44 Xerxes and the Tower of Babel A. R. George

The French excavations at Susa, led by Introduction Jacques de Morgan at the turn of the nine- Among the great sites of ancient Persia the teenth century, uncovered the citadel, pal- best known to visitors to Iran are certainly aces and temples of Achaemenid and Elamite Persepolis and Pasargadae in the province of kings. On the citadel (today often termed Fars, with their wonderful ruins of stone pal- the acropolis) they also turned up an abun- aces and tombs built by the kings Cyrus and dance of important ancient artefacts, includ- Darius. A less prominent place on the itiner- ing many not of local origin but from Susa’s ary of archaeological sites is occupied by the western neighbours in Mesopotamia (Harper ancient city of Susa in the plain of Khuzistan. 1992). Foremost among these were stone mon- Susa is its Greek name; the Elamites called it uments of the Old Akkadian kings, Sargon, Shushun, the Babylonians knew it as Shushin, Manishtushu and Naram-Sîn, published by later Shushi(m) and Shushan, the Achaemenid Fr Vincent Scheil in early volumes of Mémoires Persians as Shusha. Its present name, Shush-i de la Délégation en Perse. The best known of Daniel, combines the ancient toponym with them is certainly the great limestone stele of that of the prophet Daniel, who (legend has it) Naram-Sîn that depicted this king’s defeat of saw in Shushan a vision of a ram and a goat that the mountain-dwelling Lullubi people and was foretold the eclipse of Persia by Alexander of originally set up in Sippar on the Euphrates Macedon. Susa is vastly older than Pasargadae (Scheil 1900: 53–55). An added caption in and Persepolis: it has a history going back well Elamite reveals that Naram-Sîn’s stele was into the fourth millennium and was the lowland taken to Susa by Shutruk-Nahhunte as spoils capital of a succession of independent states in of war after his invasion of Babylonia, a period the third and second millennia. Among these of hostilities that led to the fall of Babylon in states was the Elamite kingdom of Shutruk- 1157 bc. Another famous Babylonian mon- Nahhunte and his sons, Kutir-Nahhunte and ument found at Susa but originally from Shilhak-Inshushinak, twelfth-century mon- Sippar is the great stele of Hammurapi of archs well known as conquerors of Babylon. Babylon, inscribed with the laws that so

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impressed twentieth-century Europe (Scheil Susa are not the only Babylonian objects 1902: 11–162). The probability is that this and that de Morgan found there. Less conspicu- many of the other early Mesopotamian arte- ous as works of art, but noteworthy never- facts found at Susa were taken there as booty theless, are three objects from a much later at about the same time as Naram-Sîn’s stele, period: a damaged clay cylinder (Fig. 44.1) of during the period of Elam’s short-lived hege- Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled the Babylonian mony over Babylonia. empire in the sixth century bc (604–562), Such booty-taking was part and parcel and a marble vase and stone slab bearing of conquest. It is well known that Babylonian labels of the same king’s household (Langdon kings themselves accumulated in and around 1905/1906). Unfortunately no exact prov- their palace statues and other objects looted enances are recorded but since the cylinder from conquered peoples (Koldewey 1990: fragment was already discovered in 1900, the 162–169; Unger 1931: 224–228; Klengel-Brandt citadel is the likely find spot. The citadel of 1990). The exhibition at the British Museum Susa was obviously not the original location that gave occasion for the conference whose of these objects. The vase and slab can be pre- proceedings appear in this volume included sumed without more ado to have been pillaged a stone bowl of Ashurbanipal, the last great from the palace at Babylon, but the presence king of Assyria (668–c.630). Its inscription in Susa of the cylinder fragment presents a shows that it once belonged to the Assyrian larger problem. king’s palace, but was excavated in the royal treasury at Persepolis (Schmidt 1957: pl. Nebuchadnezzar’s cylinder 49/1a–d; Curtis & Tallis 2005: no. 117). It was probably taken from Nineveh as loot when fragment the Assyrian capital fell to the Babylonians The principal use of Neo-Babylonian cylin- and Medes in 612 bc. How it ended up in ders was to bear pious texts reporting royal Persian ownership is a matter for speculation, building work, typically of temples, city walls but its presence in the treasury speaks for the Achaemenid