The Threshold in Ancient Assyria

In 1978  the scholar Pauline Albenda published ‘Assyrian Carpets in Stone’, in JANES [the
Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University], vol10,  which reviews the surviving representations of carpet designs in stone reliefs. Not much attention has been paid to these slabs, but they offer the possibility of insight into the significance of the use of similar motifs in other contexts, most notably of the sacred tree.

We know that ‘decorated threshold slabs are not known to have existed in Assyria before the second half of the 8th century BCE, and then only sporadically. Previous to this period important entrances in the royal residences, as well as temples were often covered with plain limestone or alabaster slabs’. *1 

Stone pavements and portal thresholds in the 9th and 8th centuries were commonly inscribed with royal inscriptions, such as those in the palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE) and the Ninurta temple at Nimrud*2 and ‘in various chambers at Fort Shalmaneser’*3 and the palace of Sargon II at Khorsabad *4. 

Albenda expands on the significance of the threshold, saying that ‘where entranceways containing threshold inscriptions are also flanked by door guardians and decorated further with wall reliefs, the resultant effect is to instill divine protection whose meaning
is expanded in specific terms *5. ‘Thus, the substitution of carved decorated thresholds for the inscriptions at important entranceways…. makes it certain that the floor decorations served a significant role, similar to that performed by the door guardians and wall reliefs’*6. Upon which I shall expand later.

She suggests that ‘the sudden interest in displaying stone versions of rugs and carpets at important entrances after the middle of the 8th century was spurred by the development of pile carpets. This is, as she says, ‘speculation’, but it is supported by a similar judgement by R.S. Young for ‘the apparent invention of the art of floor mosaic-making in Phrygia, which occurred at about the same time .*7 However it does suggest that there was some factor at work which prompted the architects of the time to incorporate representations of carpet designs in stone in important buildings. ‘The origin of this innovative technique of carpet production is unknown, although pictorial evidence suggests that one area of manufacture is to be sought in some region west of Assyria, whence the method was transmitted east to the royal workshops’. As evidence for this, Albenda refers to three graphical representations which are dated to the reign of Shalmaneser III (858-824 BCE) and which ‘illustrate among processions of tribute-bearers carpets of substantial size and weight, rolled and hung over poles carried by two attendants. In each instance the fabrics are presented by the inhabitants of some locality to the west of Assyria’*8.

Albenda points out that woven floor coverings do appear in several second millennium BCE representations, but in general these are rare. One of these is on an orthostat from Alac Hϋyϋk in Anatolia, dated approximately to the 14 cent BCE, ‘which depicts a rectangular fabric, one end possessing fringes grouped into three curved clusters, placed on the ground beneath the throne of the deity.’ Another is from a Egyptian wall painting dating to the time of Akhenaten, where ‘a large red carpet with rows of yellow and blue diamonds in its field is spread under the feet of the pharaoh... and his family’. She notes that ‘the carpet is fringed with a lotus and bud garland, which here seems to be an attachment. This painting may provide the clue to the origin of the border garland designs that formed part of the rugs in later Assyrian periods.’ 

Indeed it may, but not in the sense of the borrowing of a design, as we shall see.

The elaborate tassels could initially, she suggests, be attached after the rug was woven ‘in order to enrich the appearance of the fabric’. However, ‘by the Late Assyrian period ornamental attachments were no longer utilized and in their stead similar motifs were incorporated into the carpet pattern, as suggested by the Assyrian carved threshold pavements’. Albenda expands on this, and says that, on the basis of the designs on the stone threshold slabs,

Assyrian carpet designs differed from those used to embellish contemporary garment textiles which generally combined figural and floral elements, and occasionally emblems that can be readily identified with specific deities. This group of textile decoration was favored particularly in the 9th century BCE., while a second group, limited to floral decoration and geometric patterns, was applied less frequently.*9 In the course of the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, however, as a survey of the Assyrian wall reliefs demonstrates, the second group of textile designs took precedence. The grid pattern showing concentric squares was popular during the reign of Tiglath Pileser III (745-727 BCE), and this was gradually superseded in the reign of Sargon II (721-705 BCE.) by the use of an overall pattern of rosettes and concentric circles. Still later, during the period of Ashurbanipal (668-627 BCE.), a rich array of emblematic, floral and geometric elements was selected to decorate garment textiles.

However, as she points out, ‘on the thresholds the motifs are limited to geometric and floral patterns arranged in predetermined compositions. The persistence of a select number of design elements on the threshold slabs makes it likely that such floor displays were the prerogative of the royal family . As she points out earlier in her article, ‘textual evidence indicates that thrones were set upon a carpet’.*10 ‘While the carpet compositions remain decorative in appearance, an analytical study may reveal that symbolic significance underlies one or more of the motifs’*11

This is almost certainly the case, but Albenda is thinking in terms of symbolism of particular gods of the Assyrian religion, and suggests that:

…the six-rayed star pattern may actually be a variant of the Ishtar emblem and the floral quatrefoil, if reduced to its simplest form, can be likened to the Maltese cross with central boss and oblique ray lines, generally associated with the god Shamash.

From the second half of the 8th century onwards,

 the positioning of stone blocks for important doorways became standardised and consisted of two main sections: the portal threshold, a single stone which covered the entrance area and which projected slightly beyond the side walls, and the inner threshold, consisting of three slabs together belonging functionally to the threshold*12. As a unit, the inner threshold extends beyond the width of the portal, a distance sufficient to include pivot stones which support the door leaves. The two end slabs therefore have cuts through which the pivots extend. The circular cuts are oftentimes edged with a double or triple raised band. The central block contains a rectangular slot centered near the edge adjacent to the portal threshold, into which the bolt was dropped when the doors were closed and locked.*13 

Apparently the three slab inner threshold design ‘underwent some modification during
Ashurbanipal’s reign in the 7th century BCE., when a single block was used
occasionally for smaller entrances’. Albenda illustrates these in plates 19 & 20.

There is an illustration in the article of a threshold slab from Nimrud which dates to the reign of Tiglath Pileser III, *14 which seems to be the earliest example of carved decoration applied to pavement blocks. This drawing shows the left slab of an inner threshold in the Central Palace; but ‘unfortunately its exact findspot was not recorded. The drawing shows that the entire surface was decorated with floral motifs arranged in horizontal rows and, based upon later examples, the design must have extended to the other two slabs which formed originally part of the inner threshold’.

Other finds were made by Layard in the North-West Palace at Nimrud, *15 in the Burnt Palace at Nimrud a carved threshold slab was discovered ‘in a level which the excavators have assigned to the reign of Sargon II’*16. Albenda notes that the grid-pattern on the slab has parallels with those found in one of the residences at Khorsabad.’*17; two separate groups of carved, patterned pavement slabs were discovered also in Khorsabad, ‘in
what may have been residences reserved for members of the royal family’, which she suggests may be ‘a further indication that this novel form of applied decoration was used more frequently during Sargon’s reign’, although no examples were found in the king’s palace at Khorsabad. 

Portal pavements were found in Residence K at Khorsabad, where three portals connected ‘one side of the great hall to a long chamber. The portal pavements were decorated with the same motifs: the center field was filled with quatrefoils and rosettes, surrounded on all sides by a lotus-and cone garland band’*18; Residence L (also Khorsabad) ‘had three portals … aligned to form a connecting link between the central court and two chambers, each succeeding the other. The pavement blocks set in the entrances were carved with an overall pattern of small squares, each inscribed with a rosette*19. Near the center of the stone was a seven line inscription which identified the owner of the residence as Sinahuser, Sargon’s full brother and vizier’*20

By the time we get to the reign of Sennacherib (704-681 BCE), ‘elaborate carved pavements were used extensively for important entrances of the South-West Palace at Nineveh’*21. 

