08-31-2008, 04:00 PM
Hi guys,
Sorry I am replying late have been away for the weekend.
I’ll respond to James first.
The Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley – a modern scholar - not only hypothesised about the Sennacherib’s water screw pump but following directions from his cuneiform annals went on to recreate and confirm them in a BBC documentary titled, Hanging Gardens of Babylon.’
"There is no proven case of any atrocities committed by individual Assyrian soldiers as matters of mere sadism. It is true that there are some scenes on bas reliefs which do show the mutilation or barbarous killing (as by skinning) of prisoners, but the indications are that these represent what was done to ringleaders by order of the king, not random acts of barbarity by private soldiers. Indeed, there are indications that the king insisted on very strict discipline in the matter of treatment of prisoners-of-war, and one royal letter to an Assyrian administrator dealing with provisions for such prisoners actually warns the official: 'You shall not be negligent. If you are, you shall die.'" (H.W.F. Saggs, The Might That Was Assyria, pp.262-3)
Furthermore:
"Amongst all the aspects of ancient Mesopotamian life, there are few which have been more widely misunderstood and misrepresented than the nature of Assyrian imperialism. Few historians or other writers who touch upon Assyria in the period between 900 B.C. and its final fall just before 600 B.C. can resist the temptation to gather up their skirts and add yet another shocked comment upon barbarism, brutality and unmatched ruthlessness of the Assyrians. It is rare to find any attempt to look at Assyrian warfare and imperialism as a whole in its perspective. Yet, as it is hoped to show below, when one considers the whole functioning of the Assyrian Empire, and particularly when one passes judgement in accordance with the standards, not of our own times but of the other peoples of the ancient world, a very different picture emerges.
The Assyrian Empire was efficient and would not gladly bear those who wished to upset the civilised world order, but it was not exceptionally bloody or barbaric. The number of people killed or mutilated in an average Assyrian campaign in the interest of efficient administration was, even in proportion to the population, probably no more than the number of dead and mangled humans that most Western countries offer annually as a sacrifice to the motor-car, in the supposed interest of efficient transport." (H.W.F. Saggs, Everyday Life In Babylonia and Assyria, p.99)
Regards,
David Chibo
http://www.gilgameshgames.org
Sorry I am replying late have been away for the weekend.
I’ll respond to James first.
The Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley – a modern scholar - not only hypothesised about the Sennacherib’s water screw pump but following directions from his cuneiform annals went on to recreate and confirm them in a BBC documentary titled, Hanging Gardens of Babylon.’
Quote:I have looked at the list, and considered it at great length. What's shocking is that 90% of the items on that list are completely irrelevant to the spirit of the games; it is a a careful compilation of Olympic aspects that are utterly incidental: the "banquet", the "votive offerings", the "guardian". Who cares if there was a statue of Zeus there? Does it really matter? All of the supposed parallels you listed were irrelevant to the nature of the Olympics, which was the hero-worship of the human body. But the aspects of the Olympics that were actually distinctive, you wrapped up and mentioned in just one lonely category out of eleven: "athletic events". Did they have some sort of athletic events? Yes. Did Babylonians have some sort of athletic events? Yes. Then we have a match, Babylonian Olympics!They are not irrelevant if one is to consider the theme of the event. I subjectively feel that after having been adopted by the Greeks and Hellenised the Gilgamesh games in fact lost part of their original meaning and theme. To the ancient Sumerians-Babylonians and Assyrians these games were 9 day mourning rites in which athletes followed in the footsteps of their hero Gilgamesh and competed for immortality. All of the parallels I listed are important because they are the threads that weave the story of the Gilgamesh games. Not to say that the Greeks didn’t Hellenise and refine it but this coherent theme is unfortunately missing from the Greek Olympic Games. The hero worship of the human body is a theme I have never heard of before.
Quote:This is a sleight of hand scholarship, not the real thing.I will be the first to admit that some lone Assyrian Kings were brutal during the course of the 800 years they refined and protected civilisation so that it could flower and blossom, however it is a fact that they were no more brutal than the Empires that followed them. Here’s a quote from Assyriologist Henry Saggs,
Also, I am stunned that anybody would try to defend the Assyrian pyramids made out of skulls. I think this may just dissuade me from further responses.
"There is no proven case of any atrocities committed by individual Assyrian soldiers as matters of mere sadism. It is true that there are some scenes on bas reliefs which do show the mutilation or barbarous killing (as by skinning) of prisoners, but the indications are that these represent what was done to ringleaders by order of the king, not random acts of barbarity by private soldiers. Indeed, there are indications that the king insisted on very strict discipline in the matter of treatment of prisoners-of-war, and one royal letter to an Assyrian administrator dealing with provisions for such prisoners actually warns the official: 'You shall not be negligent. If you are, you shall die.'" (H.W.F. Saggs, The Might That Was Assyria, pp.262-3)
Furthermore:
"Amongst all the aspects of ancient Mesopotamian life, there are few which have been more widely misunderstood and misrepresented than the nature of Assyrian imperialism. Few historians or other writers who touch upon Assyria in the period between 900 B.C. and its final fall just before 600 B.C. can resist the temptation to gather up their skirts and add yet another shocked comment upon barbarism, brutality and unmatched ruthlessness of the Assyrians. It is rare to find any attempt to look at Assyrian warfare and imperialism as a whole in its perspective. Yet, as it is hoped to show below, when one considers the whole functioning of the Assyrian Empire, and particularly when one passes judgement in accordance with the standards, not of our own times but of the other peoples of the ancient world, a very different picture emerges.
The Assyrian Empire was efficient and would not gladly bear those who wished to upset the civilised world order, but it was not exceptionally bloody or barbaric. The number of people killed or mutilated in an average Assyrian campaign in the interest of efficient administration was, even in proportion to the population, probably no more than the number of dead and mangled humans that most Western countries offer annually as a sacrifice to the motor-car, in the supposed interest of efficient transport." (H.W.F. Saggs, Everyday Life In Babylonia and Assyria, p.99)
Regards,
David Chibo
http://www.gilgameshgames.org
