 | I am Ashurbanipal, King of the World, King of Assyria, brims with juicy details about King Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire, and surrounding states: Elam, Urartu, Cyprus, the Medes, and the Levant (which included “Egyptianized Canaanites and their dissident, disaffected, and dispossessed counterparts in the hill country known as Habiru or Hebrews”). Each chapter is written by an expert in that specific area of knowledge The book is also full of gorgeous illustrations from the BP exhibition at the British Museum (November 2018 through February 2019). |
Ashurbanipal is considered one of the most ruthless and effective kings of the Assyrian empire. Under his rule, the empire stretched from what is now Iraq to Egypt, from Armenia to Cyprus, and included parts of Arabia to the south and Turkey to the north.
The highlight of the book are carved reliefs from the walls of Ashurbanipal’s palace, which illustrated his conquest of Egypt, the crushing defeat of his rebellious brother in Babylon, and his ruthless campaign against the Elamite rulers of southwest Iran. Some reliefs also showed the king’s famous lion hunts. The details in these carvings are exquisite: horse’s muscles flex as they gallop across the battlefield, lions roar and leap at the king’s chariot during the hunt.
 | The battle scenes employ different tiers to tell a complete narrative. In the Battle of Til-Tuba against Elam, for example, the enemy king Tuemann is thrown from his carriage when its axle breaks, flees on foot, is cornered, and then beheaded. The action then tracks in the opposite direction as a soldier takes the head to show Ashurbanipal. (The head is later displayed in Ashurbanipal’s pleasure garden on a different panel.) |
These wall carvings “presented Assyria as a great military force led by a mighty king. Such visual propaganda would have reached a much wider audience than was possible using written sources, since literacy was limited to an elite minority. The information conveyed through these pictorial representations worked as a universal language that was clear enough to be understood even by Assyria’s enemies.”
Ashurbanipal’s grandmother, Naqia, intrigued me. She orchestrated her son Esarhaddon’s rise to the throne, and when he died enroute to Egypt, she quickly moved to establish “her favorite grandson Ashurbanipal” as king. She had her own considerable income and royal seal, and presumably considerable political influence. Naqia issued a joint edict with Ashurbanipal urging loyal subjects to report any rumors of insurrection—and then mysteriously disappeared from all public record.
Another section of the book explored the politico-theological mindset of the Assyrian kings:
 | “The king’s power was absolute, having been invested in him by the divine will of Ashur, the supreme deity of Assyria. The mortal representative of the gods, the king was duty-bound to create order throughout his realm by expanding the land of Ashur. This divine command included the practical task of enlarging Assyria through military conquest.” “Violence was often deemed necessary to maintain [dominance], to protect the empire from anyone who sought to disrupt or diminish it, and to exact revenge on those who had slighted the king...” |
Client states conquered by Assyria were forced to pay tribute and much of its population was deported.
“Prisoners of war were conscripted into the army, made to populate newly established urban centers, and resettled in underdeveloped provinces where they could work the land and stimulate economic development.”
The most valuable deportees (“elites, specialized craftsmen, and expert scholars”), were brought to the cities of the Assyrian heartland. Many Babylonian scholars transcribed tablets for Ashurbanipal’s library, producing “perfect copies of texts, written out in immaculate and beautifully balanced signs on the choicest clay.” These deported scholars were “put in shackles” after completing their tasks.
“Prisoners of war were conscripted into the army, made to populate newly established urban centers, and resettled in underdeveloped provinces where they could work the land and stimulate economic development.”
The most valuable deportees (“elites, specialized craftsmen, and expert scholars”), were brought to the cities of the Assyrian heartland. Many Babylonian scholars transcribed tablets for Ashurbanipal’s library, producing “perfect copies of texts, written out in immaculate and beautifully balanced signs on the choicest clay.” These deported scholars were “put in shackles” after completing their tasks.
The book dedicates several chapters to Ashurbanipal’s capital city, Nineveh, including detailed information on his elaborate palace, library, and life at court. He died sometime around 631 BCE.
 | The horrendous fall of Nineveh in 612 BCE is also covered in detail (a cataclysm influencing events in my novel-in-progress, Sky God’s Warrior). When the Mede and Babylonian armies attacked, many of the deportees populating the Assyrian countryside probably fled home. “Both the disappearance of the state administration and the evaporation of manpower must have made it impossible to maintain the colossal infrastructure of the Assyrian canal system.” Crops would have failed. In the end only impoverished squatters remained. |
I am Ashurbanipal provides a glimpse of an empire that lasted over 1400 years and was the largest and most powerful empire the world had ever known. Available at your local library.
For more on Assyria, read my review of Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire
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