This concern  for providing elegant approaches continued into the period of Ashurbanipal, for not only were the grand portals leading into rooms I and M of the North Palace embellished with carved pavements (pls 23, 25), but also other doorways leading out of these and other chambers (pls. 17, 18, 20). From the archaeological evidence available, one must conclude that the desire to enhance important entrances grew in importance in the course of the late 8th and early centuries.*22

It can be argued that this embellishment of entrances is a design issue, or simply a matter of taste, as Albenda appears to be suggesting, though she has referenced what would have been understood as a more practical function by the Assyrians, earlier in her article, when she suggested that  the 'substitution of carved decorated thresholds for the inscriptions at important entranceways…. makes it certain that the floor decorations served a significant role, similar to that performed by the door guardians and wall reliefs’

There are three types of garland borders which are found on Assyrian carved threshold slabs: lotus and bud, lotus and cone, and palmette. The contention of this chapter is that boundaries had an especial philosophical/theological and symbolic significance to the Assyrians in particular, as well as to wider Mesopotamia and Asia, and that the details of
the border decorations are tied into this symbolism. The garland borders are associated in terms of design with the sacred tree, discussed in Being, Kabbalah, and the Assyrian Sacred Tree (in The Sacred History of Being). And philosophically the concept of the boundary is one with the concept which the sacred tree enshrines – an object which represents transformation, transcendence, a point of departure, of coming forth and also of passing away. The boundary of anything is the point at which these transformations can occur, and something of the properties of the boundary – particularly the fact that it must be described essentially in negative terms – seems to have been understood as facilitating transformation. Therefore boundaries would be understood of themselves as of great importance.

In consideration of the significance of details of the design of the garland border, Albenda argues, on grounds of practical design, that ‘when planning for the rhythmical aspect of the garland around two or more sides, the corners must have been of prime importance since in every instance each corner contains a large open lotus or a palmette, depending upon the garland type. Additionally, the corner garland stems are compressed to form double straight lines.’ Looking at the question of this detail from a different point of view, in which the garland is a graphical way – a formal way - of reinforcing, of redoubling, of multiplying the power of the threshold, it is likely that the border design represents, as already suggested, an unfurled sacred tree, alternating bud and blossom, and where the borders meet at right angles, so that two boundaries meet, with the corollary that the quality of limit which that meeting represents is doubled, the formal marking at that point is similarly enhanced. The sacred tree design is often found in corners, for the same
philosophical reason, rather than, as most Assyriologists would have it, functioning as a mere‘filler’ motif.

The chronology of the garland types begins with the lotus and bud [Albenda, p6]. ‘It appears on the inner threshold found in the Central Palace at Nimrud, where the motif is repeated twice among horizontal rows of rosettes separated by plain stripes [illustr pl 1]. The flowers are connected by scalloped-shaped stems supported by a base ring. A plain triple arch defines the calyx of the closed and open lotuses. The open flower displays nine petals, while the petals of the closed bud are indicated by a double line drawn down its center. 

This lotus and bud design appears again in the reign of Sennacherib (illustr. pl 15), but the design is subtly modified in its details. Similar garlands appear in thresholds dating to Ashurbanipal’s reign, again having undergone subtle modifications.* 23 During the 8th
century BCE, the cone garland was replaced by the lotus and cone. The lotus and cone garlands are found at Khorsabad [Residence K – illustr. Pl 3 Albenda] –

 the plants are supported by a triple base ring, over which the terminals of the scalloped shaped stems project. The cone appears small and has a narrow body. Its scales are rendered by linear cross-hatchings. This garland type recurs in the next period, at which time the cone seems to be broader, particularly at the base (pls8-9). The base ring may be either plain or banded. The stem terminals emerge over the base ring and curve either down or out. 

The lotus and cone design is found frequently on threshold slabs dating to the reign of Sennacherib [illustr pls. 11-13], but, curiously, never found on the thresholds used in the time of Ashurbanipal. As for the palmette garland motif, it ‘appears for the first time on the portal thresholds from Ashurbanipal’s reign, where it is applied third in a series of decorated bands, following the lotus-and-bud and rosettes (pls 22-23). In the one example of its use on an inner threshold, it occupies the side of the slab that was originally adjacent to the entrance (pls. 17-18). The palmette consists of nine petals of graduating size that radiate from an arched center. Rising over the base ring which supports the flower, the stem terminals divide into four: an outer pair that terminate in upward-curled volutes, below which is an inner pair with downward-curled volutes.’ * 24

As for the centre field designs, Albenda points out that the centre field of the thresholds featured motifs restricted to floral and geometric elements. She also notes that these designs were properly though out ‘according to a basic formula which provided for the orderly division of the parts to the total design.’*25


Notes


1 p4 JANES 10.
2 see A. H. Layard’s Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, London 1853, 359-60.
3 n22 Albenda: Mallowan, ‘Nimrud’, I, 42, pl.9; ibid., II 393, pl 319.
4 n23 Albenda: G. Loud, ‘Khorsabad’, Part I. Excavations in the Palace and at a City Gate, OIP 38 (1936), 122-25
5 n24 Albenda is referring to: Paley, King of the World, 120-121
6 Albenda: JANES 10 p4.
7 Albenda, JANES 10, p1; the suggestion by Young appears in ‘Early Mosaics at Gordion’
Expedition 7 (1965), 12-13.
8 The three examples are: The Black Obelisk, the bronze door bands from Balawat, and those carved on the throne dais excavated at Nimrud. On the Black Obelisk, ‘the carpets which form part of the tribute sent by Marduk-apal-usur of Suhi (a district on the middle Euphrates) possess carefully delineated fringes’; those on the bronze bands from Balawat showing tribute from the cities of Tyre and Sidon show less attention to this detail; ‘and those transported by attendants from the land of Unqi (the Amuq plain in North Syria). The inscriptions on the Black Obelisk and on the throne base describe the carpets as ‘bright-colored (woolen) garments and (linen) garments’. They are not described as carpets.
9 n15 – J.V. Canby, “Decorated Garments in Ashurnasirpal’s sculptures,” Iraq 33 (1971), 31-3. For examples of the second group, see S. M. Paley, King of the World: Ashur-nasir-pal II of Assyria 883-859 B.C. (New York, 1976), pls. 22a, 23c, 25a.
10 n12 – Barrelet, R Asyr 71 (1977), 85. Of related interest, the upper surface of the throne base of Shalmaneser III was decorated with an intricate honeycomb and rosette pattern, which may represent a rug. See A. Moortgat, The Art of Ancient Mesopotamia, (New York, 1969), pl. 269.
11 p3 JANES 10.
12  this arrangement is illustrated in Fig 2
13 a feature also illustrated by Frankfort in The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient – pl 223, p196, ‘The Late Assyrian Period’, where the rectangular slot in a door-sill from Khorsabad can be clearly seen, cut into the rosette border which marks the inner limit of the outer design of lotus blossoms, alternating between open and closed forms.’
14 illustrated in Albenda, plate 1. The slab is no longer in existence.
15 ‘a large pavement “ornamented with flowers and scroll-work”’. Max Mallowan found that
the part of the palace where this pavement was found was the domestic wing during Sargon’s renovation of the building‘ [Mallowan, ‘Nimrud’, I, 112-13]
16 illustrated in plate 7, Albenda, JANES 10
17 Albenda: p5
18 illustrated in plate 3, Albenda, JANES 10
19 illustr. Albenda, pl. 4, JANES 10
20 fn 28 Loud and Altman, ‘Khorsabad, The Citadel and the Town’, OIP 40 1938, 48-49
21 illustrated Albenda JANES 10, pls. 13, 14.15.
22 Albenda, JANES 10, p5.
23 Albenda, p9 states that the garland motif first appears in Assyria “as part of a wall painting decoration in Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, dated to the 13th century BCE.’ (n 40., Moortgat, Ancient Mesopotamia, 118, fig 89). Later on, in the 9th century BCE, it appears ‘as a textile pattern reproduced in stone’. On the basis of the evidence of the wall reliefs, says Albenda, ‘it was of minor importance in the decorative arts’. But she notes that ‘two main types are known at this time, a cone garland and a floral garland combined from the so-called lily, palmette, and cone. The first type consisted of a series of cones, each decorated with cross-hatching and surmounting a ring base, connected by scalloped stems. [n41 - A. H. Layard, The Monuments of Nineveh. From Drawings Made on the Spot (London, 1849), 11, pl 47.
24 Albenda, p7
25 Albenda, p7

Eighteen Meditations

Understanding Ancient Thought (published at midnight, Eastern Standard Time, August 20, 2017. Available for pre-order from August 8th). 

