Why Fight?

Wars are commonly fought for various reasons. Based on what we have read in class, we have found that power struggle can lead to war, such as with Hammurabi and his desire to take over Northern Mesopotamia. He had to fight with Zimri Lim and many other Northern Mesopotamian leaders in order to gain control of the land he wanted. Another reason can be in the way that Endiku didn’t like Gilgamesh’s total power and misuse of his subjects.

In this novel, the omens tend to be reasons for war. The omens, such as the eye and lip infection before the war on Teumman as well as eventually getting beheaded, become so real, that we tend to believe that the omens are the right reasons to go to war. Additionally the precursor of an eclipse also call for the start of a war, without any particular reason, but just because of it being an evil omen of some sort. There are various reasons that wars can be started. But this novel shows us that there does not need to always be a struggle for power between two individuals or parties or states, but can actually be about omens, practices, and traditions held within a group of individuals.

The Truths of War

In the first chapter of Rituals of War, Bahrani describes the dynamics behind the importance of the beheading of Teumann during the Battle of Til-Tuba. She emphasizes the fact that the decapitation of this king serves as a vital part of the narrative, standing in front of the actual battle scene that is depicted behind him. Bahrani says that the event is of “paramount importance” and that it can be seen as the most significant symbol in the relief, demonstrating the sheer glamour of the Assyrian victory. It is also interesting to note that although this chapter is mainly an opinionated critique of what Bahrani thinks is happening in the relief, it is treated as purely factual information. There is no actual evidence that the decapitation was to be seen as a symbol of the entire portrait, yet Bahrani is confident that this was the artist’s intention. The highly opinionated first chapter gives an impression that the non-factual information presented in the rest of the book should be taken with a grain of salt.
In “The Art of War”, Bahrani turns to analyzing the effectiveness of military tactics geared towards the obtainment of sculptures and monuments. In an age where religion and Godly figures ruled superior to every human-being, the abduction of religious monuments resulted in catastrophic consequences for the citizens of an invaded state. Bahrani says that these tactics were most influential in terms of reordering space and dislocating the people of a state. These strategies were so effective because they led to a feeling of abandonment by the people due to the lack of protection from the Gods, who were embodied in these taken statues. As we read in a claim by Joannes, the only interaction some people had with the Gods was through these statues, so we can speculate the mental toll that was felt by these people as these lasting symbols of religion were stripped away from them.

Religion adn Conflicts

Johannes mentioned how foreign religions or just gods to Babylonia and other near by cities and empires did not spread as much as the Babylonian religion did. She said that the neighboring foreign communities were probably able to preserve their religion and way of practice but the Babylonian religion was the more dominant religion. What I have always wondered if there has ever been religious wars or any sort of conflict. Probably there was not as many between foreign religions if all were able to freely practice their own religion.

Another question is if there was any religious conflicts between cities with the same religion since different cities had different main gods. Like Marduk is for Babylon and Ishtar is for Uruk I find it hard that there was no conflict at all, at least I assume this because I have not found a statement by Johannes that has implied that. Or was everyone okay and understand that they believe in similar religions and everyone excepted each city’s preference. There is the mention of Nabonidus trying to make Sin the dominant god but it seemed to have been resolved over. Many kings started wars to take over more land and expand their empire and power but did kings make war over the gods? Could the have tried to make their god become the dominant in more cities. Or where there cities with rival gods and so conflict erupted? I find it hard to believe that there was hardly any religious conflict if there wasn’t in the Middle East.

Images in War

It seems imagery, especially in forms of artistic work developed into playing heavy roles in Assyrian warfare. Bahrani makes it quite clear in the first chapter of Rituals of War that works of imagery in Assyria had grown to become equally the very person, god or idea it was supposed to simply represent. Eventually it became apparent that imagery was used to predict what would come to happen to that which it represented as well.
Do to the fact that statues and images were seen as literal replacements for kings and gods it became very common practice of Assyrian armies to loot or destroy images of their enemies’ kings and gods as they attacked their cities. Images of kings were even thought to embody the king after he had died. The destruction or abduction of images like these was recognized as a great enough offence to go to war.
As imagery was seen as reality it is no wonder that Assyrian art is realistic and many times in relatively great detail in the way things are portrayed. This however does not mean that events shown in narrative imagery are historically accurate. It would appear that many times images were created to show how the Assyrians wished or willed things to happen. This ties back into the idea that their images could have some control over the future. It is very clear that imagery was not only a large part of Assyrian culture, but a large part of Assyrian war tactics as well.

