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.