Far from being simply a power-grabbing ruler and military strategist, the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal was a scholar, who assembled the first comprehensive library in the world, discovers Dominic Green when he visits the British Museums new exhibition.
Knowledge may be power, but the powerful are not always knowledgeable. A leader issues orders, but these require translation and distribution through chains of command, civil or military. Holding the most powerful office in the world, President George W Bush styled himself ‘The Decider’. But his most fateful decisions failed to translate into reality.
Ashurbanipal (circa 668–627 BC) ruled one of the ancient world’s largest and most powerful civilisations. Born at the end of more than a millennium of Assyrian ascendancy, he inherited the largest empire that the world had yet seen, extending from the Caucasus in the north to the deserts of Cush in the south, and from Cyprus in the west to central Persia in the east. He was both powerful, with perhaps the first standing army and a centralised bureaucracy at his disposal; and knowledgeable, a scholar-emperor who, unlike many of his predecessors on the throne, could read cuneiform in both Akkadian and Sumerian. Yet none of this prevented him from being remembered as ‘Sardanapulus’, the debauched final emperor of a failed empire.
The image and reality of Ashurbanipal is the subject of the British Museum’s new exhibition, I am Ashurbanipal, king of the world, king of Assyria. The remains of the Assyrian empire, already buffeted by time, received further abuse after the rise of so-called Islamic State (Daesh) in 2014.
‘A lot of modern Iraq was occupied by Daesh,’ says Gareth Brereton, archaeologist and curator of the British Museum’s Mesopotamian collections. ‘They systemically targeted archaeological heritage sites in the region. Some of the major sites were ancient Assyrian cities like Nineveh, which is right in the middle of modern Mosul, in north-east Iraq, and Nimrud and Khorsobad, which are nearby. They damaged a lot of the Assyrian sculptures, palace gates and palace reliefs.’
Bu hikaye Minerva dergisinin November/December 2018 Volume 29 Number 6 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Minerva dergisinin November/December 2018 Volume 29 Number 6 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
ROMAN DISCOVERIES AT ANCIENT AUGUSTODUNUM
More than 230 graves have been uncovered at a necropolis in the French city of Autun, revealing a diverse mix in burial practices over a period of nearly 200 years, as well as luxury grave goods from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD that highlight the wealth of some of its ancient inhabitants.
SHAPING THE WORLD: SCULPTURE FROM PREHISTORY TO NOW
The sculptor Antony Gormley and the art historian and critic Martin Gayford have been talking about sculpture with each other for 20 years.
Amelia Edwards (1831-1892)
“I am essentially a worker, and a hard worker, and this I have been since my early girlhood.”
THE GREAT BEYOND
The ancient Greeks thought much about the dead – how their remains should be disposed of, how their spirits might be summoned, how malignant they could be if unavenged. Classicist David Stuttard brings us face to face with the Greek dead.
INTO THE VALLEY OF THE QUEENS
The Great Royal Wife of Ramesses II, Nefertari, was buried in one of the most spectacular tombs of Egypt’s Valley of the Queens. Well-educated and well-travelled, Nefertari played a crucial part in the political life of the pharaoh, and her importance was reflected through her magnificently decorated tomb. Lucia Marchini speaks to Jennifer Casler Price to find out more.
DEIR EL-BAHRI, 1894
Tensions were already high among the archaeologists, surveyors, and artists of the Archaeological Survey of Egypt in 1891 when an eventful dispute arose on Christmas Eve.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
When the Etruscans expanded to the south and the vast plains of Campania, they found a land of cultural connections and confrontations, as luxurious grave goods found across the region reveal. An exhibition at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples sheds light on these ancient Italians at the frontier. Paolo Giulierini, director of the museum, is our guide.
CUZCO 'CENTRE AND HEAD OF ALL THE LAND'
Cuzco was the heart of the vast Inca empire, but all changed in the 16th century when the capital was conquered by Spanish invaders. Michael J Schreffler investigates the Inca city, and how it went from the centre of one empire to the periphery of another.
A STUDY IN PURPLE
A tiny speck of purple paint from the 2nd century AD may yield clues to how ancient artists created the extraordinary portrait panels that accompanied mummified bodies into the afterlife.
Rome In The 8th Century: A History In Art
John Osborne CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, £75 HARDBACK - ISBN 978-1108834582
