Assyrian State Research Articles

A Theocratic Approach To Governance In Ancient Times: Assyrıans

The organized belief systems, temple structures, and religion-state relations that emerged with the Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia began to undergo Semiticization with the dominance of Semitic societies in the region. Sumerian cultural elements, which underwent Semiticization during the Old Babylonian period, assumed an Assyrian character with the rise of the Assyrian State in the Ancient Near East and its evolution into an imperial structure. The Assyrian society, known for its religious orientation, operated on a religion-based understanding of state organization and the formulation of state policies. It was believed that divine requests and orders influenced various situations, such as kings' legitimacy, heirs' determination, and decisions regarding wars and peace. The land was perceived as belonging to the gods, and the kings were seen as representatives of the gods on earth. This study aims to uncover the theocratic aspects of Assyrian state administration based on information gleaned from cuneiform sources and modern literature.

Asurluların Siyasal Yaşamında Veliahtlık Anlayışı

Assyrians had a monarchical structure in which a king, who came to power through inheritance from a specific family, held absolute authority. At times, this form of governance manifested as a theocratic monarchy, where every political action found its legitimacy on religious grounds. Regarding succession, it is evident that practices were carried out with divine approval and request as guiding principles. The heir in question could be any of the king's natural children, but children born to kings from their second wives or slaves could not ascend to the throne through conventional means. Periodically, kings appointed their children as administrators in various cities, including Babylon, to gain experience in state affairs. The permanence of the designated heir's position and their ascension to the throne upon the king's death were not guaranteed.Additionally, historical records reveal instances where kings changed the crown prince for various reasons. These changes might be attributed to the inadequacy of the crown prince or could result from the influence of queens, as the mother of the chosen crown prince held a significant position within the Assyrian hierarchy. In this study, which is based on cuneiform texts and modern works, the objective is to comprehensively examine the role of the heir apparent in the Assyrian state system, providing insights through periodic examples. Additionally, it seeks to unveil the complex relationships between heirs, kings, queens, and other princes.

Աշշուրի պետությունը մ.թ.ա. III հազարամյակի սկզբներից մինչև մ.թ.ա. XV դարի վերջերը

The study of the history of Assyria and the Assyrians has its important place in the study of the Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Based on the selected chronological periods, that is, from the beginning of the 3rd Millennium BC to the End of the 15th Century BC, the physico-geographic location, origin, political and religious significance of the city of Aššur and the transitional stages of the city and then the state are discussed and analyzed. Methods and materials: The work uses a historical-comparative research method. The principle of comparison and contrast of this method was applied in the study of sources. Mostly inscriptions left by the rulers of the Ancient Near East and especially Assyria were used. Analysis During the study of the material, the stages of the history of Assyria and its principles, problems of chronology, as well as Old Assyrian and Middle Assyrian royal lists were examined in detail. The methods of formation and development of government bodies at the early stage of statehood as well as the management system of the Assyrian State are characterized.

International Politics and Local Change at Emar in the Late Bronze Age

Abstract This article considers the administrative changes that occurred in the city of Emar in the early 13th century BCE—including the beginning of the now well-known bifurcation in scribal practices between the Conventional Middle Euphrates Format (also known as the “Syrian” system) and the Free Format (also known as the “Syro-Hittite” system)—in the context of international political currents. In order to position my understanding of Emarite history with respect to the ongoing chronology debate, I offer new chronological considerations using internal data from the Emarite legal documents that affirm the substantial overlap of the two scribal systems at Emar (most recently argued for by Daniel Fleming and Sophie Démare-Lafont), while also adjusting the dating of some important synchronisms. Following the establishment of the chronological position, the article poses the question of why the material changes at Emar were executed by the Hittite empire exactly when they were, despite a previous policy of non-intervention. I argue that the increasing threat posed by expansionist activity of the Middle Assyrian state to Hittite hegemony over the Syrian territories—of which Emar was the farthest south-easterly border state—is a contributing factor to administrative changes in Emar.