kings’ interest in the products of Mesopotamian royal power. A still more perti- nent example of booty-taking comes from the time when Babylonia fell under the control of the Persian Empire. Many precious objects were removed from their proper locations in Babylonia to Persepolis and there also became part of the royal treasury (Schmidt 1957: 57–63). Especially noteworthy are several fine beads, cylinder seals and other votive objects originally presented to Babylonian temples by royal benefactors in the seventh and sixth centuries. The eye-catching monuments of third- Fig. 44.1 Nebuchadnezzar II’s cylinder fragment and second-millennium Mesopotamia from from Susa, Sb 1700. (Courtesy Musée du Louvre)

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and other monumental construction proj- from the villages near Babylon were digging ects. These building inscriptions often indi- out the remaining courses of baked bricks of cate that the cylinders on which they were the ziggurat’s mantle for use as building mate- written were intended for embedding at reg- rial, and it seems likely that the Philadelphia ular intervals deep in the foundations and cylinders came to light as a result of their superstructure of the buildings in question. excavations. Four further exemplars were Archaeology confirms this, for a good few cyl- excavated at Babylon between 1899 and 1913: inders have been found intact in hollow spaces (a) one at the north-west corner of the ziggu- in walls, untouched since their deposit and rat’s mud-brick core, in a pit left by the vil- revealed only by archaeologists dismantling lagers; (b) another in Homera, the mound the building. of rubble from the ziggurat’s superstructure The text written on the cylinder found at dumped in north-east Babylon by Alexander Susa records Nebuchadnezzar’s completion of of Macedon and his successors; (c) a third Etemenanki, the ziggurat of the god Marduk (represented by two fragments) in disturbed at Babylon. This building was the enormous contexts in the ruins of the palace complex temple-tower that most accept inspired the (Qasr, Hauptburg); and (d) a fourth recovered biblical legend of the Tower of Babel. No from modern fill in the courtyard of the tem- spectacular ruin remains of the ziggurat of ple of Ninurta in the southern part of the city Babylon, for it was levelled in antiquity, but its (Berger 1973: 295–296; the find spot of the foundations reveal it to have risen from a base last mentioned is more accurately reported 90 metres square. Ancient sources allow for by Koldewey 1911: 31, “im modernen Schutt”). approximate reconstructions of how it once An eighth exemplar is a fragment that came to looked (Schmid 1990). Just recently a stele of light during Iraqi work at Babylon in the late Nebuchadnezzar II came to light that includes 1970s (Al-Rawi n.d.: 23–24, Babylon 105–A). a depiction of the tower in profile, which, even What was an exemplar of Nebuchadnez- allowing for idealization, leaves no doubt as to zar’s ziggurat cylinder doing in Susa? The the building’s general appearance. It was a discrepancy between the intended location stepped pyramid consisting of six storeys with of the cylinder and its actual provenance is the sanctuary of Marduk making a seventh at a key issue in this paper, and for that reason the summit (see provisionally Schøyen 2007, I have conducted a statistical analysis of the and my drawing in Levy 2008: 31). find spots of 386 cylinders left by Neo- and At least 12 exemplars of this king’s Late Babylonian kings and other builders. Etemenanki cylinder have survived, includ- Certainly there are more that have escaped ing that found at Susa (tabulated in Da Riva attention and, of course, very many more that 2008: 19–20, C41.1–12). None of them is com- remain in situ, but the figure is an appreciable plete. The fact that they are all broken can be sample that will give a trustworthy picture. explained as a result of the building’s even- The data of this investigation are too exten- tual demolition. Three exemplars (now in sive to include in this paper, but a brief sum- Philadelphia) were bought from dealers in mary of the pertinent results is instructive. London and Baghdad in the years 1888–1889 Only 28 (7 per cent) of the 386 cylinders were and are without secure provenance (CBS 33, certainly found at any distance from the build- 1125 and 1785). This was a time when people ings for which they were intended, including