Art in War

The assigned reading this week included Chapter Six, “The Art of War,” from Zainab Bahrani’s Rituals of War. In this chapter the role of art in war and how art was considered in military strategy was discussed. A military tactic in the Ancient Near East concerned the battering and seizure of monuments in wars (159). The author mentions that sometimes wars were fought specifically to acquire the statue of a god or to recover a divine statue that had been captured by an enemy previously (160). As an example, Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king, mutilated statues of Elamite kings and then showed them off in their ruined condition after the statues had been carried off as spoils of war from the Elamite capital. Because cult images of gods and statues of kings carried so much power, the removal of any of these monuments was believed to have drastic repercussions for the state (165). Bahrani tells us that divine power and protection were removed from the city when the statue of a god was removed from it. Ancient poets would often write lamentations when their respective deities were removed from their cities. The chapter goes on to chronicle the various captures and recaptures of the cult statue of Marduk.

I found it interesting that wars were fought over cult statues and public monuments, and that the departure of such monuments negatively affected cities and states. Bahrani goes on to mention how conquered people were subject to mass deportations, the most famous being the movement of a subjugated Israelite population from Judaea to Mesopotamia (178). Conquered people were considered property of the king, just like the rest of the loot from the campaign (178). These people were used as warriors, laborers, and they were subject to the same taxes as the local population (180).

Differences in Time

The conceptualization of the impending future is an interesting way to control a civilization. Perhaps what made Babylon different from Egypt was their divergent concepts of time. With Egypt's cyclical time, it goes without saying that things were seen as coming around again. However, Babylonian and Assyrian ideas of the relation between present and future is something quite different. Maybe the pressing future-bound presence was a facet of the novelty of empirical rule. They were always looking toward what was next, not savoring the moment. This is how an empire expands; a continuous striving for something more. However, the tides may have changed by Egypt's heyday because empires had already come and gone. Thus, the cyclical nature of their conception of time. Everything will run its course and come around again.

I found these divergences noteworthy because of the nature of Babylonian rulers, most importantly, Hammurabi. His fierceness and insatiability could be contributed to the empire's concept of time. This ever-present future is of a haunting nature and keeps one striving. This is not to say that Egyptian rulers were lax. In fact, it would make sense for them to be more ostentatious or lavish than Babylonian or Assyrian kings because of their understanding of the transient nature of all things. I believe many aspects of civilizations can be controlled by the civilization's idea of the nature of time.

Military Tactic

After reading through Chapter 1 and Chapter 6, you get a sense of the vicious military tactics that the Assyrian armies, as well as other ancient Near Eastern armies, deployed in order to conquer their enemies. As mentioned by Joannes and during lecture, we see the Assyrian army committing several acts of atrocity, such as the beheading of entire groups and placing their heads on stakes for their enemies to see in their fear campaign. Likewise, Bahrani shows us the depictions within the art of the ancient Near East, which contains not only pictures of fearsome decapitations, but also the abduction and destruction of sacred monuments during wars. After wars were fought, the Assyrians would deport statues of the city gods back to Assyria in order to ultimately destroy the moral and identity of the conquered city. The identities of the city states were continually reconstructed according to the monuments, images, public rituals, and architectural structures (Bahrani 160).

