Representations of Rebellion in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions by Benjamin Neil Dewar A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology School of History and Cultures College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham February 2019 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This dissertation is a study of the literary motifs and topoi relating to rebellion in the Assyrian royal inscriptions. It is particularly concerned with the ways in which the Assyrian kings and their scribes emplotted rebellion into the narratives of the royal inscriptions in order to present these events in a favourable light. Details such as the identities of those responsible for a rebellion; the location of the king at the time at which the rebellion began; or the involvement of the gods (or lack thereof) all contributed towards a message that rebellions against Assyria were unjustified and lacked divine backing. In cases where it was felt that events could not be made to present the king in a favourable light, reference to rebellion was omitted from the inscription. I argue that the approach to these events changed during the reign of Ashurbanipal. This king presented events which might otherwise have been seen as negatively connoted as having been decreed by the gods in order to allow him the opportunity to gain further military successes against his enemies. To Sophie, for everything. Acknowledgments I owe a great debt to my original doctoral supervisor, Dr. Alasdair Livingstone, for his support and guidance during the first half of my PhD. My debt to Dr. Livingstone extends back a great deal further than the beginning of my doctoral research, and he has my gratitude for introducing me to the field of Assyriology, kindling my passion for the Ancient Near East, and guiding my earliest steps into academic research. I must also give my thanks to my replacement supervision team, Prof. Grant Frame and Dr. Philip Burton, who proved excellent at filling the void left when Dr. Livingstone was no longer able to supervise students. I am grateful to Kerrie Myers, Birgit Haskamp, Dr. Eva Miller, and Dr. Johannes Bach for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of some sections of this dissertation, and to the anonymous reviewers who provided comments on the small portion of this text which was published in an earlier form in the Journal of Ancient Near East History. Needless to say, all remaining mistakes are entirely my own. There are too many people who have offered me help and support over the past few years to name them all individually here, but special thanks are due to Bryony and Helen Holst and Dr. Frank Simons, who provided me with support during a particularly difficult time, and to my parents, who have given me their support in every possible way. Table of Contents Introduction – 1 The Structure of this Dissertation – 3 A Note on Normalisation and Translation – 6 1. The Audience and Purpose of the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions – 7 Audience and Intent – 8 The Question of Authorial Intent – 11 The Implied Author – 13 Authorial Intent within the Discipline of History – 15 Speculation and Imagination in the Writing of History – 17 Speculation and Imagination versus the Intentional Fallacy – 19 Determining Real and Particular Audiences – 20 Previous Studies on the Audiences of the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions – 21 Problems with the Theory of “Self-Indoctrination” – 24 Arguments for the Recitation of Inscriptions – 26 Image, Power, and Politics (and Audience) – 28 Visibility and Reading: Inscriptions on Walls, Floors, and Stelae – 30 Priests as Audience More Generally – 32 Inscriptions in the Palace – 34 Writing for Posterity – 35 A Divine Audience – 37 On the Subject of Propaganda – 39 A Naïve View of the Inscriptions? – 40 2. The Concepts of Kingship and Warfare in Ancient Near Eastern Thought – 43 Divine Support for the Assyrian King – 43 Warfare as Legal Case – 48 Positively and Negatively Connoted Rebellions – 52 3. Terms for Rebellion in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions – 56 Rebellion and Submission in Assyrian Thought: Is There a Difference? – 56 nabalkutu and nakāru – 58 External Rebellion? – 59 Markers for Identifying Rebellion – 60 Rebellion in the Epithets – 62 The Interrelations between Campaigns – 64 4. The Heroicising and Mythologising Aspects of Accounts of Rebellion – 69 Combat Myths in Ancient Scholarship – 69 Combat Myths and the King on Campaign – 71 The Epical Elements of the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions – 72 Intertextuality and Literary Allusion – 74 “Minimalists”, “Maximalists”, and the Death of the Author – 75 The Theoretical Background of Intertextuality in Assyriology – 76 Pure Speculation? – 80 Assessing Creating a Political