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the four exemplars of Nebuchadnezzar’s zig- The data collected in my study of the prov- gurat cylinder noted above as found elsewhere enances of Neo-Babylonian cylinders indicate in Babylon; only 7 of the 28 seem certainly to that the number of cylinders that appear never have been excavated in cities where they did to have been put to the use for which they were not belong, including the piece from Susa. intended is very small indeed. With specific Most of these 28 are fragments from very dis- regard to the cylinder fragment found at Susa, turbed contexts and were probably removed the chances are very remote that it was kept at there at some later date after the ruination another location in Babylon, for example in of the buildings in which they had originally one of the palaces. Very much more probably been buried. Exemplary are the pieces of the cylinder was originally embedded in the Nebuchadnezzar’s ziggurat cylinders found in brickwork of Babylon’s ziggurat and remained Homera, Qasr (Hauptburg) and the temple of there until the surrounding brickwork was Ninurta. These are best understood as chance dismantled. Consequently it becomes impor- survivals of broken pieces dispersed to sec- tant to examine how this seemingly insignif- ondary locations after the demolition of the icant object might have found its way from a tower, whether in antiquity or later. Fragments location inside Etemenanki to its final rest- of baked brick from the ziggurat’s mantle ing place in Susa. To address this problem ended up likewise strewn all over the city. The further it is necessary to consider the history demolished remains at Homera were no doubt of Etemenanki. In doing so, the evidence of a resource much used by later builders happy archaeology, cuneiform documentation and to find there huge quantities of good-quality later tradition will be adduced, but it is the baked bricks ready-made and waiting, for archaeological record that is most eloquent. reuse whole or for recycling as hardcore. Some have maintained that duplicates of The destruction of Etemenanki cylinders were kept in archives as records (e.g. Ellis 1968: 112–113). The archaeological evi- The history of the ziggurat of Babylon in the dence for the retention of archival copies of mid- to late first millennium bc is known in cylinders (as opposed to draft texts on tablets) outline (George 2007). Heavily damaged by in the Neo-Babylonian period is slim, and Sennacherib of Assyria when he laid waste not at all compelling for the period before to Babylon in 689, the tower was partially Nabonidus (555–539). This king’s antiquarian rebuilt by his successors, Esarhaddon and interests are well known and might have given Ashurbanipal, and completed after the fall of rise to small collections of cylinders in the tem- Assyria by Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar ple of Shamash at Sippar and, less certainly, II of Babylon. According to later Greek histor- the Hauptburg at Babylon. Nabonidus seems ians, the structure was levelled by Alexander to have worked on the wall that surrounded of Macedon in preparation for a rebuilding the precinct of the ziggurat (Schaudig 2001: that never took place (Strabo, Geographica 474–475; George 2007: 88–89), but there is no XVI 1; Arrian, Anabasis VII 17). Instead the reason to believe that he touched the super- site lay abandoned until a large building structure of the tower itself; that being so, no was erected on it, probably in the Sasanian cylinder embedded in the ziggurat could have period (Schmidt 2002: 283–290). Cuneiform found its way into his possession. records seem to confirm the general truth of

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the Greek historians’ assertion but suggest know, but he certainly relied on it when writ- that the work of levelling was prolonged long ing up the results of his excavation (Schmid after the great conqueror’s death. They doc- 1981, 1995). He had found stratigraphic and ument the clearing of debris from the site structural evidence for deliberate damage to of Marduk’s cult-centre not only in the time the ziggurat’s superstructure, and sought to of Alexander but also under his successors: explain it. The damage consisted of an irreg- Philip Arrhidaeus, Alexander IV, Seleucus I ular depression in the southern façade of the and the Crown Prince Antiochus (see in more ziggurat reaching well into the mud-brick core detail George 2007: 91). The levelling of the and plunging deep below the height to which tower was no small task and must have been the rest of the structure was levelled (Schmid undertaken only because the building was 1995: 76, pls 32–33, plan 6) (Fig. 44.2). Since