Some wars are even fought over the abduction of monuments of Gods, such as Marduk. According to Bahrani, these statues were the manifestation of the gods in the realm of the human beings (Bahrani 165). Furthermore, he infers through the architectural sculptures depicting the careful deportation of monuments that the Assyrians did indeed believe in the cult statues' efficacy (Bahrani 170). An interesting point that I noted was the fact that people believed that when the statues were deported they were exiled from their land. Furthermore, texts from Nineveh and Assur comment on rituals where Marduk is seized and imprisoned (Bahrani 170). Even though Marduk was worshipped as the "king of the gods," he was so easily exiled and imprisoned by humans. There seems to be some discrepancy between worship and how humans view their relations with the gods.

A Reason for War?

War seems to be a common part of the ancient Mesopotamian lifestyle. In all of the works we have gone through, the kings always felt the need to deal with the kingdoms problem in a physically violent manner. People regard violence or war as an easy solution to trivial events.

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu did not like Gilgamesh or how he treats the kingdom’s common subjects, specifically betrothed women. Enkidu decides to teach the King a lesson and take Gilgamesh’s title. He does this by starting a brawl between them. Unfortunately, his strength cannot match that of Gilgamesh’s and his attempt is unsuccessful. That is probably the best reason to fight out of all the works our class has read.

In Rituals of War, omens are a common reason to go to war. Nature’s way of working is interpreted as reason enough to take on other cities. For example, an eclipse is significant and the king understands it to symbolize an upcoming time of war. While there is no evidence of an eclipse or omen foreshadowing any kind of violent activity, it is thought provoking that people interpret it that way.

Of course this violence seems necessary since at that time, kingdoms were ruled through monarchy. Democracy is nonexistent at this time: therefore people resort to combat. Still, it is interesting to note how little of the time individuals tried to sort out their differences through communication and negotiation.

Power of Monuments

Monuments were a huge part of warfare in Ancient Mesopotamia as they were used to start wars as well as to express defeat. Baharani states that monuments were an important factor that caused war, similar to a war for land and money. Wars could be started by the capture of monuments as well as the destruction of them. Also, a city could show that they had conquered another by publically displaying on of the defeated city’s monuments. In a modern view, it seems elementary that wars were started for what seems to be minute issue. However, if one examines the reasoning from an Ancient Mesopotamian view, one can see why this was of such great importance.

In a time such as that, in which structures built were not just for practicality but to show off and preserve the culture in the time period, monuments were a sign of pride. Therefore, when armies destroyed a city’s records, for example, this preservation was then gone forever. This also hindered the defeated city to maybe perform its duties efficiently, without records. In such a way, with the removal of monuments, it was like a mark of shame to the defeated city.

When statues of gods were stolen, a greater consequence occurs. This showed actual defeat and not just the beginning of war. When going to back to Johannes, he states that the statues of gods were believed to have the spirits of them. Therefore, losing the statue of god was blasphemy, and resulted in the people being deported and used for the conquering city. In this way, the monuments of the gods played an important role in warfare and dominance.

Monuments showed culture of a city and provided pride to the citizens. They were of great importance as they could start and end wars.

Credibility of the Omens

In chapter 1 of Rituals of War, Zainab Bahrani discusses the different types of omens that the kings would pay attention to before going to war. In King Hammurabi of Babylon, Van De Mieroops talks about how they would examine the intestines of sheep and would sometimes repeat the process until the answer was favorable. In Rituals of War, however, the Bahrani mostly talks about omens from the activities of the moon, such as eclipses. These events of nature have an element of surprise and cannot be repeated, unlike examining the sheep's intestines. For these reasons, these omens can only have one interpretation. What's interesting is that most of the time these omens came true, such as Teumman getting an eye and lip problem right before the war and then getting beheaded by the Assyrian king. This struck me as quite shocking because these omens seem to be very accurate, making them very credible. However, how was it possible that the oracles almost always gave accurate predictions? Were the omens really interpreted before the war and then lived up to? Or did the scribes write down the interpretations of the omens on annals in retrospect, and corrected those interpretations that were incorrect? It just seems so absurd to me that these omens were almost always accurate and that the kings believed them with such certainty.

