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Updated: June 26, 2025
In the first place, though religious uniformity is certainly not the law of the empire, yet a religious character appears in many of the wars, and attempts at any rate seem to be made to diffuse everywhere a knowledge and recognition of the gods of Assyria. Nothing is more universal than the practice of setting up in the subject countries the laws of Asshur or "altars to the Great Gods."
Its court was fixed securely in midmost Assyria, away from priest-ridden Asshur, which seems to have been always anti-imperial and pro-Babylonian; for Ashurnatsirpal had restored Calah to the capital rank which it had held under Shalmaneser I but lost under Tiglath Pileser, and there the kings of the Middle Empire kept their throne.
I brought them under one government; I took hostages from them; and I imposed on them tribute and offerings." From describing his military achievements, the monarch turns to an account of his exploits in the chase. These captured animals he had carried with him on his return to Asshur, his capital city, together with the horns and skins of the slain beasts.
The religion was substantially the same, except that Asshur, the tutelary deity of the country, was made supreme. The Assyrians from the start were devoted to war, pillage, and conquest. Their unsparing cruelty and brutal treatment of their enemies are abundantly witnessed by their own monuments. They lacked the productive power in literature and art which belonged to the Babylonians.
An ornament often introduced into the designs of thrones and chairs is a conventional treatment of the tree sacred to Asshur, the Assyrian Jupiter; the pine cone, another sacred emblem, is also found, sometimes as in the illustration of the Khorsabad chair on page 4, forming an ornamental foot, and at others being part of the merely decorative design.
A more particular account is then given of the restoration by the monarch of two very ancient and venerable temples in the great city of Asshur. This account is preceded by a formal statement of the particulars of the monarch's descent from Ninpala-zira, the king who seems to be regarded as the founder of the dynasty which breaks the thread of the narrative somewhat strangely and awkwardly.
It is evident that Asshur-izir-pal, though he adorned and beautified both the old capital, Asshur, and the now rising city of Nineveh, regarded the town of Calah with more favor than any other, making it the ordinary residence of his court, and bestowing on it his chief care and attention. The seat of government was consequently moved forty miles further up the river.
In the first place, then, if we ask ourselves where the Assyrians came from, and at what time they settled in the country which thenceforth bore their name, we seem to have an answer,at any rate to the former of these two questions, in Scripture. "Out of that land" the land of Shinar "went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh."
There is, further, some reason to suspect that, before quitting Babylonia, he established one of his sons as viceroy over the country; since he seems to style himself in one place "the king to whose son Asshur, the chief of the gods, has granted the kingdom of Babylon."
Shalmaneser seems to have held his court ordinarily at Calah, where he built his palace and set up his obelisk; but sometimes he would reside for a time at Nineveh or at Asshur. He does not appear to have built any important edifice at either of these two cities, but at the latter he left a monument which possesses some interest.
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