Eighteen meditations on our understanding of ancient history, on the importance of philosophical ideas in antiquity, and also on our understanding of the human mind, then and now.

The ancient world is often very mysterious to us, since its inhabitants thought within quite different models of reality. After the passage of two or three millennia, it is hard for us to make sense of the assemblage of information which has survived the enormous passage of time. Sometimes the nature of the evidence is problematic, and sometimes our approach to that evidence is the problem: we carry intellectual baggage which often makes it very difficult to know and understand what we are looking at.

In essence, this collection of essays attempts, as far as possible, to understand the ancient world within its original context, and to highlight where modern thought and the modern mind introduce obstacles to what can be understood.

The chapter list:

Divination in Antiquity was written in the latter stages of The Sacred History of Being. It was uploaded as a post to my website, and I promoted the essay by adding in brackets ‘and the sense it made’. Most people have no idea why divinatory procedures would ever have made sense in antiquity, but there is a sense to it, once the conceptual model in operation is grasped. This essay explores that conceptual model. 

Knowledge and Esoteric Doctrine concerns scholarly disinterest in the role of esoteric ideas and doctrine in ancient models of reality. Partly this disinterest is because the esoteric is, by definition,  kept secret and unknown, and partly because it is assumed that esoteric doctrine would have had no connection with abstract and universal ideas known to us, and therefore must remain unintelligible to us, even if we could disinter the details. The first of these appeals to the evidential invisibility of what is esoteric, and the second, to its irrational nature. Plato’s esoteric doctrine however is in plain view. We need to look for evidence, rather than presuming that it is not to be had.

Being, Knowledge and Belief in Israel is an expanded version of a chapter which appeared in The Sacred History of Being (The Idea of Being in Israel) which looked at the body of Mesopotamian ideas about the gods and the divine through the extensive commentary on these ideas present in the books of the Old Testament, and in documents from Assyria. The chapter also explored how Old Testament ideas about images were understood by the Christian writer Tertullian, in the early second century of the common era. Now supplemented by a discussion of the problematic relationship between monotheism and polytheism in the ancient Near East.

The Concept of the Plenum in Babylon argues that the description of Marduk in the Babylonian New Year Festival liturgy (The Enuma Elish) and the fact that the described creation was two-fold (it began before Marduk appeared, and was subsequently destroyed), indicates that their creation was understood to emerge from a plenum, in which all things potentially exist. This is an abstract conception which is not supposed to be present in Mesopotamia in the early 1^st millennium B.C.E.

Pleroma, Cosmos, and Physical Existence explores the kind of discussion that would necessarily underpin the idea of a plenum or pleroma as the root of physical creation.  The discussions closely parallel some of those found in Plato, including the question of whether reality retains its nature after the production of a physical reality.

The Divine and the Limit explores the prominence of Janus in the ritual life of the Romans. In the songs of the Salii (‘jumpers’ or dancers) he was called the good creator, and the god of gods; he is elsewhere named the oldest of the gods and the beginning of all things.  The king, and in later times the rex sacrōrum, sacrificed to him. At every sacrifice he was remembered first; in every prayer he was the first invoked, being mentioned even before Jupiter. He is especially associated with the idea of limit, which is a preoccupation of a number of ancient cultures.

Logical Modality in Classical Athens finds that though we have recognised only one logical modality for more than two millennia, there were in fact two. One of them was appropriate to earthbound existence; the other supplied a rational basis for contact with the divine.

Sameness and Difference in Plato is a further discussion of the idea of the Plenum.  Philosophical writing about the divine in the west departed from the consideration of reality as something intricately bound up with a plenum during the Middle Ages, and as a result, philosophical argument about the divine, all the way up to the present day, deals poorly with certain issues, and no longer resembles the kind of argument about the divine found in ancient literature.

Shar Kishati, and the Cult of Eternity is a discussion of the hypothetical core of the ancient understanding of Reality as something which might be separated from everything else (in a Husserlian sense), though it does not mean that such a hypothetical core was separable from the rest of the religious and theological implex of ideas which constituted Greek and Mesopotamian religion. The point of the exercise was to explore what was actually essential to that implex of ideas, and to get a better understanding of why it was important to the functioning of the ritual universe, in both Greece and Mesopotamia.

The Harmony of the Soul explores the idea of Justice discussed in Plato’s Republic, which argues that the pursuit of special excellences by individuals, in terms of skills, and moral and intellectual virtue, without reference to the activities of other individuals, was understood to result in a harmonious arrangement of society.  They are joined together as a consequence of the fact that each of the virtues is complete and perfected. A parallel notion of the virtue of special excellences in ancient Assyria is discussed in the chapter ‘Standing in the Place of Ea’.

Synoikismos and the Origins of the Polis discusses what we know of the idea of the polis, which appears to have been modelled according to a conception of the divine. Thucydides tells us that, from the time of the first kings down to Theseus (the legendary founder of Athens, whose name is probably related to the verb tithemi, "to set in place") the people of Attica always lived in (their own) poleis; unless there was some common danger they would not come together in council with the king, but each individual polis would govern itself. Theseus did away with the multiplicity of poleis and their separate councils and governments.

Teotihuacan and the river of Mercury explores the symbolic function of this highly reflective metal, recently found inside a tomb in Mexico and known, on the basis of historical records, to be present also inside the Qin tomb in China, and finds parallels with such ideas (mirroring the heavens to provide connection between transcendent reality and the earthly world) in both Greece and in Mesopotamia.

Beyond the Religious Impulse Sometimes the important bit of evidence which will enable us to make sense of something is present, but not recognised, because the scholar is asking the wrong questions, and possibly asking questions within the wrong analytical paradigm. In fact there is a very large quantity of material available to scholars which can tell us much about the intellectual life of the ancient world, but because of the contemporary intellectual and cultural landscape, with its relatively inflexible interpretative structures, developed over many years, it simply cannot be seen for what it is. Worse, if the evidence is present but indicates counter-intuitive conclusions, it is unlikely ever to become part of the discussion. Better to grasp at straws.

Frazer and the Association of Ideas Like other scholars, then and now, Frazer did not recognise the other logical modality in classical Athens, though he read the relevant texts. Instead, he devised an explanatory mechanism of his own. This was based on the phenomenon of the association of ideas, argued by John Locke in the seventeenth century as a description of how we think. Applying this to human behaviour across history and cultures, he concluded that much human activity could be understood in terms of intellectual error. The phenomenon of the association of ideas is real enough. But it isn’t the basis of religious life in antiquity.

Aristotle’s Four Causes We recognise only one cause in the modern world, which is the efficient cause. This is concerned with work, energy and power. In antiquity Aristotle described four causes, which are discussed here. Did Aristotle conjure these by himself, or were these concepts understood across the civilised world for centuries before Classical Greece?

Cultural Parallels and False Narratives discusses our understanding of what religion is, the etymology of the word (including Cicero’s definition), and compares the Hindu concept of religion with those of Greece and Rome. The evidence makes more sense if we talk instead in terms of divine cult.

Plato’s Point of View  - Plato’s main concern was what was truly real, which remained necessarily unchanging and itself, and therefore could not be present, at least as itself, in the world of the here and now. This is not however, how Plato is understood or represented by modern philosophers. There are two main schools of thought: the first is that his position is consistent throughout his work, but his work is shaped by an unknown agrapha (unwritten esoteric doctrine). The second is that his work represents a discursive exploration of philosophical questions, which comes to no firm conclusion.

Standing in the Place of Ea explores the role of the King in ancient Assyria, as the vizier of the god Assur. He was trained in the Adapa discipline, which is related to the myth of Adapa. He was required to be skilled in crafts, spear-throwing, scholarship, mathematics, divination, etc., and to excel other men, as chosen for the role by Assur. Thus he would emulate the knowledge and power of Ea, the divine sage whose home was the Abzu, the abyss at the root of creation.

