ABSTRACT

M enacing scenes such as the one described on page 198 may have been a regular occurrence in the audience chamber of Assurnasirpal, ruler of the Assyrian empire in the ninth century B.C. We may still see today the king on his throne, surrounded by courtiers, depicted in the relief carvings taken from his palace. The palace itself survived only as a mud-brick ruin, revealing little of its former glory and was seriously damaged by Islamist insurgents in 2015. Archaeology and imagination together are needed to restore its original appearance in the mind’s eye. For the words of the king himself, however, we rely not on imagination alone but on Assurnasirpal’s own royal inscriptions, which detail the refi nements of cruelty he used to instill fear into his enemies. The weapon of terror was highly effective as the Assyrians built and consolidated their great empire.