![]() Some would argue that the weakness that led to the empire’s fall in fact began with Ashurbanipal himself-particularly the war he fought against his own brother, the king of Babylonia-in contrast to the image he presented. But was his reign really so successful? The Neo-Assyrian Empire quickly went into decline after his death and was sacked by an alliance of rival powers (the Babylonians and the Medes) in 612 B.C. He stands before a table with food offerings and a brazier for burning incense.Īshurbanipal simultaneously presented himself as a highly educated man who wished to preserve written knowledge, a military leader, a man who appreciated leisure, a hunter, and a pious worshipper. In the lower register of this relief, Ashurbanipal pours a libation (liquid offering) over the bodies of slain lions. Royal hunts were followed by ritualized celebrations at the palace in which the king gave thanks to the gods for their support and protection. These hunts were not just about demonstrating power through violence. This tablet from his library is a bilingual dictionary that records a list of words in Sumerian and gives their Akkadian equivalents. And, as any good king would, he thanked the gods for this ability-specifically Nabu, the god of writing. He sought out the oldest tablets he could find and even claimed to have read inscriptions that pre-dated the mythical flood. ![]() This vast repository stored many hundreds of years of knowledge copied down through the centuries and housed literary compositions like the Epic of Gilgamesh religious texts scientific and technical instructions, including recipes for how to make glass administrative and legal documents (census records, for example) and more.Īshurbanipal boasted that he could read and write the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. At his capital at Nineveh, he amassed a library of thousands of cuneiform tablets covering all genres of scholarship and literature. King Ashurbanipal, who ruled the Neo-Assyrian Empire (centered in present-day northern Iraq) from 668 to around 631/627 B.C., is a case in point.Īshurbanipal was especially concerned with depicting himself as an erudite man. Much of the art related to kingship expressed these idealistic goals and served as propaganda, promoting an almost mythical version of the king and his power. ![]() So it was important for the king to give the appearance that he embodied the perfect worshipper, lawmaker, warrior, hunter, builder, and family man. Of course, in reality, no single human being could actually be and do all of these things. ![]()
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