The geoarchaeological investigation on the defunctionalisation of an Assyrian canals system reveals Late-Holocene land use transitions in Northern Mesopotamia

During the Assyrian rule over Northern Mesopotamia (present-day northern Iraq), complex systems of canals were built to increase the surface of cultivable land and improve the movement of people and goods across the irrigated waterscape of the hinterland of Nineveh and other major urban centres, with the aim of granting socio-economic prosperity to the empire. Nevertheless, supra-regional political instability eventually led to the rapid downfall of the Assyrian state during the late seventh century BCE, causing the swift abandonment of the canal systems. In this study, we examine the post-abandonment formation processes of the natural and anthropogenic infillings of three portions of King Sennacherib’s Khinis canal system (705–681 BCE, northwestern Kurdistan Region of Iraq) through means of archaeological, sedimentological and micromorphological analyses. We identify water lain sediments, desiccation features, colluvial gravel intake and pastoral occupation layers, anchoring the deposit to radiometric dating and contextualising it against the known regional climatic history. The interpretation of pedostratigraphic evidence highlights subsequent phases of use, abandonment, and repurposing of the canals, reflecting shifts in land-use from agriculture to pastoralism and dynamic adaptation and resilience of the local ancient communities in response to Late-Holocene climate changes and geopolitical events.

Comments

Cline in an NPR interview, cited in his contribution here, stated: “Every society in the history of the world has ultimately collapsed.” Every society? Does the “collapse” of a government (the fall of a dynasty) also mean the end of a cultural tradition? If the term “collapse” is not specifically clarified (see Middleton 2017), it is difficult to analyze different trajectories of change in social and political systems, which may be only loosely linked, and to evaluate changes or lack of changes in cultural institutions, the latter of which might lead to political regeneration (Schwartz and Nichols 2006).In order to consider the events and processes of the twelfth century BCE, which is what Cline studies, one must, of course, understand, or strive to understand, what “societies” were like, how they were governed, what local social organizations were in place, what kinds of economies, especially agricultural systems, existed and how they functioned under demands of rulers, what sorts of social and economic inequalities characterized these societies—in the centuries (few or many) before the twelfth century.In a recent volume I happened to edit (Yoffee 2019), the authors investigate the degrees of fragility in a variety of ancient states, that is, the lack of “integration” in ancient states; the structural complexity in these ancient states was far from being directed by beneficent rulers and their efficient administrations (see for more recent examples, Scott 1999). Toward the end of the second millennium BCE, there was hardly a degree of stability in the Middle Babylonian state and in the Middle Assyrian state, and there were major conflicts between the two states; political assassinations and contests over royal succession was the order of the time, and economic systems were disrupted; the Hittite state was battling for hegemony in Anatolia, and there was turmoil in later New Kingdom Egypt.Some studies of collapse simply assume that ancient states were stable until something bad happened, usually climate/environmental change (whether caused by humans or not) or because enemies overwhelmed them, or many things were happening at once (Cline’s “perfect storm” of processes). If states in ancient western Asia were highly unstable, composed of various social and ethnic groups and riven by rebellions and resistance, perhaps fragmentation was not an unexpected outcome. Indeed, the course of political fragmentation, social change, and demographic flux in earlier Mesopotamian history can be traced (Yoffee and Seri 2019).Of course, as Cline says, new or recurring factors of droughts, area-wide social unrest, piracy, and longer and shorter movements of people were historical factors that also led to the failure of cities and governments in the last centuries of the second millennium BCE. New constellations of power emerged in western Asia, and formerly small-scale confederations were able to establish their independence from the great powers, however fragile those had been. And in the aftermath of “collapse” new ideologies and belief-systems could be invented and take root.

Yeni Asur Devleti’nin Güney Politikası ve Elam-Babil İttifakı

Because the Assyrian state started to strengthen in the early first millennium BC by acquiring an imperial identity, it gained the capacity to launch military campaigns across remote regions, which, not surprisingly, disturbed and threatened the neighboring states. In this period, which is called the Neo-Assyrian period, Assyrian armies prevailed in a vast geographical region, extending from Egypt to Elam and reaching into even Babylonia and Anatolia. The most important region which Assyrians aimed to reign in the given period was Babylonia. They showed a great interest in the region due to its high economic potential. However, Elam, which was located in the eastern region of Sumerians, was also interested in the same region. Because they aimed to prevent a potential Assyrian hegemony over Babylonia, Neo-Elamites usually supported all anti-Assyrian rebellions. Another reason why Neo-Elamites adopted this policy lied in the fact that they saw it as necessary to prevent Assyrians from being a bordering state. On the other hand, Assyrians organized various military campaigns against both Babylon and Elam in order to control the region as well as conducting diplomatic relations. Therefore, the present study focuses on the struggle among these three states and their diplomatic relations by relying on Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform texts and modern literature and refers to these cuneiform texts directly and indirectly in different parts of the study. In this way, the present study deals with conflict among Assyria, Elam and Babylon from a political, military and, to a certain extent, economic perspective and analyzes Neo-Elamite and Babylonian policies against hegemonic expansion of the Assyrian state in the first millennium BC and various measures taken by the Assyrian state against this alliance.