Gods and Their Powers

In Chapter 6 of Rituals of War, the author said that “The removal of the god from the city had disastrous consequences. The god was exiled. He (or she) went into a form of occultation wherein divine power and protection were removed from the city” (Bahrani 165). However, there doesn’t seem to be any logic behind this. First of all, I do believe what the author says about the images and monuments that were taken like booty because symbolically, it pretty much meant that the city/state was doomed and that the winners of the war were the ones in control now. And, in addition, this is similar to what the author mentioned in the first chapter, when the king’s head and other body parts were displayed during a feast because it symbolized the defeat of the other state/city/kingdom, and that their highest-ranking official was vanquished.

Okay, that all makes sense logically, but what really bothers me is how the author got the message that moving these ideological/religious monuments and images from the original location to somewhere else symbolized an exile for the gods. The monuments and images were originally created to honor the local gods of that region, and there, the people could pray to these gods, and the gods would be able to offer protection and acted as a guardian to the city/state/kingdom.

So, now, these monuments and images were removed by foreigners, but logically, wouldn’t it make sense that the gods KNOW that it’s not the people who live there who are desecrating these areas but their conquerors? In addition, as the guardian to the state/city/kingdom, shouldn’t the gods be doing something to protect his or her interests in their region? I am pretty sure that many of these gods have great power and capabilities, and so, why don’t these gods spread out bad luck and harm to these conquerors? In essence, I am not trying to promote the fact that these gods have actual powers or anything, but by their belief system, wouldn’t it make more sense that these gods have the power to cause harm and damage to their conquerors instead of being “exiled” physically? Truly, unlike human beings, the monuments and images are only portrayals of the gods, not the gods themselves, and so, couldn’t the gods simply be angry and just shoot down a lightning bolt or something and harm/scare them into returning the images and monuments?

It doesn’t make sense to me that these gods are so highly revered for their powers and protection (and are so feared by the people because if they are displeased, something bad could happen to them), that if they are simply removed via images and monuments they become totally worthless and powerless. It seems like much of their power can be removed simply by the human force, and in that case, what good are the gods? This shows that humans are a more powerful force than the gods, and so, it seems contradictory that people would even revere and respect these gods in that case. Therefore, even though I think that the images and monument relocation was plausible for the conquerors, I can’t imagine that the people being conquered would actually believe that their god had been “captured” and exiled from that region and people (but I could always be wrong… that is my interpretation and analysis of this entire situation).

Images in Society

Chapter seven “Religion and culture in Babylonia in the first millennium” focuses mainly on the religion and culture aspect of Babylonia. When reading this chapter, one can make several connections to other texts such as Rituals of War. In chapter seven there are several instances where Joannes supports Zainab Bahrani’s discussion about the performative images. Performative images as Bahrani argues, dictate the existence of both narrative and representation of (Bahrani 51).

The first instance where Joannes brings interesting points about the importance of images is on page 178. He asserts that the gods were represented as symbols. “Their figured representation often made them appear in a symbolic form” (178). Another example is on section “How religion was organized.” Joannes talks about the importance of the statue that represented the gods. “When it was enthroned as an object of worship, especial ceremonies took place…which enabled the divine spirit to enter its representation” (181). These two arguments coincide with Bahrani’s discussion of images as being more than just a figure. As we read in chapter six of Rituals of war, the statues of the gods were of great importance and often military campaigns were undertaken to obtain these statues (Bahrani 163).

It may seem very irrational to see a statue or an image as a substitution of the real these days, or that we will go to war to obtain a statue. It is important to note that these statues not only were seen as representation, but also they demonstrated both the religious ideology and the nation’s identity (Bahrani 156). As of today, we can still point out to military actions against representations of a leader or ideology. One example is the USA army taking down the statue of Saddam Hussein during the invasion of Iraq. I particularly found this observation to be very relevant to Bahrani’s discussion about the destruction of the enemy’s venerated images. The destruction of this statue marked the end of his ruling period. Another example that comes to mind is found in the religion context. Images are being still venerated and respected. One example is the catholic religion. The most famous example is Christ being crucified. Both Christ and the cross are symbols that represent and identify the Catholic Church. One may think that the Babylonian were the only ones to treat images/statues as important. That is not the case since other cultures have their own images.

