality of Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule 9 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography 9.1 Introduction 9.2 The Legitimating Command of Aššur: Royal Reports and Divine Letters 9.3 The Goddess Ištar and the King 9.4 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice and his Reformulation of the Assyrian Rules of Succession 9.4.1 Esarhaddon’s Rise to Power 9.4.2 Esarhaddon’s Oracle Collections 9.4.3 Rewriting History through the Voices of Ištar and Aššur 9.5 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition 9.5.1 Ashurbanipal’s Personal Take on the Extispicy Omen Series iškar barûti 9.5.2 The Liver Models in the Broader Context of the Historical Omens 9.5.3 Military Victory and the Right to Kingship: The Liver Model of Daduša 9.5.4 Ashurbanipal’s Appropriation of the Omen Compendia 10 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals 10.1 Cultic and Ritual Contributions to Assyrian Ideological Discourse 10.2 Three Middle Assyrian Rituals Originating in a Changing Political Matrix 10.3 The Assyrian State Rituals of the Sargonid Period 10.3.1 Introduction 10.3.2 The Takultu-ritual 10.3.2.1 Envisioning a Unified Territory: The Development of the Takultu-Ritual 10.3.2.2 The Legal Implications of the Takultu-Ritual 10.3.2.3 The Dynamics of Relational Space 10.3.2.4 The Theological Vision of the Takultu-Ritual 10.4 The Ritual Cycle of the Months of Šaba?u, Addaru and Nisannu 10.5 The Akitu-festival in Aššur 10.6 The Neo-Assyrian Ištar Rituals 10.7 The Intermediality of Myth, Ritual, and Cultic Commentaries 10.8 The Assyrian Coronation Ritual 10.9 Sacralizing the Regalia of Kingship 11 The Voice of the Scholar 11.1 Tradition and Scholarly Agency 11.2 The Scholars at the Assyrian Court 11.3 The King as Sage and the Mobilization of Asymmetrical Relationships 11.4 Texts as the Voices of the Scholars Appendix No. 1 LKA 62 No. 2 Rm 2, 455 (CT 35 pls. 37?38) Bibliography Indices Subjects Ancient Texts Personal Names Divine Names Geographical Names Scholars Words and Phrases (by language) Index Locorum (Texts)