Buying a copy of Understanding Ancient Thought

The book will be available in eBook format from a number of large retailers, including Itunes, Barnes & Noble, Blio,  (search) Kobo, Inktera, and other retailers around the world. So, if you are already signed up to an account with one of those, you can buy the book in exactly the same way as any other book. 

The eBook is in ePub format, which can be read on Macs, iPads, iPhones, etc, and most other tablets, irrespective of the operating operating system they use. If you have an Amazon Kindle, the ePub formatting of the book can be converted easily to the MOBI format, which the Kindle uses, with the excellent eBook management software Calibre, which can be downloaded free. 

The book can be read on a PC, laptop or notebook computer, in ePub or any other eBook format, using the Adobe Digital Editions software, which is also available free, in both Mac and PC formats. Supports conversion to many formats, including PDF. 

The principal distributor of Understanding Ancient Thought is Smashwords. The book (from mid-August 2017) can be downloaded from Smashwords directly, after a signup which takes just a minute or so. The book can be paid for using a credit or debit card, or with Paypal, if you have an account with them. After purchase, the book goes into a library space associated with your signup, and it can be downloaded on to your device from there. Just follow the link.

Thomas Yaeger, May 4, 2017, May 29 2017, June 17-18, July 30,  August 8th, and August 12,  2017.

Standing in the Place of Ea: The Adapa Discipline and Kingship in the Neo-Assyrian Empire

This paper contains extensive information about the Adapa discipline and its role in the preparation for kingship in Sargonid Assyria, and the the place of both within the Assyrian model of the world. 

Both the myth and the discipline of Adapa can be argued to have been of central cultural importance in the Sargonid period; the evidence for this is particularly strong in the textual remains of the later kings, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. This aspect of the kingship illuminates the self-perception of the Sargonids perhaps more clearly and concisely than any other single form of evidence, and may even constitute the backbone of that self-perception, providing the order about which the other types of evidence ought to be arranged.

It is interesting to see that Assyrian kingship in this period (mainly eighth and seventh centuries BCE) was firmly associated with moral action. Much in the Assyrian state depended on the king, his skills, and the performance of ritual observances. This is partly the result of the Assyrian understanding that moral action occurred within a teleological frame. As representative of the divine Ashur on earth, the king reflects an understanding of the perfection of Ashur, and that such perfection should be emulated in his life. Good order in the state depended on this. 

The paper was written some years ago, and reflects my views at the time of writing. I would write it a little differently now, particularly in connection with the meaning of the Adapa myth. But that is true of many papers that we write. 

It is also clear now that it was possible for the Assyrian king to assume a temporary divinity in special circumstances. The same is true for other functionaries in Assyria. This rather surprising state of affairs is discussed in some detail in The Sacred History of Being.


Thomas Yaeger, 26 June 2015.


***


We have two principal sources concerning the myth and discipline of Adapa:

1. The myth is known to us principally from a document found in two locations: the library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, and an earlier text from the Amarna archive in Egypt*1

2. The Annals of Ashurbanipal, in which he describes the discipline of the Adapa, which formed part of his training for the kingship while crown prince*2

The myth of the Adapa is currently understood to have provided a contemporary explanation of the convention that Assyrian kings were not divine, and also a justification of their right to rule*3 The account given by Ashurbanipal of his training gives us something of the context in which the myth functioned, and the way Assyrian kings understood their role. His description breaks down naturally into three categories of instruction:

1. Scholarship and inquiry
2. Military Skills
3. Emulation of the King's administrative function


The importance of this pattern of training for the later functioning of the king may be illustrated by analytical comparison with the royal correspondence. It may be broken down into roughly parallel groupings:

1. Religion
Magic and Medicine
Astronomy, Astrology and Divination


2. War

3. Provincial administration
Agriculture and Commerce
Court and Officials
Property and Revenue of the Temples*4

The Myth of Adapa (I)

Adapa is instructed in the ways of heaven by Ea, the "broad eared one" (signifying wisdom)*5 Dalley remarks that


"Adapa was also known as Uan, which is the name given as Oannes by Berossus to the first sage; the name Uan also forms a pun on the Sumero-Akkadian word for a craftsman... as the first sage, Adapa-Oannes introduced the correct rites of religious observance to mankind, and was the priest of Ea in his temple in Eridu" *6


The precise meaning of the story is unclear, but it appears to explain why Adapa was not granted immortality and remained as a mortal sage (apkallum). According to the fourth fragment of the text, lines 10-11, Anu decreed freedom from compulsory service for the city of Ea (Eridu). To glorify his high priesthood "until faraway days [he decreed] as (his) destiny"*7

The Discipline of the Adapa

The text which tells of Ashurbanipal's training for the role of king proclaims that:


"[Marduk], master of the gods, granted me as a gift a receptive mind (lit., wide-ear) and ample power of thought" *8


This is a deliberate allusion to the granting of divine wisdom by Ea (the broad-eared) to Adapa. He further tells us that:


"the art (lit., work) of the Master Adapa I learned (lit., acquired), the hidden treasure of all scribal knowledge, the [signs] of heaven and earth" *9

The scribal training was the most important part of the education of the crown prince. Since the future Assyrian king was understood to stand in the same relation to the gods as Adapa stood in relation to Ea, we are also told by Ashurbanipal that he participated (to some degree, impossible to quantify) in the life of artisans:


"in the assembly of the artisans I received orders (?)." *10


This would appear to suggest that not only was it part of his training for kingship that he know something of other social groups but that he should also know how to take instruction. He continues:

"I have studied (lit., struggled with) the heavens with the learned masters of oil divination."


He also tells us that he has:


"solved the laborious (problems of) division and multiplication, which were not clear."


he has read also: "the artistic script of Sumer (and) the dark (obscure) Akkadian, which is hard to master, (now) taking pleasure in the reading of the stones (i.e., steles) (coming) from before the flood, (now) being angered (because I was) stupid (and) addled (?) by the beautiful script." *11

The foregoing requirements of the discipline of the Adapa fall under the heading of scholarship and enquiry. Next follow details of military skills. He tells us that he rode a horse, went hunting, was skilled as an archer and as the thrower of heavy lances. He could handle the aritu and kababu shields; in addition to these skills he could drive a chariot (he is depicted as a chariot driver in the palace reliefs)*12

All these appear to have been understood as crafts, for he concludes these remarks by saying that "I wished to be the great lord (?) of all the craftsmen" (i.e., to be the best of them all).*13 Given the nature of the coronation ceremony, for which we have an invaluable text, it would seem that he required the acclamation of his inferiors, to be perceived to merit the honour of occupying a transcendent office*14 Indeed, in speaking of his skills as an archer, he specifically says that he "shot (lit., let fly) the arrow, the sign of my valour"


Ashurbanipal then passes on to a description of his preparation for the highest office: "At the same time I was learning royal decorum, walking in the kingly ways."*15 He says that he

"stood before the king, my begetter, giving commands to the nobles. Without my (consent) (lit., without me) no governor was appointed, no prefect was installed in my absence."


Thus the role of the crown prince is to emulate the king as it is the role of the king to emulate Adapa.

Though the office of king must be merited, the merit of the candidate for the crown prince-ship was understood to be conferred through the favour of the gods:


"The father, my begetter, saw for himself the bravery which the great gods decreed as my (portion)."


The king conceived a great love for this particular son, but, it is explicitly stated that this love is the command of the great gods. The particular son was chosen from the assembly of brothers by divine will; that he might rule depended upon the king imploring the gods, addressing his prayers "to Nabu and Marduk, who give throne and sceptre, who establish kingship..."*16

Ashurbanipal describes his installation as king in the bit-riduti:


"at the command of Assur, father of the Gods, Marduk lord of lords, king of the gods, he raised (exalted) me above the (other) king's sons".


This installation is represented as causing peace in the land:


"the four regions (of the world) were in perfect order, like the finest oil." *17


He also says that in his first year of rule


"I laid hold of the hem of the garment of his great godhead, I gave my attention to his sanctuaries." *18


That is, the chain of connection between the world of the gods and that of man was his first priority.