The Ark and the Statues of Gods

It may be at times a little dangerous to draw parallels between ancient texts of the Near East and the bible, or at the very least it may be a bit controversial. However I could not help but think of the Ark of the Covenant as I read about the statues of these ancient gods of the ancient Middle East.
The ark was believed to be the haven of the Almighty God on earth just as the statues and temples in other lands were homes to their respective gods. This was because though the Ark was not a representation of the God of Israel, it was in fact his throne. There are also other beliefs around these two objects that were similar. It might be recalled that the Ark had been a symbol of some religious significance to the people of Israel and was said to have been placed in the holy of holies, which was at the very heart of the temple (or in earlier times the Tabernacle). So too were the statues placed at the very heart of the temple. Like other statues that were carried off in times of war, the ark too was taken by the Philistines in battle. However the ark would return to its proper home and remain there for some time before disappearing into antiquity.
The ark like the godly statues was believed to have "a mind of its own," in that the ark though taken by force willed itself back to its homeland. In the biblical account the Ark's unique power is established in several different stories, including the story of how it caused a great deal of bad fortune to befall the Philistines who had taken it. After the Assyrians had abducted the god of Marduk from his temple we find the king was fearful of such retaliation from the gods and he often sought the intent of Marduk through Oracles. Through these stories we gain a sense of the power these objects were believed to have in controlling their fate, regardless of the powers that may have surrounded them.
I feel that the remembering of the ark and its place in modern Jewish and Christian religion may bring the accounts of the other ancient statues to life. These ancient beliefs seem to gain greater depth when one considers there are many who still hold a not so different faith today.

The King's Head

Our reading assignment this week was the Introduction and Chapter One of Rituals of War by Zainab Bahrani. The introduction begins by defining war, and explaining its role in Mesopotamian society. Bahrani explains that the ancient Mesopotamians considered the art of war as an “art of civilization” (9). He goes on to discuss how different types of art reflect military accomplishments. The last part of the introduction gives a quick summary of each chapter in the book. The first chapter, “The King’s Head,” studies a wall panel from Ashurbanipal’s Nineveh palace. The panel is usually referred to as the Battle of Til-Tuba relief, and is now held in the British Museum in London (17). The author spends the majority of the chapter focusing on this work of art, which depicts an Assyrian victory over the Elamites. The chapter then chronicles the movement of the defeated Elamite king’s severed head on the relief, and examines similar works of art. The chapter also compares the depictions of the battle to the historical account. Bahrani attempts to ascertain the significance of the decapitated head’s repeated and cryptic appearance in said works (17).

Later in the chapter different types of omens that were regarded with importance in ancient Mesopotamia are mentioned. I found the number of omens associated with the moon interesting. Observing different types of eclipse could signify plagues, diminished economy, the curing of illness, flood, the death of the King, the destruction of civilizations, and various other predictions. Other types of omen included body growths and dreams. These omens are interesting because previously with the Assyrians in The Age of Empires by Francis Joannes, we had mainly discussed the observations made of sacrificed lambs’ livers to make predictions.

The Magnitude of Religion

The vast amount of resources delegated to the promotion of religious ideologies exemplifies the devotion that ancient Babylonians had to religion. The complex system of the pantheon is one example of how much attention was given to the hierarchy and sanctuaries of the Gods. The presence of religion gave way to the allocation of different jobs in Babylonian society, while simultaneously creating a path to social hierarchy based on position within the religious sphere. The amount of food that was served to the Gods also shows how people placed the well-being of the Gods in front of their own. Joannes describes it as an “enormous amount of food to the gods of Babylonia…equivalent of the basic food ration for 100 people”. This is truly an outstanding amount of resources that was allocated as offerings to the Gods that could have been given to people in lower social positions that actually needed this food.
As stated above, the various complexities of Babylonian religion created a number of jobs within Babylonian society. The “erib-biti”, for example, were “those who had the right to enter the sacred part of the temple”. Joannes says that these people were seen as religious employees who had the right to go to the private parts of the sanctuaries. This position gave way to higher positions in administrative matters, and thus, a hierarchy seemed to form based initially on statuses within the religious sphere. There were also jobs based on the administration of prayers, as well as other religion-based careers such as those involved in soothsaying and ecstatics. It can be seen that although religion was responsible for the consumption of many resources in Babylonian society, it also shaped the way for a number of careers within this diverse world.