already irremediably ruined. The question the damage reached the mud-brick core it pre- arises, was it ruined by erosion over time or by supposed the prior destruction at ground level a more deliberate aggressor? The answer lies of the baked-brick mantle along a fair stretch in archaeology. of the building’s southern façade and of the When the levelled stump of the ziggu- three staircases that abutted that façade. This rat at Babylon was laid bare by local people destruction was not the work of natural dilapi- in the 1880s, they removed the baked bricks dation but of human intervention. To Schmid that faced it in order to reuse them, leaving it seemed that whoever had damaged the zig- only a mud-brick core surrounded by a pit gurat had done so to prevent easy access to and surmounted by the vestiges of Sasanian its superstructure, and had wanted to render and later structures. The first German expedi- it unusable. In his analysis, the resulting hole tion to Babylon surveyed the remains in 1913 had been repeatedly washed by the flood- but it was not until the autumn of 1962 that a waters of the Euphrates while the rest of the second expedition, led by Hansjörg Schmid, structure still stood. The annual flood slowly examined the pit and core with a modern undermined the tower so that, eventually, archaeological eye for architecture and stra- rebuilding was impossible and it had to be tigraphy. In the summer of that same year the demolished. The original damage that permit- Assyriologist Franz Böhl published an influ- ted the ingress of water would then have pre- ential article on the Babylonian revolts led ceded the building’s levelling by many years by native insurgents against the Achaemenid and so occurred well before Alexander’s con- emperor, Xerxes I (Böhl 1962). There he quest of the Persian Empire. Adopting Böhl’s asserted that, after suppressing the revolts, the reconstruction of the history of Babylon in the vengeful Persian desecrated the cult-centre early fifth century, Schmid identified Xerxes I of Marduk and partly demolished it. In this as the culprit. Böhl was relying not on Babylonian or Persian Not long after the publication of sources, but on the reports of Xerxes’ destruc- Schmid’s preliminary report in 1981, Böhl’s tion of Babylonian temples by late Greek and reading of history was shot down. The first Roman authors, principally Diodorus, Strabo, salvo was fired by Amélie Kuhrt and Susan Arrian and Aelian. Sherwin-White, who pointed out that the Whether or not Schmid knew of Böhl’s accounts of Greek and Roman historians article at the time of his excavation I do not were tendentious and partisan, in that they

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Fig. 44.2 The irregular depression that Hansjörg Schmid discovered in the southern façade of the ziggurat in 1962. The depression is clearly visible in the curved strata that interrupt the brickwork of the ziggurat’s core (left and right) and underlies later, more level strata, including brickwork probably of Sasanian date (middle). The broad water-filled ditch in the foreground is where the baked-brick mantle once stood; it gives some idea of the depth of solid brickwork that originally fronted the core. (Reprinted from Schmid 1995: pl. 33a)

deliberately sought to contrast Greek civi- It is indeed difficult to find an explanation lization with Persian tyranny, and so were for the huge hole Schmid found in the ziggu- unreliable as historical sources (Kuhrt & rat’s side that does not attribute it to deliberate Sherwin-White 1987). Without native evi- violence. The damage sustained by the mud- dence for the destruction of Babylonian brick core could not have occurred without the temples under Xerxes, the Greek accounts prior destruction of a long section of the baked- carried no weight. When Schmid repeated his brick mantle. This mantle faced the core to a accusation against Xerxes in his final report thickness of between 13 m at its deepest point (Schmid 1995), he elicited a hostile reaction below ground and 18 m at a point 5.5 m higher among ancient historians, who criticized his than that (Schmid 1995: 56, 75). In addition, adherence to Böhl’s discredited reconstruc- the thickness of the mantle of the southern tion of history. But they offered no alternative façade was supplemented by the width of the explanation for the archaeological evidence abutting staircases, so that here the depth of that Schmid reported. baked brick measured as much as 25.5 m on