The Perfection of the King

Throughout the texts and inscriptions and iconography we are presented with images of the king as a kind of perfection. He is at the apex of the social structure of Assyria and is its principal priest (in terms of his symbolic participation in the key rituals). Thus he is the most excellent of human beings and holds his position because of his theoretical excellence in all aspects of Assyrian life: exercising the virtues of kingship, justice, statecraft, warfare, divination, administration, etc.It would be easy to argue that the king was understood to have the privilege of contact with the divine on account of his pre-eminence in human society; almost that the king arrogated this privilege to himself on account of his power to do so. However this would be to retroject a secularism into Assyrian society which the evidence does not warrant.*19

Instead, much of the evidence is explained if we infer that the king owed his privileges of contact with the gods and his rulership over mankind to the fact that he was perceived as a paragon of excellence and perfection: he was rewarded according to his merits within the framework of a gift economy. In other words, that his wisdom and power came to him as corollaries by virtue of his perfection, not only in eminence among men, but among all men*20 From the Assyrian point of view, the reason for the existence of a point of contact between the king and the gods at all is that they have something in common, and that the point of contact is precisely the pre-eminence, the excellence, and the perfection of the king in all his roles. It is this commonality which establishes the harmony between the world of man and that of the gods.*21

It was widely held in antiquity that perfection was a characteristic of completion: the perfect is that which is complete, and that which is complete is perfect. Thus the king is also complete, in his attainments, his power, his wisdom and his capacity. In this the king emulates the divine, all aspects of which must be complete in their own natures.*22 Thus, in acting as "apkallum" (in effect standing in for Ea) in rituals necessary for the continuation of the Assyrian state (as illustrated in the throne room relief where the king is shown apparently engaged in the business of fertilizing the date palm represented as a sacred tree) the ritual is brought closer to the divine creation, and the consonance of the act with the divine will is emphasised*23

The king is the agent of the divine in the fight against chaos and the maintenance of order in his realm (which struggle might be characterized as war with the imperfect and the incomplete: cf. the Enuma Elish and the strange creatures which were made in the first creation)*24 The divine is understood as a place on the other side of the limit of the world which the king rules, from which he is excluded except in terms of priestly contact.*25 He is near to the divine, but not so proximate to qualify as divine himself.*26

As the most perfect individual in his state the king nearly emulated the divine in containing all things: he is complete. It is a short step from such a view to the notion that the completion of his nature and that of Assur can be made concrete by its literal realization. The king is "king of kings", and the concept is rendered emphatic by means of conquest and the subjection of surrounding states from the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea.*27 Hence also his description as "king of countries" and "king of the four quarters (lit., edges) of the world". It is possible that the king's embodiment of the idea of the divine extended so far that his "official" moods were in imitation of the gods, understood to be manifest in the motions of the planets: the evidence which suggests this as a possibility is the fact that the Crown Prince was excluded from the presence of the King when Mars was in opposition to the Sun and hence subject to retrograde motions (which exclusion is itself an interesting reflection of the Adapa myth: Ea knew that Adapa was not fit to appear in the presence of Anu without some schooling in what to say).*28

It is difficult to specify exactly what is going on here, but it would appear that there is some kind of transactive relationship understood to exist between the abstract (gods) and the concrete (the earthly responsibilities of the king): the character of some of the acts for which we have evidence is best explained by presuming that the principal point of the actions of the king was to create a harmony between heaven and earth - literally to join them together; to act as agent of the divine, not to supplant its position, or to exploit it for personal ends*29

The King and Totality

The concept of totality, a feature of both the Adapa (myth and discipline) and Assyrian theology, is the logical corollary of the association of the king with completed action: it is another way of framing the idea that the universe is structured according to degrees of participation in the ultimate completion (the realm of the divine). This ultimate completion is necessarily transcendent - the completion of completions - in that we can have no commerce with it except via certain special individuals in auspicious circumstances. However, the essential characteristic of the divine, if it cannot be said to exist in the world, can be emulated within the limitations imposed by the nature of earthly reality. Hence we find the king engaged in conquest and empire building, attempting to take hold of the known universe and to subject it to his will (which is naturally the will of the divine).*30 This ambition (if not necessarily the reality) is reflected in the style of the kings inscriptions, whether addressed to a human or divine audience. Client kings make sense within this emulatory system: a king need not rule directly, just as Marduk need not. A proxy representative (bound by oaths to the Assyrian king, just as the king is bound by oath to the god) is not only satisfactory, but fits harmoniously into the Assyrian model of the world.

The Myth of Adapa (II)

Several key concepts are brought together in the myth, or rather appear to be spun out of one central idea, related to the problem of man's connection with the divine: in the poem Anu is the supreme god: Ea knows the mind and the plans of Heaven and Earth. Adapa has connection with Ea on two counts:


1. he is his son, and
2. he has been initiated into the ways of heaven and earth by him.

Men in general have connection with the divine through the kingship of Adapa, and latterly through the kingship of those who have studied the discipline of the Adapa.


Adapa breaks the wing of the southwind (a wind favourable for kingship) while at sea fishing for the temple of Ea at Eridu.*31 He is on the wide sea (described as "like a mirror"); Ea's wisdom is explicitly compared with the wide sea, and Adapa is both in the place of Ea and clearly identified with it at the time when kingship is destroyed (note also that since the occurrence takes place at night the sea must be like a black mirror, with the same characteristics as the liver at the moment it is removed from the body of a sheep. This parallel is probably deliberate, since the point of divination is to know the mind of the gods).

Wide understanding was associated with the power to make decrees, and both were characteristics of kingship. The first fragment tells us that Adapa possessed wisdom and that "his command was like the command of [Anu] [...] (line 2); "with wide understanding he had perfected him to expound (?) the decrees of the land" (line 3). His power to give decrees comes from his perfection, his completion, which is like that of the gods; but, naturally, it is not the same completion. His connection with the divine is to be understood as functioning through his completion: see Plato's Phaedo, 100, "greatness is the participation in the great". But, though he had been given wisdom by Ea, he had not granted Adapa eternal life (line 4). Ea had however created him as a leader among mankind (line 6) and: "no one treated his command lightly" (line 7) *32

Thus Adapa is in the place of kingship, in that he has been placed in the realm of his father; because he is in that place he has the power to make decrees and he breaks the wing of the South wind with the utterance of his command. He in effect has usurped kingship, because he was cast deep into the realm of his father.


Why did the south wind bring Adapa into the realm of his father? To answer this we should ask why it is that the south wind should be associated with kingship in the first place. It is partly because in Mesopotamia the south wind is associated with storms and unpredictability. Thus the south wind connotes power, and power which transcends our capacity to predict its behaviour. As the gods are powerful and transcendently unpredictable, so the kings as their representatives (and emulators) are likewise powerful and unpredictable.


There is a two way process involved here: standing in the place of wide understanding promotes the power to make decrees and kingship, and kingship itself promotes wide understanding, expressed by Adapa's immersion in Ea's kingdom, the Apsu. Thus the southwind, emblematic of kingship, is responsible for conferring the power on another entity to break its wing (its power to be what it is)*33


This aspect of the myth is probably significant for the understanding of how the Sargonids understood royal succession. The kings had institutionalised the transfer of power from the king to the crown prince (possibly as the result of numerous occurrences of factional infighting in the royal court). His education prepared him to stand in the place of his father. While his education continued, he was not allowed to live in the same place as his father (the royal palace), but instead lived in a separate establishment which mirrored its character and functions. The crown prince was given an entourage like that of the king, drawn from the sons of the nobles forming his own court. Thus, as the king is the image of the god, so the crown prince is the image of the king. The crown prince was chosen by the king from amongst his sons and the decision was confirmed by omens and divination. That is, the kingship of the crown prince was legitimate only if confirmed by the gods.Note that Adapa was engaged in fishing out of sight of the sun god (i.e., at night) at the time he encountered the south wind, and that therefore the sun god could not see what was happening and give his sanction.*34 Therefore the arrogation of kingship, even divinity, by Adapa, is illegitimate.