Assyrians

I thought it was interesting how the one of the reasons for the gruesome depictions of war could have been used as propaganda. It makes sense and could explain the success of the Assyrians as this could have scared others and it helped with them fighting and taking over. Though uring the reading of the introduction Bahrani made a point of how it was only the Assyrians that made such detailed depictions of the wars. I understand the points. What I find interesting is that it was only the Assyrians and they were the most successful kingdom in the Middle East. This raises the question of whether there is a link between the art and the success of the kingdom.

My question is why the Assyrians and only the Assyrians depicted war in such detail in their art compared to others such as the Babylonians and the Elamites. Was there something that the Assyrians realized that the others didn’t? If propaganda was the reason for their style of art then it seemed to serve its purpose. So much to that for others to see their work it would affect the mentality of them. The enemies would have this image of the Assyrians as this undefeatable group and so they go into war without full confidence. Which then they lose the battle. But it seems like this is something that the other groups could have realized and so why didn’t they? What did the Assyrians have that the others didin’t? There is a possibility that propaganda was the sole reason and so what was it then? Was their view on war different? Details such as the placing the head of a king hanging from a tree is sign not of just defeat on the enemy’s part but of victory for the other king as the Bahrani said “To be precise, it is not the battle or even the act of decapitation,…a body part that becomes the terrorizing sign of violence and victory at the same time.” There is meaning beyond what is just displayed the focus of the picture is not necessarily the largest image in this case. The way the Assyrians depict themselves and how they demean their enemies shows a bit of their attitude toward war and their enemies. They made themselves seem larger than life just like Hammurabi had done with his stelas and with Hammurabi he was a successful with a long reign and lasting legacy it is possible that the Assyrians wanted just that.

Unrealistic and Impractical

After reading chapter 7 of Age of Empires, I was quite confused and shocked by the extravagance of the religious rituals conducted daily by the clergy and king in Babylonia. In King Hammurabi of Babylon, I had originally conceived that everyone - the clergy and the common populace - was greatly involved in worshiping the diverse pantheon of gods. Van De Mieroop explained that including all the local gods of the different cities it was King Hammurabi's way of unifying his conquered territories, by appeasing the locals in letting them worship their own gods. However, Johannes states that "people's participation in worship was expressed only when certain ceremonies were held" (174). From reading chapter 7, I got the impression that worshiping was mainly exclusive to the elite, and this seemed to go against what I had understood from reading Van De Mieroop's book.

Also, Johannes details all the extravagant and complicated rituals that the clergy did everyday for the gods. On top of conducting four meal offerings everyday to the gods, the clergy also built statues, moved the statues around to other places, and conducted rituals concerning the gods' orders and wishes. And he also explains that the king's involvement in these rituals was crucial. Taking all these statements into consideration then, it seems as though the clergy and the king were extremely preoccupied by serving the gods on a daily basis. How they got anything else done seems absurd to me. Perhaps Johannes interpreted the inscriptions a little too literally, and maybe the tablets described the events in exaggeration in order to appear as if the clergy was doing an outstanding job in serving the gods.