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the horizontal plane (1995: 75). As Schmid is now certain that these revolts took place in saw, no natural force can have penetrated the reign of Xerxes, probably both in his sec- such a mass of baked brick bonded with bitu- ond year, 484 (Waerzeggers 2003/2004). As men; damage resulting in a hole in the core Schmid explains, the location of the damage, can only be attributed to human intervention, on the tower’s south façade, points to the con- but when and in what circumstances? comitant ruination of the tower’s staircases. The strata that covered the hole in the The destruction wrought on the tower was not core were similar in composition to those only a symbolic attack on Babylonian religious that overlay the levelled areas of the core, and political identity. A more pragmatic rea- being notably free of fragments of mud brick son would be strategic, as Schmid understood: (Schmid 1995: 76). They indicate that the with its staircases demolished the building depression was cleared out at the same time was rendered temporarily useless as a place of as the core was levelled, during work that refuge and defence. In human history many removed the debris to another place leav- armies commanded to squash rebellions have ing nothing behind. Therefore the hole was smashed prominent religious buildings not made either at the time of levelling or some only as a display of force but also to flush out time before. The contrast between the rest of resistance. the mud-brick core carefully levelled to a uni- form height and the irregular depression in Xerxes and the “tomb of Belos” its southern side makes it highly improbable that the hole was made by the tower’s even- The discovery of the hole in the tower’s side tual levellers, that is, by Alexander and his led Schmid also to reconsider a legend told successors. Since they planned a rebuilding, it by Ctesias and Aelian. Ctesias was writing made sense to level the core to form an even in the early fourth century bc, less than 100 platform suitable to take the new brickwork. years after Bel-shimanni’s revolt. Aelian flour- It would not have been sensible to excavate a ished nearly 600 years later. The story they deep pit on one side. Finally, had the hole been relate tells how Xerxes visited (Ctesias) or made after the core was levelled, for example broke open (Aelian) the “tomb” of Belitanas by treasure-hunters, fragments of mud brick (Ctesias) or Belos (Aelian), that is, Marduk as from the excavation would have littered the Bel of Babylon. Schmid concluded that the strata around the hole’s edges. Schmid found story was based on a true event—the making no sign of any such disturbance. The interven- of the hole in the ziggurat’s side—but did not tion represented by the hole thus occurred pursue the matter further (1981: 134–136). after the completion of the structure under The temple-tower of Babylon was often Nebuchadnezzar II (c.590) and, so it seems, identified as a tomb by classical historians, not well before the mid-fourth century. only on account of its superficial resemblance In this period the most plausible event to the familiar Egyptian pyramid but perhaps to occasion violence against Babylon’s most also because of the persistence of the story prominent building remains the suppression related by Ctesias and Aelian. The legend tells of one or other of the fifth-century revolts led in detail how Xerxes found inside the “tomb in the cities of north Babylonia by the pre- of Belos” a corpse lying in a sarcophagus full tenders Bel-shimanni and Shamash-eriba. It of oil, accompanied by a stele holding a text

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that enjoined its discoverer to replenish the the foundation platform” of the ziggurat (BE sarcophagus with oil. When Xerxes tried to do I 84 ii 57–61, ed. Weissbach 1938: 42). In the so, he found he could not. This story is rem- first millennium, run-of-the-mill cylinders iniscent of a much older tale told about two were placed in simple baskets and buried in prominent figures of Mesopotamian legend, hollows in walls, but we know that important Adapa and Enmerkar, which survives only as stone monuments were given more elaborate a fragment (Picchioni 1981: 102–109; Foster treatment. They were interred in lidded ter- 2005: 531–532). King Enmerkar desecrated racotta boxes known as tupshennu, like the a tomb 9 cubits deep, destroying its entrance one used to bury the stone tablet of Nabû- but failing to find a corpse. Pierre Briant has apla-iddina as part of an elaborate founda- noted that the “motif of a king violating sepul- tion deposit beneath the temple of Shamash chres is very