Drawing Distinctions: Assyrians and Others in the Art of the Neo-Assyrian Empire

Between the ninth and seventh centuries BCE, the Neo-Assyrian Empire became the largest the world had yet seen. In the process of imperial conquest, the Assyrian state incorporated previously foreign territories and people into their world. Landscapes, materials, and the labor of conquered bodies became a part of the Assyrian royal palaces of northern Iraq, both as elements of their construction and as themes emphasized within the extensive visual programs of the palace reliefs. Within and through visual depiction of enemy bodies and foreign landscapes, in the process of being (often violently) reshaped by Assyrian hands, Neo-Assyrian kings brought the farthest reaches of their world into the center of imperial power. This article considers how specific strategies of representation in palace art allowed the Assyrian palace to serve as a microcosm of the empire and a map of its borders. Palace art emphasized the remade, reworked, or recreated, defining “Assyrianness” as that which remakes and has been remade. As a central act of remaking, I examine representations of captive or submissive foreigners, whose presence in the reliefs commemorates their humiliation while compounding and enhancing it in the very ways that these figures are depicted: cringing, deficient, and physiologically incorrect. I pay particular attention to examples from the late King Ashurbanipal’s reign, in which foreign leaders are singled out through representation with distinctive facial features. I argue that this act of (literally) drawing distinctions was an inherently imperial process, one that both expressed and enabled an ideology of expansion and control.

Luviler ve Aramiler Arasındaki Dinsel Etkileşim

Two peoples that stood out with their unique languages in ancient history: Luwian and Arameans. These two peoples with different cultures and origins meet in Northern Syria in the 10th century BC. They mostly acted together against the Assyrian state in the political units known as the Neo-Hittite principalities. Luwians and Arameans decide to live together in this geography rather than conflict. By adopting the Hieroglyphic Luwian, the Arameans used this language especially in monumental buildings. Because, Hieroglyphic Luwian was the most suitable writing for transferring the texts that were desired to be permanent to monumental structures. Similarly, Aramaic reached the Greek world through the Luwians. Thus, Aramaic language has been the common language of agreement of different communities, especially in commercial relations. It is inevitable to experience cultural interactions in the geography where the language spreads. As a matter of fact, the Aramean Moon cult Sin became a very popular cult among the Luwians. Even, the Aramean cult of Sin surpassed the Luwian cult of the Moon, Arma. Apart from this, Luwian cults Tarhu and Runta and Aramaic cults Hadad and Rešeph are seen as equivalents of each other.

RIPPING OPEN ARAB WOMEN IN RELIEF BM 124927 FROM ASHURBANIPAL’S NORTHERN PALACE. BUT WHY ARAB WOMEN? A FEMINIST READING ON VIOLENCE AND OTHERNESS

Neo-Assyrian reliefs are known to depict various types of violent acts performed by the conquerors against their defeated enemies. The visual material speaks volumes about Assyrian state ideology, and about how the Assyrian elite viewed their adversaries. The latter should be submitted to all kinds of atrocities to emphasize the king’s glory and the greatness of the god Assur. The reliefs usually depict gruesome scenes, but the vast majority of those who suffer such a fate consists of enemy soldiers and leaders, and are almost exclusively men. In Neo-Assyrian war reliefs, women are seldom represented and they are not shown as victims of the atrocious conduct of the conquering armies. Nonetheless, there is a striking representation of violence against women depicted in the so-called relief BM 124927 from Ashurbanipal’s Northern Palace, hosted nowadays by the British Museum. Even though the ripping of enemy pregnant women seems to be a topos in the Hebrew Bible, it is rarely encountered in the Mesopotamian area which makes this relief even more interesting. In this article, I will try to discuss why such an atrocity was committed against the Arab women, what makes them different, and why they are the only female victims of the Assyrian rampage depicted in the visual sources.