Excess Within Religion

After reading through Chapter 7, we can see the important role that religion and culture played in Babylonia. The religious pantheon of gods, generally headed by Marduk, the king of gods, was heavily worshipped, and great statues, monuments, and sanctuaries were built in their honor. Each of the gods were provided with a consort and a “vizier” allowing for relations to be built between the gods and mankind. The names of many of the these gods were used and passed down by the people of Babylonia (Joannes 177). Within the temples, courts were set up for the deity’s residence. Each god had a statue and an entire room solely devoted to them in which the statue would be placed on a throne. This divine court was managed by a worshipping body and officiates of the cult came to pray to them and present offerings in the form of a meal several times a day.
These meals were not cheap and consisted of bread, pastries, mutton, beef and poultry, and various alcoholic drinks (Joannes 182). These offerings were meant to mirror the luxuries of royal banquets. The offerings were redistributed to the people according to their rank in the religious hierarchy. This system of redistribution struck me as an efficient solution to an inefficient system. It allowed for more excess in the offerings because they ultimately ended up in the hands of the important, such as the king. Joannes notes that during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, the goddess Ishtar received 360 litres of barley and 66 of wheat in one single day (Joannes 183).
Not only were the food offerings excessive, even the statues were adorned with jewels of high value. Each of the principal goddesses owned several necklaces, bracelets, and rings (Joannes 184). These items of adornment were regularly cleaned and maintained. “Ishtar’s temple possessed a service of 99 pieces of silver and gold ware” (Joannes 184). This religious system of offerings showed the grandeur of the Babylonian empire, but it must have also taken a great toll on the economic system.

The Meaning of Sacrifice

In ancient Babylonia, an enormous amount of resources were funneled into offerings to the gods as a part of ritual sacrifices, which formed the operational basis for the ideology that the gods gave out blessings in the physical world when their own physical needs were met. The gods required worshipers to attend to them and when they were satisfied, they would bless the people with prosperity, protection, and victory. The paradoxes of the gods' apparent vulnerability and supremacy, and the gods' and humanity's interdependence on each other enabled the manipulation of religion as ideological power for organizing and redistributing resources in the ancient near east.

Food offerings illustrate the paradox of the ancient gods' supposed needs and humanity's obligation to satisfy them, and also illustrate how this ideology was manipulated to act as a source of power. The gods' need for food is based on the Babylonians' concept of the gods' characteristics; the gods' presence was deeply rooted in the physical world, very human-like (Joannes 177) and none of the gods was supreme (179) and all weren't self-sufficient and dependent on worshipers for food (182) and a physical body (181). This creates a very unique relationship between the gods and man: the gods are superior yet dependent to man. Part of this is a result of the polytheism of and competition within the pantheon because the pantheon was syncretistic and gods were more prominently worshiped in different cities (176). Because the gods were dependent on man their need was subject to manipulation. This is seen in the way the foods of the gods was consumed; food wasn't actually eaten by the god but consumed by the priests and erib biti (183). This was distributed according to status (183), but is also a way of establishing or conveying status. These resources even were used to carry out other tasks for the temple especially seen in the action of prebendaries (187-189). Thus, the paradoxical relationship of the gods and man enabled the temple to take in resources and use them for their own purposes.

Well-Read Babylonians

On Page 194 of The Age of Empires, Francis Joannés states that “Well-read Babylonians were therefore supposed to have an encyclopedic knowledge” (Joannés 194). However, it is very difficult to believe that statement because in our modern world, there is just so much information that it is almost impossible to be able to memorize it all. In addition, I don’t believe that encyclopedias actually existed back in ancient Babylonia, and so it would be erroneous to make those claims. Indeed, there were many works on a variety of topics, including hepatoscopy, astronomy, teratology (Joannés 193), but these topics seem limited and dealt primarily with omens and “spirits” of some sort.

In fact, below the quote mentioned above, Joannés talks about the Exorcist’s Manual, which “includes more than eighty works covering the entire field of diagnosis, conjuration, prayers and rituals in which an exorcist might have a hand, and which are listed according to an ordered plan: dealing with the official liturgy (fourteen works), dealing with protection against demons and maleficent forces (twenty titles), the abolition of evils and the search for good (thirty five works), and auxiliary knowledge (five titles)” (Joannés 194).

