ABSTRACT
For any visitor to the great collections of Near Eastern antiquities across the world, the Assyrian royal stelae are an impressive legacy of the now long dead emperors. Assyrian royal stele inscriptions have received a great deal of scholarly attention for they combine art, text and archaeology, and the focus has largely led to investigations of what they tell about Assyrian royal ideology and imperialism. The inscription with the clearest links between text, context and audience is the one inscribed on the Royal Road Stelae. The brutality of the warning to local residents is balanced by an overarching theme of the king as a provider for his people, and this also suggests that the local Assyrian populations were the intended audience for the text. The inscriptions written on free-standing monoliths differ in tone, for the text of the Royal Road Stelae promotes the beneficial nature of Sennacherib's reign, while the Halule Stele emphasizes the brutality of his warfare.