Climate – 81 Gallû-Demons and the Broader Context of Mesopotamian Myth – 85 Intertextuality and Literary Allusion: Over-Applied Concepts? – 86 A Propagandistic Element? – 87 Ninurta and the King – 89 Rebellion as Punishment – 91 5. The Agency of Rebels in the Royal Inscriptions – 93 Excursus: On Binary Oppositions – 97 Blame for Hostility against Assyria in the Middle Assyrian Period – 98 Developments in the Early Neo-Assyrian Period – 99 The Effects of the Treaty System on Attribution of Blame for Rebellion – 101 Adad-nārārī I and Uasašatta: An Early Instance of Treaties in the Royal Inscriptions – 103 Treaties and the Royal Ideology of Tiglath-pileser III – 107 An Exception to the Rule – 109 The Successful Overthrow of Foreign and Assyrian Kings – 110 Popular Rebellion and the Popular Selection of Rulers – 112 Popular Rebellion and the Correct Order of Things – 114 “Friendship” between Rebels – 118 Assyrian Attempts to Incite Rebellion – 121 Bad Advice and Poor Kingship – 123 Regicide in Ashurbanipal’s Elam – 127 Conflicting Accounts of Sargon’s Gurgumite Campaign – 129 Mutallu the Paricide – 131 6. The Divine Causation of Rebellion – 132 The “Apology” of Sargon II – 132 Sargon’s Letter to the God and the “Apology” of Rusa – 134 Sargon and Rusa: Differing Forms of Irregular Succession – 135 Ḫaldi and the Urartian Kingship – 139 Flawed Alliances and Flawed Kingships – 140 Rusa’s Crimes and the Tragedy of the Eighth Campaign – 142 Kudur-Naḫḫunte Struck Down by Aššur – 145 The Gods Overthrowing Rulers with Human Assistance – 147 Divine Intervention and the Moral Character of the Divinely Appointed Rebel – 148 The Grosse Jagdinschrift: Ashurbanipal’s Ideological Approach to Rebellion in Elam – 150 Elamites and the Lion Hunt – 151 “Processive Explanation” and the Significance of Events in Narrative Historiography – 153 The Ideological Importance of the Archery Contest – 158 The Lion Hunt as Allegory – 160 Divine Influence on Individual’s Decisions – 161 The Elamite Rebellions Viewed through the Lens of the Grosse Jagdinschrift – 163 Negative Events and the Structure of Later Inscriptions – 164 The Narrative Geography of the Šamaš-šuma-ukīn Rebellion – 166 Artificially Constructing Universal Rebellion – 167 The Šamaš-šuma-ukīn Rebellion within the Structure of Prism A – 168 The Submission of Sarduri and the Achievement of Universal Conquest – 169 Excursus: A Possible Influence on the Structure of Prism A – 173 7. The Obscuration and Omission of Rebellions in the Royal Inscriptions – 178 Shalmaneser I in Ḫanigalbat – 178 The Lack of Rebellion Accounts in the Inscriptions of Shalmaneser III – 179 Rebellions by Assyrians – 181 Assyrians Rebelling under the Incumbent King – 182 “Assyrianisation” and the Nature of Foreigners in Assyrian Thought – 184 Rebel and the Absence of a Good Ruler – 186 A Governor’s View of Rebellion: The Case of Šamšī-ilu – 189 Rebellion in the Inscriptions of Sennacherib – 196 The Impact of Sargon’s Death – 199 Some Exceptions to the Rule – 200 Sargon’s Death and Sennacherib’s Anatolian Campaigns – 203 The “Sin of Sennacherib” – 204 Sinning Must Run in the Family: Rebellion in the Inscriptions of Esarhaddon – 207 Excursus: Sources Relating to the Conspiracy of Sasî – 213 The Rebellious Actions of Ṣillaja – 215 The Campaign to Šamēlē – 218 Šamšī-Adad V and Babylon: Obscuring Foreign Support – 219 8. Repercussions for Rebellion – 222 The Symbolically Thorough Destruction of Enemy Cities – 223 Destruction as Reversion to Nature – 226 Cutting off His Nose to Spite His Face: An Excursus on Abimelech and Shechem – 229 Carrying off the Earth of a City – 230 Tiglath-pileser’s Lightning Bolts – 232 Cursing the Ruins and Sanctifying the Site – 237 The Destruction of Divine Statues – 238 Cruel and Unusual Punishment – 239 Mutilation and Execution in the Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal – 241 The Implications of Destroying Cities and Corpses – 244 Destroying the Body and Destroying the City: Assyria’s First and Last Resorts – 247 Non-Violent Repercussions for Rebellion – 249 Tying Up Captives to Guard the Gate – 251 Conclusions – 254 The History of the Idea of Rebellion in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions – 254 Positive and Negative Connotations, and the Use of Binary Oppositions – 256 Beyond Ideology and Rhetoric – 258 Processive Explanation and the “Holistic Approach” – 259 Rebellion: An Assyrian King’s Worst Fear? – 259 Tables – 262 Abbreviations – 288 Bibliography – 291 Tables and Figures Fig. 1. Correct hierarchy versus the hierarchy of a rebellion in Assyrian royal ideology – 116 Fig. 2. Events in Elam following the defeat of Teumman in Prisms B, C, G, and Kh – 128 Fig. 3. The geographical locations of Ashurbanipal’s first five campaigns in Prisms F and A and of Babylonia’s allies during the Šamaš-šumu-ukīn rebellion in Prism A – 166 Fig.