NATURAL DISASTERS AND NATURAL DISASTER PERCEPTION IN THE STATE OF ASSYRIA

Tarih boyunca her coğrafyada insanoğlu çeşitli doğal afetler ile karşı karşıya gelmiştir. Felaketler, doğal kaynaklı olduğu gibi insan ihmalinin sonucunda da gerçekleşebilir. Beklenmedik zamanda ve aniden meydana gelen, önlem alınmadığı zaman can ve mal kaybına neden olan afetler toplumlar için çok üzücü olmuştur. Bu çalışmamızda Asur Devleti’nde meydana gelen doğal afetler ile Asur halkındaki afet algısını ortaya koymaya çalıştık. İncelemiş olduğumuz belgelerden; depremler, sel baskınları, kuraklık, kıtlık, salgın hastalıklar, haşere istilaları ve yangınlar konusunda bilgiye ulaştık. Asur tarihi boyunca farklı şiddetlerde depremler olduğu anlaşılmaktadır. Mevsimlere göre sel baskınlarının gerçekleştiği zamanlar ya da kurak dönemler yaşanmıştır. Kuraklık, haşere istilası ve nüfusun artması gibi durumlarda kıtlık ortaya çıkmıştır. Elimizdeki mevcut bilgilerden anlaşıldığına göre, özellikle Asur ordusunun başına gelen en büyük felaket salgın hastalıklardır. Asur Devleti’nde insan ihmalinin bir sonucu olan yangınlar da meydana gelmiştir. Asurlular başlarına gelen felaketleri tanrının ikazı olarak telakki etmişler ve doğal afetleri tanrıların oluşturduğunu düşünmüşlerdir. Olayların dini yönü ağır bastığı için bilimsel tekniklerle önlem almak yerine kötülüğe karşı dinsel ayinlere yönelmişlerdir. Bu sebeple krallar kötü alametleri ortadan kaldırmak için ritüeller düzenlemişlerdir. Ayrıca tanrıların kendileriyle ilgili kararlar verdiğine inanan Asurlular, insanlara verilmek istenen mesajları öğrenmek için göksel kehanetlere başvurmuşlardır. Gökyüzünde olumsuz gördükleri kehanetleri, yeryüzünde olacak kötü olayların işareti şeklinde yorumlamışlar ve kehanetlere göre tedbir almışlardır.

Kings, Priests, and Power in the Neo-Assyrian Period

Abstract Despite a relative dearth of information in the surviving corpus about Assyrian priests’ more routine concerns, the Assyrian state correspondence contains some details that can improve our knowledge of priests’ daily lives, rights, and responsibilities. Using four case studies, this paper analyzes situations in which priests are accused of misconduct or crimes to better understand the powers and expectations of individual priestly offices as well as the realities of everyday life that might have rendered these boundaries more flexible or surmountable. These cases of irregularities reveal that cultic personnel had distinct economic, legal, and judicial roles and were sometimes able to extend their powers when necessary to manage issues such as crime and shortages in resources, only requesting royal intervention as a last resort.

Cuneiform Inscription on the Brick from King Shalmanassar1stPeriod

The text that we are going to study is considered one of the well-known writings which is usually known as " bricks inauguration " in buildings, palaces and temples and they are in the form of stamp or inscription. This type of cuneiform is codified as memorial models to indicate to the kind of construction and discrimination in terms of inauguration or re- construction and the impact that we are going to study a brick stone its total dimensions 27.2 cm. long , 22.3 cm. wide and 5.5 cm. thickness , written on it the cuneiform text belong to the period of the king, "Shalmaneser I " (1274 - 1245 BC. ) . the text consists of six lines of writing in Akkadian- Assyrian languages. a person found it on an unknown ancient hill which is now represent a cemetery which people of the region buried their dead for decades .it located within the boundaries of a village known as " Bastam " about 20 km to the north of the famous ancient city of Nimrud , on the east bank of the River " Upper Zab" within the boundaries of the city, "Kalak" in Erbil governorate .
 The importance of the text shown on the brick that it revealed to us the location of the important archaeological City for the researchers and those who specialize in archaeology . that is the city of "Kilizi " which was one of the Assyrian cities connected with other Assyrian cities in the northern Mesopotamia and the to discover what they had included contributes to increase information on the Assyrian state during its middle period. So my call is an urgent need to preview this archaeological hill and stand on the discovering archaeological remains and their buildings' foundations.