Adapa is hauled before the gods to answer for his crime. He is instructed by Ea as to what to say. He expresses dismay that two gods are missing from the land, Dumuzi and Gizzida. The meaning of the first name is 'faithful son', and the second (translated by Dalley as 'trusty timber') may be translated as 'legitimizing throne' (GIS.ZI.DA). As the destroyer of the kingship belonging to his father he has failed to be a faithful son, and has usurped the throne.

His father however, being wiser than Adapa, knowing the plans of the gods, instructs him to refuse the food and water offered to him, saying that he will be offered the food and water of death:
28...... As though standest before Anu,

29. They will offer thee the food of death;30. Do not eat (it). The water of death they will offer thee;31. Do not drink (it). A garment they will offer thee;32. Clothe thyself (with it). Oil they will offer thee; anoint thyself (with it).33. The instruction which I have given thee do not forget; the words34. Which I have spoken unto thee, hold fast...."

He is instructed only to accept the mourning garment and the anointing oil. But in fact Anu instructs that he be offered the food and water of eternal life (which is in effect Adapa's due, since he has emulated the gods). He refuses, perhaps because he trusts his father, which is, according to this kind of world view, a mistake, since the ways of the gods are forever beyond our capacity to understand. According to Dalley, the actual words used in the text to denote the food and water of life involve wordplay which renders the sense confusing and ambiguous, which is appropriate for the circumstances in which Adapa finds himself. Dalley comments that the verb chosen to alliterate with the words for "food" and "eat" is unusual [akalu, kalu, and akalu (different stress)]. Also that "an unusual plural form of the word "heaven" produces a pun, "bread of heaven/bread of death" [shamuti/sha muti]

It is worth comparing the following neo-Babylonian text for the purposes of illustration of the Mesopotamian perplexity at the nature of the gods:

I taught my land to observe the divine ordinances,
To honour the name of the goddess I instructed my people. (30)
The king's majesty I equated to that of a god,
And reverence for the royal palace I inculcated in the troops.
Oh that I only knew that these things are well pleasing to a god!
What is good in one's sight is evil for a god.
what is bad in one's own mind is good for his god.
Who can understand the counsel of the gods in the midst of heaven?
The plan of a god is deep waters, who can comprehend it?
Where has befuddled mankind ever learned what a god's conduct is?

And, speaking of men:

When they are hungry they resemble corpses,

When they are sated they rival their god;In good luck they speak of ascending to heaven,When they are afflicted they grumble about going down to the underworld. *35



Adapa's unreasonable response confirms to the gods the accidental nature of Adapa's emulation: if he had truly understood the ways of heaven and earth (like his father) he would not have refused the offer of food and water. It is probably for this reason that Anu orders that Adapa be brought back to Earth: Adapa did not merit the corollary of a complete emulation of the gods. It was always Ea's intention that Adapa be a leader among mankind [I. 6-14] and Ea seems to have made sure that Adapa returned to fulfill the role for which he, like the crown prince, was chosen.

Wisdom, the king and the Akitu contest

The character of Ea and its associations with wisdom appears problematic, but probably the difficulty is more apparent than real. Wisdom to those without it is necessarily mysterious - its order is glimpsed on occasion, but mostly it appears like chaos, for which water is an excellent metaphor. In the Mesopotamian cosmology the entire world is surrounded by water, which simultaneously represents both its limitation and its foundation. The inhabited world is a world of relative order separated out of the waters of chaos; the king, as agent of the gods has as one of his functions the maintenance and increase of the available order within the limits of his rule.


Hence the representation of the battle between Ashur (or Marduk) and Tiamat in the Akitu festival. As W.G. Lambert points out, Sennacherib instituted an Assyrian Akitu festival as part of his attempt to substitute Ashur for Marduk "the 'High God' of the land..."*36 The festival took place in the Akitu house of the city, and:

"A well known inscription describes the door of this house on which was portayed Ashur advancing to do battle with Tiamat, escorted by ten gods in front and fifteen behind. A slightly broken list of the same ten gods occurs on a Late Assyrian ritual fragment... which describes them as "preceding [Ashur] to the Akitu house"... A combination of these two items of information suggests, if it does not prove, that the procession of gods from the city to the Akitu house was construed as a setting out for battle with Tiamat."

The battle, Lambert presumes, took place inside the Akitu house. If there is a parallel here with Adapa's breaking of the wing of the south wind while on the sea we should expect that at some point in the Akitu festival that either the king or a statue of the 'High God' should be represented as on the sea; literally standing in the place of Tiamat. Three pieces of related evidence from Babylonia are offered by Lambert: the first he describes as a comment on a late magical text, quoting the line:

This refers to Bel who sits in the middle of the Sea (Tiamat) in the Akitu *37

The second piece of evidence comes from the text called "the topography of Babylon" which gives us information about small cultic structures in the city:

Tiamat (Sea) is the seat of Bel on which Bel sits.

The third piece of evidence comes from a "hitherto unidentified epic which appears to describe Nabu's exaltation to equality with his father Marduk". This passage is interesting in itself as reflecting ideas present in the myth of Adapa, since, "if the text has been correctly understood, Nabu went with his father, as usual, to the Akitu, but then insisted on performing the rites which properly should have been done by his father" (my emphasis). The line quoted by Lambert is:

He set his feet on the rolling sea (Tiamat) *38

Note that the sea is described as "rolling" - that is, the sea is not calm and is in the condition in which it most resembles chaos, paralleling the struggle between Adapa and the south wind. Lambert argues that "the Sea (Tiamat) was no doubt a small cultic structure in the Akitu house (probably a dais) and when the statue of Marduk was taken there, it was set on the dais to symbolise victory over Tiamat."*39 Further, "the presence of the gods there and their heaping up of gifts for Marduk is entirely consistent with the idea that Marduk delivered them from danger by taking their part in fighting with Tiamat."*40

Conclusion:

Clearly the myth of Adapa explains a great deal about the character of Sargonid kingship. The myth embraces a number of themes, including the importance of wisdom for kingship, the order and power of the gods (and the corollary: their inscrutability to mere mortals); the significance of rational arrangement, shown by the fact that Adapa is also the name of a musical instrument; the conquest of chaos by the forces of order; the transfer of power from one legitimate authority to another (i.e., the succession); that all aspects of Assyrian society were understood to be embraced in the meaning of kingship, from artisan to soldier, from scribe to priest. Much of the nature of Sargonid kingship can be related to the myth of Adapa: this is already known to us because Ashurbanipal informs us of the discipline of kingship which bears his name (Adapa). Close examination of the myth (alluded to by the other Sargonid kings) shows that aspects of the Neo-Assyrian Empire not referred to in royal documents and inscriptions in connection with the myth, can be explained on the basis of the themes which it contains.


In drawing these themes together, the myth reflects the Assyrian concept of the symbolic function of the king, which was to embody the various aspects of the Assyrian state, and to be, emblematically at least, the totality of the world, the embodiment of all earthly power, wisdom, learning, justice, valour, skill, etc. Assyria itself likewise should contain within itself the best of what the rest of the universe had to offer: hence the botanical gardens, the zoological collection, and, from our point of view most significant of all, the library at Nineveh, collected by Ashurbanipal and intended to embrace important documents and texts from all over Mesopotamia, and from all periods of its history.


Since occupation of the throne of Ashur implies an emulation of the divine, (the king embodying some of the characteristics of the gods, in particular their unpredictability), the king is standing in the place of the divine. By being like the gods, the gods are present in the land. In sitting on a throne mounted on a dais representing the "rolling" sea, the king acquires the character of the abyss (which is unpredictable and unknowable). This way of looking at things is, at first sight, consistent with J.G. Frazer's analysis of the principle of sympathetic magic, and ties the image of the king into the pattern of ideas which made the exaltation of statues and the sacrifice of animals "rational" acts*41


If the character of the divine can be acquired by the performance of the appropriate actions and the collection of its attributes, then it might be reasonable to expect to find some kind of iconographic representation which depicts aspects of the Adapa myth gathered together in one place. Such a representation may exist: a sculpture found lining the processional route to the Ishtar temple at Nineveh shows a shaven figure (a "priest")wearing a peculiar cap, looking for all the world like the body of a fish with its tail in the air. The garments of the priest are of a design which suggests water, and he is playing a musical instrument (not an "adapa" however, but a form of dulcimer, with strings stretched from a wooden post in the form of a hand).