It is interesting to note that a great chunk of these works have to do with evils, demons, “forces”, and ideological information, and I would have to imagine that this is not the extent of their knowledge in ancient Babylonia. And, upon further reading and understanding of the quote, it appears that the “encyclopedic knowledge” probably is metaphorical, meaning that if the Babylonians were well-read, they probably knew a lot of information. However, I am still confused as to what the extent of their knowledge was, whether it was simply trying to “heal others” or was it in a vast assortment of subjects. It makes me wonder that these “well-read” Babylonians would be familiar then, to popular works such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, The Righteous Sufferer, the Theodicy, the Dialogue of the Pessimist, the Counsels of Wisdom, and others (Joannés 195).

From the basis of Chapter 7, it almost seems that Joannés is suggesting that a lot of knowledge and writing is very similar, albeit on different subject matter and in a different form. However, everything else seems to suggest similarity to modern culture, including commentary, astrological signs, beliefs, and religious literature. However, that is highly doubtful, as many were still illiterate, and the “well-read” Babylonians were too focused on the spirits and omens to be intellectually stimulating, and it is unclear from Joannés’s analysis to what extent were people well-read, had information, and were performing intellectually stimulating activities.

I don’t believe that the Babylonians were as knowledgeable and intellectually stimulating as modern society is today because the majority of civilization was still illiterate, and even if they were literate, the people there were focused too much of ideologies and spiritual postulates, and it is not as progressive as Joannés might have portrayed it to be.

Food for the Temples

Mann considered ideology a form of major power for the formation of societies. Ideology gave people a reason for why things were the way they were and could force the members to perform actions they wouldn’t normally in a peaceful way. Therefore, it is no surprise about the amount of work that was put in to maintain the temple. The Babylonians regarded ideology in a way that almost undermined the living citizens.

After creating a statue for a god, it was placed in a temple, taken care of by priests and others who work for the temple. However, “the bulk of the deities’ upkeep in the temples was food.” (182) Daily, the temples were served four meals and on special occasions, even more. Under Nebuchadenezzar II, Ishtar’s statue received “the equivalent of the basic food ration for 100 people.” (183) The amount of resources being put in for just idols could have been used for other ventures to help the citizens. But the Babylonians must have thought pleasing the gods would eventually lead to a better society and lives for the people.

However, the food was not all going to waste, as the deities were able to eat the food “in a symbolic fashion” and the rest the erib biti and some prebendaries were able to eat. This was a privilege though, so in this way even the food system at the temple reflected some sort of hierarchy.

Ideology and Strategy Behind the Act of Decapitation

In Chapter one “The king’s Head” Zainab Bahrani analyzes the relief from Ushurpanibal’s at Nineveh that is also referred as the Battle of Til-Tuba. This chapter explores the importance of art that portrays the decapitation of the Elamite king as a ritual of war. According to Bahrani, the act of decapitation was considered sacred and it was part of the Assyrian ideology (Bahrani 17). In this case, the decapitation of the king’s head not only represents the defeat and submission of Elam but also demonstrates the ideology of war and violence as being part of the “art civilization.”(Bahrani). While the decapitation of the king represents the ideological aspect of the “art civilization,” as Bahrani has argued, the relief was also used for the glorification of the Assyrian king.

The decapitation of the Elamite king portrays the ideology of the Assyrian reign. In other words, Bahnari asserts that decapitation served for the justification and victory that was predicted by the omens (41). In addition, she argues that the head becomes the sign of just and inevitable war (41). Bahnari’s analysis focuses mainly on the ideology that founded the works of art. Even though she argues that the king’s head is not “merely a display of violence for the sake of coercive propaganda,” one can argue the opposite.

On the other hand, one can also argue that the relief served for the purpose of glorification. In this case, the king’s head is perhaps linked to the idea of kingship because he is the leader of the nation and army. The killing of the king demonstrated the defeat of the enemy. The head can also represent the political status. A defeated king that was captured and decapitated had huge consequences for both the nation and the army. In times of war, the killing of a king lowers the morale of the nation. However, in the Assyrian perspective, the decapitation of the enemy brings victory and glorification. In page 32, Bahnari mentions that the relief shows an Assyrian victory since “there is no Assyrians are ever shown being killed or wounded.” Based on this observation, it seems that the use of images helped the kings establish a reputation that ultimately enabled them to obtain power.