“They Heard from a Distance”: The šemû-rūqu Paradigm in the Late Neo-Assyrian Empire

Abstract In its first 500 years, Assyrian imperial ideology was based on the idea that the empire was a monopole, a unique and ever-expanding core of order and right that continuously pushed back the borders of a disordered periphery, bringing new lands within the Assyrian state. Across these centuries, this precept resulted in virtually every encounter with other polities and peoples being described in terms of visuality and frontality: the enemy submitted on seeing the king, overwhelmed by his brilliant melammu, and bowed before him. By the late 9th century BC, however, the illusion of a monopolar world could no longer be sustained. Assyria began to come into (often second-hand) contact with numerous rival polities and peer states such as Phrygia, Kush, Dilmun, and Cyprus—places it did not, could not, and would never control. This new geopolitical paradigm formed a problem for Assyrian ideology, both conceptually and rhetorically, one that royal inscriptions attempted to solve through two new narrative tropes, often explicitly linked, about “distant” (rūqu) lands which were apprehensible through hearing (šemû) rather than seeing. As a historical matter, the hermeneutics of this rhetoric form a clear and demonstrable shift in literary style and topos in the last two centuries of the empire; but they further mark a change in mentalité, insofar as “the distant” emerged as a new ontological category of space which could not be integrated into the earlier imperial paradigm.

أوضاع التوسل والخضوع أمام السلطة الملکیة فى العصر الآشورى الحدیث (911-612 ق.م)

يعتبر التوسل أحد الوسائل المتبعة فى الصلاة، والتقرب من الإله باعتباره المسئول عن الحياة وتقرير المصير، وکان المتوسل يستخدم فى الصلاة والتقرب من الإله العبارات اللفظية، أو الإيماءات الجسدية سواء رفع اليدين والانحناء، أوالرکوع، أوالسجود الکامل وغيرها، وغالبا ما يستخدم المتوسل الاثنين معا: العبارات اللفظية و الإيماءات الجسدية، وهذا أيضا ما يحدث عندما يقع الشخص تحت طائلة سلطة شخص آخر مسئول عن تقرير مصيره سواء کان الملک أو أحد أتباعه من أصحاب السلطة، فيستخدم المتوسل نفس العبارات اللفظية والإيماءات الجسدية المتمثلة في رفع اليدين والانحناء والسجود الکلى والجزئي طالبا للرحمة والعفو وإظهار الولاء، ويحتل المسئول نفس مکانة الإله بالنسبة للشخص المتوسل، و سيکون هناک ارتباط وثيق بين الطقوس التى تقدم أمام الإله وبين الأوضاع المتبعة للمتوسل أمام صاحب السلطة. ويتضح من خلال دراسة المناظر: قوة الدولة الآشورية خلال عصر الإمبراطورية مما أدى إلى استقبال الرسل والسفراء ومواکب الجزية؛ لتقديم فروض الطاعة والولاء والتبعية لملوک الدولة الآشورية، وأنهم استخدموا أوضاع التوسل من رفع اليدين والانحناء والسجود أمام الملک طلبا للرحمة، ولذلک اختلط الأمر فى بعض الأحيان بين أوضاع التوسل للملک وأوضاع تقديم التحية. ولم تقتصر أوضاع التوسل على الأسرى والرسل ومقدمى الجزية فقط، بل استخدمها أيضا ملوک الممالک المجاورة وسيلة للتحية، وتقديم فروض الطاعة والولاء للإمبراطور الآشورى. والملاحظ أن وضع الانحناء لايتبعه الملک أو أفراد السلطة الملکية، وإنما يتبعه کل من يريد العفو والرحمة والولاء. Begging are considered one of the means used in prayer and to closer to those who are the god, as they are responsible for the life and self-determination Suppliant used in prayer and to those who are closer to the god verbal expression or gestures, whether to raise the hands and bowing full prostration and often used suppliant both together (verbal expression or gestures), which was the same thing happens when a person under the authority of someone else responsible for self-determination, whether king or one of follower of the King. The suppliant uses the same verbal expressions and gestures represented in raising the hands and bowing and prostrating macro and micro for mercy and macro and micro prostration for mercy, amnesty and allegiance, the person in charge at that time located is in the rank of the god for the person suppliant. But it is considered there is a close correlation between the supposed ritual in front of the god and the conditions applied by the suppliant in front of the powerful person. Represented in raising the hands, bowing and prostrating macro and micro for mercy and pardon and loyalty the person responsible at that time in the rank of the god for the person suppliant, but it is considered there is a close correlation between the supposed rituals in front of the god and the that one was close relationship between supposed rituals before the god and in situations applied to the suppliant in front of power. Illustrated by scenes the strength of the Assyrian state during (Neo-Assyrian Empire) led to recieve delegations, messenger, ambassadors with processions tribute to make allegiance and subordination to Assyrian state. They have used the begging situation of raising the hands, bowing and prostrating before the king for mercy. So they mixed up sometimes between begging situation of the king and situation to submit greeting.

