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A review by elcilor
Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire by Eckart Frahm
I found this book particularly readable. Eckart Frahm undoubtedly possesses extensive knowledge about Assyria, but he also narrates his story in a clear manner. What stands out to me the most is the immense, uninterrupted series of native kings that endured for hundreds of years, even spanning more than a millennium. The author actually confirms Assyria's reputation as a bloody, ruthless state. The kings were figures you'd prefer to have as little involvement with as possible: gruesome dictators capable of the worst things. But to be fair, the passages about Sargon II, Senacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal were gripping and fascinating for me as well.
Equally intriguing is how many people and events from Assyrian times have been distorted by the ravages of time. It's also amusing how the Enuma Elish was reshaped after Babylon's defeat: replace the God Marduk with the god Ashur and city of Babylon with the city of Ashur, keep the rest the same, and voila! A new usable version is born. It makes me reflect on how seriously the leaders took their religion: did they use it for propaganda, or did they genuinely believe in it? It's likely a combination of both. What was peculiar and eerie is the frequent use of liver omens. Many Assyrians and Babylonians attempted to predict their future by studying the livers of slaughtered sheep. It seems that many kings also believed in this practice.
I'm glad that nowadays we have science, even though it's still not adept at predicting the future. What modern science can do, however, is provide an increasingly clearer picture of the centuries before 0 BCE. Eckart Frahm's "Assyria" serves as a perfect example of this.
Equally intriguing is how many people and events from Assyrian times have been distorted by the ravages of time. It's also amusing how the Enuma Elish was reshaped after Babylon's defeat: replace the God Marduk with the god Ashur and city of Babylon with the city of Ashur, keep the rest the same, and voila! A new usable version is born. It makes me reflect on how seriously the leaders took their religion: did they use it for propaganda, or did they genuinely believe in it? It's likely a combination of both. What was peculiar and eerie is the frequent use of liver omens. Many Assyrians and Babylonians attempted to predict their future by studying the livers of slaughtered sheep. It seems that many kings also believed in this practice.
I'm glad that nowadays we have science, even though it's still not adept at predicting the future. What modern science can do, however, is provide an increasingly clearer picture of the centuries before 0 BCE. Eckart Frahm's "Assyria" serves as a perfect example of this.