widespread” (Briant 2002a: 963). at Sippar (Woods 2004: 28, fig. 3, 34–35). Thus Ctesias and Aelian’s story may owe some- Finally, it is a commonplace injunction in the thing to a motif of native folklore; but I have building inscriptions of Neo-Assyrian kings shown elsewhere that it reports many details of Babylonia for a future builder to secure a that recall genuine Neo-Babylonian ritual blessing by anointing foundation statues and practice (George 2007: 90–91). The argument inscriptions with oil. This detail completes a is summarized in the following paragraph. picture of authenticity. A human image in a Inscribed cylinders of the kind discussed box, an admonitory inscription, a rite involv- earlier were a minimal foundation deposit; ing oil: the Greek story preserves these salient on important occasions grander gestures elements of Babylonian foundation deposits were made. Statues of royal builders could and the rituals associated with them. be built into the brickwork, like the stele of The suggestion, then, is that the story of Ashurbanipal in Babylon and Borsippa that Xerxes and the tomb of Belos is not only based depict him in canephorous pose (Ellis 1968: on truth but retains some accuracy in matters 24–25; Reade 1986a: 109). Or they might be of detail. In other words, while in this story the buried deeper in the structure. Nabonidus narratives of Ctesias and Aelian are essentially is reported to have found a damaged statue literary, they have some historical basis. With depicting Sargon of Akkade in the foundations the archaeological evidence for the building’s of Ebabbarra at Sippar (Lambert 1968/1969: destruction in mind, it is legitimate to use the 7 ll. 29–36), but it is unclear whether the story, as Schmid did, to suggest that a Persian statue was part of some very ancient founda- ruler, probably Xerxes, did indeed damage tion deposit; it might have been cast aside Marduk’s cult-centre at Babylon, specifically when broken and later incorporated in the by demolishing the baked-brick staircases on structure as fill. An explicit instance, how- the ziggurat’s south façade. I further propose ever, of the formal deposition of a statue in that during this work the demolition teams the structure of a building occurs in the case came across at least one composite foundation of the ziggurat of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar’s deposit, comprising a royal statue in a box and father, Nabopolassar, records in his own an inscribed object calling for the ritual pour- Etemenanki cylinder that he “fashioned rep- ing of oil. Perhaps it was one of the foundation resentations of [his] royal likeness bearing a deposits left by Nabopolassar, as described in soil-basket, and positioned them variously in his cylinder inscription, perhaps it included

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the very stele of Nebuchadnezzar II that to the authorities, who had it sent back to Susa depicts him in front of the ziggurat (awaiting as dramatic proof of a job well done. There publication, see above), or perhaps it was a leg- Nebuchadnezzar’s cylinder joined other items acy of earlier building work by Esarhaddon or of booty from Babylonia, in a stark display of Ashurbanipal. The inscription was deciphered Persian hegemony over a more ancient land. with the aid of local informants, and the The exhibition that occasioned this vol- Persian king, or his representative, was duly ume included a piece that throws up a neat summoned to conduct the appropriate ritual. parallel. This was a sixth-century bronze The event became distorted in the retelling, weight inscribed in archaic Greek with a ded- acquiring an element of the supernatural and ication to Apollo of Didyma (Haussoullier the literary motif of the ill-starred ruler. The 1905; Curtis & Tallis 2005: no. 445). It was stone statue glistening with oil in its terracotta originally the property of the famous sanc- box turned into a human corpse miraculously tuary of Apollo near Miletus in Ionia, but preserved in a crystal sarcophagus. The bless- it was excavated far from there, on the cita- ing in the inscription turned into a signal of del of Susa. Historians agree that the weight royal doom that could not be averted. surely fell into Persian hands either when, in 494 bc at the end of the first Ionian revolt, Conclusion Miletus was sacked and the temple of Didyma was emptied of its valuables and burnt The reassertion of the essential truth of the (Herodotus VI 9, cited by Briant 2002a: 494), Greek story of Xerxes and the “tomb of Belos” or 15 years later when the same temple was