“No harvest was reaped”: demographic and climatic factors in the decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire

In the 9th century BC, Assyrians based in northern Iraq started a relentless process of expansion that within two centuries would see them controlling most of the ancient Near East. Traditional explanations for the decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BC have emphasized the role of military conflict, and especially the destruction of the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, by a coalition of Babylonian and Median forces in 612 BC. However, it remains unclear how the Assyrian state, the most powerful military machine of its age and the largest empire the Old World had ever seen up to that time, declined so quickly. In this paper, we highlight two potential factors which may have had some influence upon the Assyrian decline that have not been previously explored. The first is a major increase in the population of the Assyrian heartland area at the dawn of the 7th century BC, which substantially reduced the drought resilience of the region. The second factor is an episode of severe drought affecting large portions of the Near East during the mid-7th century BC. We propose a series of testable hypotheses which detail how the combination of these two factors may have contributed to the development of considerable economic and political instability within the Assyrian Empire, and argue that these demographic and climatic factors played a significant role in its demise.

Conspiracies and revolutions against the Assyrian state

The Assyrian state, represented by its kings, faced many internal and external conspiracies. Indeed, on the internal level, we find that these conspiracies did not succeed except with the participation of one of the king’s sons or brothers (Tukulti Ninurta I, Shalmaneser III, Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal), and these conspiracies are not documented by the participants. It appears in the writings of the king who eliminated it, and this can be explained by the fact that the scribes working in the king’s palace could not document such a matter for fear of participating in, in case the conspiracy did not succeed. The reason for these revolutions is the system of inheriting the throne to the eldest son, and in the absence of this right, these conspiracies occur because the person excluded from the throne is not convinced of this procedure.

Eski Asurca metinlerde tablet kapları ve Kültepe’den arkeolojik örnekler

In the period between 1974-1719 B.C., also known as the Period of Assyrian Trading Colonies, the Assyrian traders were involved in intensive trading activities in Anatolian cities with permission of local administrators and support of the Assyrian State. The old city of Kanesh located near Kayseri was the most important Anatolian center of this international trade. The traders coming from Assyria to Anatolia with commercial purposes made a lot of profit as a result of their activities. In order to secure their commercial venture they prepared commercial and juridical documents made of clay. Protection or secure transportation of this type of records, which could be compared to commercial papers in modern economic literature, was an important subject for traders. In this work we will try to make a contribution to this subject, by evaluating the tablets and archaeological findings in published and unpublished texts.

The Structure and Decline of the Middle Assyrian State: The Role of Autonomous and Nonstate Actors

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Structure and Decline of the Middle Assyrian State: The Role of Autonomous and Nonstate ActorsBrian BrownBrian BrownUniversity of California, Berkeley Search for more articles by this author University of California, BerkeleyPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Cuneiform Studies Volume 652013 A journal of ASOR Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5615/jcunestud.65.2013.0097 Views: 40Total views on this site Copyright 2013 American Schools of Oriental ResearchPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Making History to/as the Main Pillar of Identity: The Assyrian Paradigm

In the 20th century Assyrians living in Diaspora have increased their search of identity because of the social and political conditions of their present countries. In doing so, they utilize the history by picking up certain events which are still kept fresh in the collective memory of the Assyrian society. World War I, which caused a large segment of the Assyrians to emigrate from the Middle East, has been considered as the milestone event of their history. They preferred to use and evaluate the circumstances during WW I in terms of a genocidal attack of the Ottomans against their nation. This political definition dwarfs the promises which were not kept given by their Western allies during the war for an independent Assyrian state. The aspects of Assyrian civilization existed thousands of years ago as one of the real pillars of their identity suffer from the artificially developed political unification around the aspects of their doom in WWI presented as a genocidal case. Additionally, this plays an efficient role in removal of existing religious and sectarian differences for centuries among Assyrians. This paper aims at showing in the framework of primary sources how Assyrian genocidal claims are being used pragmatically in the formation of national consciousness in a very effective way. Not the Assyrian civilization but their constructed history in WWI is used for the formation of their nation definition.