If these details are intelligible as part of an attempt to draw together aspects of the divine by means of their likenesses, what has the iconography of the myth of Adapa got to do with a procession to the temple of Ishtar? There is no reference to the goddess in the myth itself, but we can perhaps detect a connection with the ideas in the myth in the Akkadian version of "The Descent of Ishtar to the Nether world". As Ishtar stands at the entrance to the Netherworld, the gatekeeper announces her to her sister, the queen of the Netherworld (Ereshkigal), describing her with the words: "She who upholds the festivals, Who stirs up the deep before Ea, the k[ing]" (my emphasis).*42 Thus it is possible that what we see in this sculpture is a 'priest' of Adapa, perhaps based at Eridu, participating in a procession to the Ishtar temple, acting symbolically and cultically as Adapa; bringing to the temple a complex of notions regarded as essential for the completion of the ritual; drawing together the pattern of ideas in the myth, and making present the required divine powers. If so, then he is standing in for the king; standing in his stead, in his place; just as the king stands in the place of Adapa, and Adapa, (temporarily, like the Assyrian Kings) in the place of Ea.

Notes

1 In her book Myths from Mesopotamia Stephanie Dalley states incorrectly [p. 183] that the Assyrian tablets come from Assur, and seems to think that they belong to the late second millenium, which would make them nearly contemporary with the Egyptian tablet, rather than belonging to the 7th century B.C. Further, Dalley's version is not a complete traslation of all the fragments - compare for example the version in Heidel's The Babylonian Genesis [pp. 147--53]. The texts were edited in 1915 by Knudtzon: Die El Amarna Tafeln, 964-8; and Picchioni in 1981: Il poemetto di Adapa.
2 ARAB, vol. II s.985ff. Luckenbill.
3 see SLA 137, Pfeiffer [= [Harper 992]:

"The king is my god and the king is (to me) as the morning light"
[Rev. line 17]. Thus the relationship of the Assyrian citizen to the king is as the king to a god: to the king's servant the king might as well be a god. Concerning the second part of the metaphor, compare the fact that in Egypt

"the king's accession was timed for sunrise, and the same verb denoted the sun's daily appearance and the appearance of the Pharaoh at public functions"
[Kingship and the Gods, ch. 13, p148, Frankfort].
4 This arrangement is drawn from Pfeiffer's SLA.
5 Enki-Ea: "the broad eared one who knows all that has a name... budgets the accounts..." [Roux, G. Ancient Iraq, p95].
6 Myths from Mesopotamia, p182. Parallels with Greek mythology are obvious (Prometheus, for example); in Plato's Timaeus the Demiourgos is sometimes referred to as a craftsman, and both the Demiourgos and Adapa are closely connected with music as well as the order of the cosmos: Plato's craftsman constructs the universe according to a scheme of Pythagorean harmony, and a musical instrument (a drum) used in Assyrian cultic contexts was termed an "Adapa" (similar to the tegu). Discipline and order are inevitably associated with music, and vice versa.
7 Heidel, op. cit., p152. This probably implies that the supply of fish for the temple at Eridu was not compulsory. In the light of the events later in the text, one might guess that the privilege was granted to prevent future damage to the wings of the south wind.
8 ARAB, vol. II, s986
9 Compare the words spoken by Anu in the Myth of the Adapa: "why did Ea disclose to wretched mankind the ways of heaven and earth...?" Dalley, op. cit., p187
10 This probably means that Ashurbanipal received oracular instructions from Ea and other gods via an assembly of diviners, along the lines suggested in Esarhaddon’s text, ‘The renewal of the gods’, published in Borger’s Die Inschriften Asarhaddons. In this text Esarhaddon says that he ‘arranged diviners in groups in order to obtain a favourable oracular pronouncement’. This was in connection with the renewal of the cult images. Ea of course was the god of craftsmen.
11 We might take Ashurbanipal's claims with a pinch of salt. It is likely that the desire to master the scribal skills was perfectly genuine, precisely because it was understood as a sign that the king had been granted proximity to the ways of the divine and marked him out for his special role in the Assyrian political and religious structure. However, because it was a requirement of the position, it is natural to expect the claim to be made that he mastered the skills - and with relative ease in comparison with other mortals: his skill at mathematics must reflect the fact that he belongs to a different category of human being. Modern comparisons which suggest themselves include the claim by Elizabeth the First of England that she translated Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy from the Greek in a mere twenty-four hours, or the pretensions of Queen Cristina of Sweden to classical scholarship (noted by Descartes to be unjustified).
12 ARAB, vol. II, s.986. See also Reade, J, Assyrian Sculpture, pl. 98, showing Ashurbanipal inspecting the booty of Babylon from the vantage point of a chariot [British Museum, Room 89]; also pl.83; pl. 80 [both British Museum, Room 17], showing Ashurbanipal in the course of a lion hunt; and pl. 79 [British Museum, Room 17] shows him in preparation for the same. Pl. 69 & 79 show Sennacherib at Lachish in a ninth century style of chariot [both Room 17].
13 See the letter to the king from Marduk-shum-usur, in which he says that Assur had spoken to the king's grandfather in a dream saying:

O wise one... you,the king, the lord of kings, are the grandson of the wise one and Adapa... the extent of your knowledge surpasses that... of all the craftsmen - SLA 248 [= Harper 923].
According to the "Enuma Elish" [Heidel, op. cit. p148, frag. no 1, lines 6 & 10.]:

Ea had created him (Adapa) as a leader among mankind... with the bakers he does the baking...

14 Ashurbanipal's Coronation Hymn illustrates some of the qualities he was expected to manifest: "may eloquence, understanding, truth and justice be given to him as a gift" (line 8) [SAA vol. III, pp26-7]
15 The nearest we have to a contemporary discussion of kingship and magnanimity is in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: the monarch can possess virtues, the "crown" of which is magnanimity, because he can act most freely. For Aristotle virtue could only be achieved through action, therefore those whose choices and actions were limited were necessarily less virtuous. If the king is the most virtuous and just in the land, it follows (according to Aristotle's prescription) that a king must act in certain ways if he is to be seen to be just and virtuous, to be a legitimate king. He says that he,

since he deserves most, must be good, in the highest degree; for the better man always deserves more, and the best man most. Therefore the truly magnanimous man must be good. And greatness in every virtue would seem to be characteristic of the magnanimous man [Nicomachean Ethics 1123b].
The Aristotelian prescription holds broadly for the moral universe of the Assyrian kings in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., since both systems are honour based. The Assyrian king deserves his wealth and power because he has virtue, and must act in order to possess his virtue.
16 ARAB, vol. II, s.986
17 ARAB, vol. II, s.987. Compare lines 5-7 of Ashurbanipal's Coronation Hymn which lists items understood as good in themselves as metaphors for kingship:

just as grain and silver, oil [the catt]le of Shakkan and the salt of Bariku are good, so may Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, be agreeable to the gods [of his] land! [SAA vol. III, pp26-7].
18 Compare line 13 of the Coronation Hymn:

He who in his heart utters improprieties against the king - his foundation is (but) wind, the hem of his garment is (but) litter.
The hem of a garment was frequently used in swearing oaths and also as a seal in legal and financial contexts [SAA vol. III, p27].
19 The office of priest, for example, is not distinguished by a term which we can easily equate with "priest". The kalupriest is designated simply "kalu". In other words, the function of these officials is not seen as something apart from the function of the rest of the Assyrian social structure: religion and society are inextricably intertwined, having never been conceived as separate ways of looking at the world (Compare for example the elaborate intertwining of everyday life and the understanding of the structure of the world illustrated by Marcel Griaule's study of Dogon belief: Conversations with Ogotemeli). To read "kalu" simply as a name for a position in the context of a highly ritualised culture is a mistake, yet it remains the common practice of scholars to transliterate such words in their translations, as if the meaning has little or no bearing on the overall sense of the passage. The term "apkallum" (used to describe Adapa's priesthood of Ea at Eridu) is an Assyrian term indicating a "mortal sage", though in connection with Adapa I think the term has a more precise technical meaning not well served by such a translation.
In any case, there is little evidence that people thought in this way . Even if someone did steal privileges by virtue of his power to do so, the act would be understood and explained within a moral framework, and the success of the act would depend on the will of the gods (it is important to understand that we are not dealing with a familiar moral universe: it is an honour based system, with its own characteristic values). When Esarhaddon entered Nineveh and sat on the throne of his father, he describes how

favourable powers drew close in heaven and earth... messages of gods and goddesses they sent me continuously and gave me courage [Borger, Rykle Die Inschriften Asarhaddons (AfO Beiheft 9) 1959, Nin. A-F Ep. 2] (translation supplied by A.T.L. Kuhrt).
20 The king is described as "king of kings", which concept was understood as an essential component in the function of his kingship, and not merely as a vainglorious styling. That is, the totality of his kingship is in itself of functional importance .
21 Cf. Plato, Timaeus 31c-32c; also Aristotle, Politics 1277a; Nicomachean Ethics Bk X, chap. 8, concerning connection with the gods through completion.
22 That completion was understood as a virtue in itself is illustrated by the fact that, in Mesopotamia and elsewhere, sin was often countered not by an attempt to undo the sin directly, but by the perfect performance of rituals and incantations. Each of these, properly performed, counted towards the expiation of the sin, irrespective of the nature of the original act. Thus, to undo the damage done by sin, it is not necessary to repair the damage, to make good the imperfection, directly (often impossible - see the "Sin of Sargon" text in SAA vol. IV, Starr): to undertake repair without regard to context but complete attention to purpose is the requirement. See SLA 323 [= Harper 629], lines 1317, for an illustration of the perceived value of abstract ritual completions . (13-17?)
23 The king was "chosen" by the gods because of his excellence and his virtue, and he was the person responsible for performing actions of key importance. Everything associated with the ritual being performed was of equal and critical importance: upon the timing of the ritual depended its success - see for example SLA 342 [= Harper 406], where the auspicious day for a sacrifice is discussed; see also SLA 344 [= Harper 365], and SLA 328 [= Harper 356]. Oaths were a matter for auspicious days also, and the king was available to be visited likewise only when the day was judged right - see SLA 341 [= Harper 384]. The throne room relief is in the Nimrud gallery [19] of the British Museum., from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II.
24 Heidel, op. cit. pp. 23-4 [tablet I, lines 132-45] See also pp. 75-81 for the surviving Greek accounts by Berossus and Alexander Polyhistor. The struggle against chaos is vividly illustrated in the palace reliefs according to the metaphor of the battle between Marduk and Tiamat: see room 26 in the British Museum. (the Assyrian Transept). The king is also the final judge (on earth), meaning that his insight into the true nature of matters is second to none - see SLA 322 [= Harper 1006]
25 SLA 327 [= Harper 565], illustrates the contemporary view that no contact with the celestial world is possible except through observation.
26 ] Though a letter suggests that part of the aura of the king was the power to do exactly as he wished - see SLA 324 [= Harper 137]. To those lower down the social scale in Assyria this might count as divinity; but to those able to juggle with the pattern of ideas within which Assyrian royalty functioned, it would connote no more than proximity with the divine - see SLA 137 [= Harper 992].
27 Ashur is designated "King of Kings" in the so-called "Ashur Charter" of Sargon II: see Saggs, H.W.F. "Historical Texts and Fragments of Sargon II of Assyria", I. "The Assur Charter" IRAQ 37, 1975.
28 SLA 328 [= Harper 356]; see also SLA 342 [= Harper 356]; SLA 344 [= Harper 365]; SLA 345 [= Harper 652]. The same kind of equation was made between the geography of the Mesopotamian worldand the surface of the moon at the time of lunar eclipse - see SLA 322 [= Harper 1006]. Roaf in his Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia appears to illustrate this letter, but gives no citation (22 May 678 B.C.). See also SLA 324 [= Harper 137]. See also Parpola's doctoral thesis, LAS, 1971, Appendix 3B, from which this information is drawn.
29 Prestige and propaganda are naturally of significance in a world dominated by metaphors (the king being a metaphor for the divine), but the state machine is driven by, both the internal logic of its theology, and the theology functioning as a tool of state.
30 Sharru, the Akkadian term for king, may have been understood in the Neo-Assyrian period to carry some of the connotations of the Sumerian SAR, which has the meanings: to multiply, to gather, to let gather, and to drive together. Hence perhaps the association of Neo-Assyrian kings with shepherdship, which has no parallel in the earlier periods of Assyrian history. Sharru is not specific to any kind of ruler and can be applied to petty kings and local rulers (the term was applied to rulers in the Zagros region and also to the kinglets in the Egyptian Delta). The term appears to imply sole power, rather than international scale of operation. The term, "king of the totality", was used as far back as the Agade period, but it is generally held that Shamshi-Adad I used it as a newly coined term. Its use often reflects a situation where control is total, though its precise meaning is debated. See Larsen's Power and Propaganda.
31 "In Addaru, a favourable month, on... a festival day of Nabu, I joyfully entered Nineveh, city of my lordship, and seated myself gladly on the throne of my father. The southwind blew, the breath of Ea, a wind whose blowing is favourable to the practice of kingship..." [Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons]
32 In line 8 Adapa is described, curiously, as "the skilful, the exceedingly wise among the Anunnaki..." This implies divinity as does the fact that he is Ea's son. Why therefore does the myth treat Adapa as mortal?
33 It is also spoken of as the "breath of Ea" by Esarhaddon, which confirms the essential identity of the different elements in the myth [Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons].
34 "May Shamash, king of heaven and earth, elevate you to shepherdship over the four [region]s!" [line 1 of the Coronation Hymn, SAA vol. III]
35 Pritchard, ANET, from: "I will praise the lord of wisdom" p. 435, trans. R.H. Pfeiffer.
36 Lambert, W.G. "The great battle of the Mesopotamian religious year: the conflict in the Akitu House" in IRAQ 25, 1963, pp. 189-90.
37 AfO XVII, p.315 F4. Lambert refers also to AfO XIX, p.118.
38 E. Ebling, Parfumrezepte, pl.26, 13.
39 Saggs, H.W.F. "Historical Texts and Fragments of Sargon II of Assyria", I. The Assur Charter, IRAQ 37, 1975, line 36a, in which Sargon equates the making firm of his dynasty and the giving of a "sure foundation to the throne base" (in connection with the restoration of freedom from taxes for the citizens of Ashur): the annual defeat of Tiamat and the installation of Marduk (and his ishiak) is part of the same complex of ideas. In order that the creation of order out of chaos is maximal the condition of the throne base or dais before the contest is unfixed and "rolling"; afterwards it is fixed and provides a sure foundation to the throne base (elsewhere in the text Assur is equated with Enlil, "without whom they cannot give final judgement" (line 4), and Enlil is described in the same place as GISH - which is the determinative for throne). Equating Assur and Enlil yokes the king to the mythology in another way: the king becomes the agent of the Sumerian god and thus responsible for the re-enactment of the primal battles enshrined in the tradition. Hence the description of Ashur as "the seat of the dynasty, the most ancient of settlements" (line 12): it is the same place, and the same actions occur. Assur is also spoken of as "the city of privilege" (line 12), which recalls the exemption of Eridu in the myth of Adapa.
40 IRAQ V, p.61,14 = PSBA XXII, p.367,1. See Reade, J, Assyrian Sculpture, pl.73, which shows Sennacherib inspecting the booty from Lachish, mounted upon a throne. The royal party, led by the crown prince, seems to be congratulating him upon his victory. The iconography of the sculptures works on the basis of the recapitulation and variation on identifiable themes: the victory over chaos stands behind many of the images.
41 The ritual of the substitute king, discussed by Lambert, makes sense only if the likeness of the king and his actions was understood to be sufficient to draw the malefic influences onto the substitute [see also Parpola's doct. thesis: LAS pt. 2]. Note also that in the texts of the queries to the sungod, the ritual requests that the god "be present" in the sacrificial animal [SAA vol. IV].
42 Pritchard, ANET pp106--9.