brings us back to our place of departure, the looted in the aftermath of the Persians’ defeat problem posed by the inscribed clay cylinder at Mycale (Ctesias §27, cited by Briant 2002a: intended by Nebuchadnezzar for the temple- 535). Even more certainly than the cylinder tower of Babylon but found instead at Susa. of Etemenanki, Apollo’s weight was taken to The cylinder’s provenance has also been over- Susa as booty of war. looked as evidence for the building’s history. Nebuchadnezzar’s Susa cylinder seems a We have seen that it was almost certainly orig- mundane thing but it would not have been the inally buried deep in the tower’s structure. In first such object to have been removed from the absence of an exact archaeological prove- its original location by conquerors. In this way nance I cannot prove that it was not recovered a cylinder deposited by Warad-Sîn of Larsa in from the ziggurat’s ruins by Alexander or his the wall of Ur in 1825 bc (middle chronology) successors at the time of the building’s demo- turned up in Babylon after Samsuiluna had cap- lition and then taken to Susa, but equally tured Ur 85 years later and dismantled its wall. I cannot imagine a reason for any of them And a cylinder embedded by the Babylonian taking it there. In the light of the results of king Merodach-baladan II (721–710) in the Schmid’s careful fieldwork it is more sensible temple Eanna at Uruk was found in the north- to attribute the cylinder’s removal to Xerxes, west palace at Kalah (Nimrud), the Assyrian the mighty destroyer of the Tower of Babel. I capital of Sargon II (721–705), who gained suggest that it fell out of the ziggurat’s brick- control of Uruk in 710 and subsequently con- work as his men proceeded in their demolition tinued work on the temple (see Radner 2005: of the tower’s staircases. It was then presented 236–240). Following their recovery both these

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cylinders evidently served as models for subse- the preservation of a predecessor’s name was quent royal inscriptions. But, in a land where part of the business of securing legitimation, there was no interest in emulating Babylonian while the expunging of an enemy’s name was building inscriptions, that was hardly the a demonstration of contempt (Radner 2005). destiny of Nebuchadnezzar’s cylinder. What, In the treatment of objects taken as booty then, did this object mean to Xerxes? both activities can be seen, so that some such In the Ancient Near East the collection artefacts were preserved entire, but others of looted objects provided conquerors with defaced or smashed. Conquerors thus had an concrete symbols of supremacy over defeated ambivalent attitude to the monuments of the peoples and kings. In accumulating trophies vanquished. This brings us to the sorry state of victory in their palaces, the great kings of of Nebuchadnezzar’s Susa cylinder, which sur- Persia displayed the same penchant for the vives as just a fragment. It might have been symbolism of triumph that was shown before broken accidentally, either as it came out of them by Shutruk-Nahhunte of Elam and sev- the ziggurat or later in Susa. Or it might have eral kings of Babylon. Objects with labels of been deliberately smashed by the victorious royal ownership or other royal inscriptions Persians as an act symbolic of their triumph (like Nebuchadnezzar’s cylinder) made the over Babylon and their scorn for the great transfer of power and prestige particularly name of Nebuchadnezzar. explicit, for to ancient minds name and self Sceptics will remark that the foregoing were indistinguishable. The ownership of con- reconstruction of what happened at Babylon quered kings’ names, in the guise of looted in 484 bc is founded on circumstantial evi- inscriptions, in some sense gave power over dence and hearsay. Admittedly, it lacks the the very personae of those kings, and over the decisive evidence that would make it incon- countries they had ruled. trovertible. I present it here as an hypothesis: Sometimes, but not always, the transfer a reading of history that in my mind makes of power to the conqueror was emphasized the most coherent sense of all the information by the deliberate mutilation of looted statues that we have at our disposal, archaeological and erasure of inscriptions (on this topic see and documentary, historical and literary. It is recently Bahrani 2003: 149–184). As Karen for others, if they can, to come up with better Radner shows in her book Die Macht des Namens, explanations for that information.

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