Producing the Neo-Assyrian State
Quarry workers with tools. From Sennacherib’s Southwest Palace at Nineveh. From Reade 1999: Fig. 18.
The state as…
ideology
biopower spectacle
control over life and death
prescriptive and prescribed lifeways
materializationbureaucracy(e.g., legal codes)
text, image architecture
ritual(e.g., placemaking
But archaeological detection?
Sennacherib as crown prince.Khorsabad, c. 710 B.C.
Map of Assyria, showing a detail with the location of Nineveh
The state and the body
As for Hezekiah, the JewWho did not submit to my yoke,46 of his strong, walled citiesAnd the small cities of their environs,Which were without number, I besieged (and) captured by means of
trampled earth-rampsAnd the bringing up of battering-ramsThe attack of footsoldiers, tunnels,
breaches,As well as ladders.200,150 people, great (and small), male
and female,Horses, mules,Asses, camels, cattle and sheep,Which were without number, I brought outFrom the midst and counted them as spoil
- Lines 56-69, Column III. Trans. Alexander Heidel
Sennacherib’s forced migrations
Sennacherib’s Prism
Deportations: Facts and Figures
From Oded 1979:20
Campaigns to Babylonia and the Southc. 704-702 B.C.
Deportees and booty from Babylonian campaign. Slabs 7-9, Room XXVIII, Southwest Palace, Nineveh.From Russell 1991:Fig. 77
Campaigns to the Eastc. 702 B.C.
Deportees Sennacherib’s second campaign to the east. Slabs 6-7, Room XLVI, Southwest Palace, Nineveh.From Russell 1991:Fig. 82.
Deportees Sennacherib’s second campaign to the east. Slabs 1-2 east, Room XLIII, Southwest Palace, Nineveh. From Russell 1991:Fig. 90.
Campaigns to the Eastc. 702 B.C.
Campaigns to the westc. 701 B.C.
Families being deported from Laschich during Sennacherib’s third campaign to the west. Detail, slabs 8-9, Room XXXVI, Southwest palace, Nineveh. From Reade 1999: Fig. 76.
Prescriptions?
• Punishment for resistance
• Dilute and weaken potential nodes of resistance
• Military conscription and aggrandizement of the Neo-Assyrian army
• A source of skilled craftsmen and common laborers
Ideology materialized
And the people of Chaldea, the Arameans, the Manneans,
(The people of) Que, Cilicia, Philistia, and Tyre,
Who had not submitted to my yoke,
I deported
And made them carry the basket,
And they molded bricks.
- Lines 81-90, Column V. Trans. Alexander Heidel
Floorplan of Sennacherib’s Palace at Nineveh.From Russell 1991: Fig. 92
Construction Scenes
Transporting a colossus bull from a quarry. Slabs 63-64, Court VI, Southwest Palace, Nineveh.From Russell 1991: Fig. 54.
Quarrying
Quarrying at BalataiSlab 66-67, SouthwestPalace, Nineveh.
From Reade 1999: Fig. 17
Transporting the Colossi
Entrance of the colussus into Nineveh. Slabs 45-47. Court VI, Southwest Palace, Nineveh.From Russell 1991: Fig. 61.
The Spectacular State
Sennacherib oversees quarrying. Slab 60. Court VI, Southwest Palace, Nineveh.From Russell 1991: Fig. 61.