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From Ritual to God in the Ancient Near East
- Tracing the Origins of Religion
- Nicola Laneri
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- Published online:
- 03 May 2024
- Print publication:
- 09 May 2024
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Human belief systems and practices can be traced to ca. 10,000 BCE in the Ancient Near East, where the earliest evidence of ritual structures and objects can be found. Religious architecture, the relics of human skeletons, animal symbolism, statues, and icons all contributed to a complex network into which the spiritual essence of the divine was materially present. In this book, Nicola Laneri traces the transformation of the belief systems that shaped life in ancient Near Eastern communities, from prehistoric times until the advent of religious monotheism in the Levant during the first millennium BCE. Considering a range of evidence, from stone ceremonial enclosures, such as as Göbleki Tepe, to the construction of the first temples and icons of Mesopotamian polytheistic beliefs, to the Temple of Jerusalem, the iconic center of Israelite monotheism, Laneri offers new insights into the symbolic value embodied in the religious materiality produced in the ancient Near East.
7 - In the Shadow of Assyria, 978–625
- Stephanie Dalley, University of Oxford
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- Book:
- The City of Babylon
- Published online:
- 23 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 08 July 2021, pp 170-213
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Summary
Relations with Assyria dominated from the tenth to the late seventh century. Marduk’s reputation was tarnished as Babylon lost power. Tribes of Chaldeans and Arameans moved into the Sealand, where some settled, becoming literate and powerful. Iron gradually replaced bronze. Fine stone carving continued. Warlike Assyrian kings venerated Babylon, incorporated its gods into their pantheon, and treated the city separately from the rest of Babylonia; but Assyria and Babylon clashed east of the Tigris at Der. Chaldeans intermittently took the throne. Tiglath-pileser III, the first Assyrian king to become king of Babylon, took part in the New Year festival; Sargon II, the second, deposed a Chaldean and deported many disloyal groups, but invested in the city. When Sennacherib ruled Assyria, various rulers of Babylon and interference from Elam ended when he sacked Babylon, which remained kingless for seven years. His patricidal son Esarhaddon made some restitution. At his early death, Esarhaddon’s elder son took the throne, dominated by his younger son, Ashurbanipal, whose library at Nineveh included many Babylonian texts. Betrayed by his brother under Elamite influence, Ashurbanipal sacked Babylon. Royal records end, and three subsequent kings are poorly attested. Nabopolassar, a Babylonian general working in the Assyrian army, defected and took the throne of Babylon.
8 - Empire
- Stephanie Dalley, University of Oxford
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- Book:
- The City of Babylon
- Published online:
- 23 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 08 July 2021, pp 214-247
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Summary
Nabopolassar fought with an Assyrian-style army and took the throne of Babylon. Thirteen years later, Nineveh fell despite Egyptian help. Babylon took over much of the Assyrian empire. Later he defeated the last Assyrian king at Harran. His success was seen as Marduk’s revenge. Captured wealth from Assyrian royal cities allowed major building work at Babylon, which was continued by Nabopolassar’s son Nebuchadnezzar II. Neither king left statues of themselves, and cylinder seals represent gods by their symbols. Major subsidence in the citadel required frequent rebuilding on the Southern Palace. The names of temples and gates were compiled on to a clay tablet as a literary work. Colour-glazed bricks adorned the Processional Way leading to the temple of the New Year festival outside the citadel walls. That festival is described. Some of his creations Nebuchadnezzar described as a Wonder, but he made no mention of the Hanging Garden. In a separate part of the citadel, Nebuchadnezzar built a Summer Palace. His conquests included Tyre and Ashkelon but not Egypt or Lydia. He sacked the Temple in Jerusalem and deported its royal family to Babylon. Other captives settled on land nearby. Business archives of long duration continue into the Achaemenid period.
1 - Land and Peoples
- Stephanie Dalley, University of Oxford
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- Book:
- The City of Babylon
- Published online:
- 23 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 08 July 2021, pp 1-21
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Summary
The setting of the city within the environment of Mesopotamia, on a branch of the river Euphrates, was without special advantages amid more ancient cities with older fame. Sumerian and Semitic Akkadian were very different languages integrated into the urbanized written culture, whereas Amorite immigrants from the west were tribal outsiders who often assimilated in the cities. Water management by canals, sluices, and flood control, and the extension of land for agriculture and settlement were duties of kings reflected in early myths. Merchants travelled abroad, west to the Mediterranean, north into Anatolia, east across the river Tigris into Iran, where they encountered the rival civilization of Elam, and south down the Arabian Gulf. They brought in precious metals, stones, timber, and plants. After 1,300 years, Babylon became a ceremonial centre without indigenous kings, but foreign kings still came to have their claim to rule legitimized in a city where the bearing of arms was prohibited. King-lists and chronicles underpinned Babylonians’ understanding of their own history; prayers, songs, epics, technical manuals, rituals, records of divination, and astronomy as well as archival and administrative texts were written on various media, of which only clay, being inorganic, survives. Temples, a palace, a harbour, city walls, and gates characterized urban space.
10 - Darius I to Alexander, and Seleucid to Parthian Rule
- Stephanie Dalley, University of Oxford
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- Book:
- The City of Babylon
- Published online:
- 23 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 08 July 2021, pp 275-307
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Darius I overcame rebellions and seized the throne of Babylon, but cuneiform scholarship continued and developed; religious practices did not change, nor did the great buildings on the citadel. The zodiac scheme came into use. The Achaemenid king took Babylonian royal titles and promoted the worship of Marduk for local purposes. Xerxes broke the continuity. Following an uprising, a purge led to the ending of many archives. The province of Babylon was divided in two. Subsequent Achaemenid kings continued to treat Babylon with reverence. Alexander the Great defeated Darius III, entered Babylon, retained the Persian satrap, and moved treasure from Susa and Ecbatana to Babylon. He was recognized as a god. Lack of sons at his premature death precipitated a civil war from which Alexander’s commander Seleucus emerged to take the throne jointly with his son Antiochus. The derelict ziggurat was demolished, but temples and rituals, chronicles and astronomical diaries, continued as before. Aramaic was widely used, and fewer texts were inscribed in cuneiform. Interest in the fall of Assyria and of the Babylonian empire is apparent in Greek literature. Famous scholars include Berossus and named astronomers. Parthians invaded and eventually ended the dynasty.
6 - The Next Six Centuries
- Stephanie Dalley, University of Oxford
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- Book:
- The City of Babylon
- Published online:
- 23 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 08 July 2021, pp 132-169
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Hard times for Babylon followed the end of the First Dynasty; but records of two Sealand kings, and the account of magnificent rebuilding of Marduk’s temple by a Kassite king imply wealth and energy. Glass production brought a new source of wealth, and horses were bred for chariots. Marduk was still the supreme god. The top status of the Kassite kings in Babylon was recognized by the pharaohs in Egypt. There cuneiform was used for international correspondence and Babylonian literature used to train local scribes. Foreign wives were taken from Elamite, Assyrian, and Hittite royalty. A top scribe from Babylon served in Assyria, and literature flourished. Boulders recording donations of land were carved with texts and celestial motifs. The office of eunuch is discussed. The Assyrian king raided Babylon, looting literary tablets among other valuables. He took over rule of Bahrain to access Gulf trade. The Kassite kings soon resumed the dynasty but the Elamite king raided and in turn took huge amounts of booty. In the next dynasty, the great Nebuchadnezzar I defeated Elam and wrote a heroic account. As a result of tribal incursions by Arameans, the Aramaic language began to spread, and camels trained for transport opened up desert trade. A library already existed in Babylon.