Anthro Quiz 3

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Medes

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(The Medes were an ancient Iranian people who lived in the northwestern portions of present-day Iran, and roughly the areas of present day Kurdistan, Hamedan, Tehran, Azarbaijan, Esfahan and Zanjan. This area was known in Greek as Media or Medea. After defeating the Neo-Assyrian Empire with the help of the Chaldeans by the 6th Centry BC, the Medes were able to establish their own empire, that stretched from the southern shore of the Black Sea and Aran province (the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan) to north and Central Asia and Afghanistan, and which included many tributary states, including the Persians, which eventually supplanted and absorbed the Median empire in the Achaemenid Persian Empire.[1] The empire they founded is the first Iranian empire, and the largest until Cyrus the Great's unified Iranian empire)
So perusual after a great leader the empire goes into decline, and this was no different here. After ashurbanipal’s death the people they had conquered rose up and launched a massive rebellion. Two people in particular were instrumental in brining down the empire: The Medes and the Babylonians. In 614 BC the Meads appear out of no where and sacke the city of Asshur and then Nimrud and then Nineveh and we have evidence for what happened with that conquest of Nineveh, we have human remains acattered all ove rand people slautered during the fall of the cuty, and what was left of the Assyrian court fled to Haran (a city) but it was just a matter of time unitl they were wiped out as well in 609 BC.
One of the people who didn’t leave any written documents behind, and al lwe know about them is from the point of view of Assryians and Babyloniasl. The Assyrians jention a lot of Medeian tribes but Assyrian incurions into Median territory actually led to a unified Median confederacy. Median territory East of Atloia by the upper sea areainto Iraq I think. Ahrusbanipald invaded Media but we don’t know much about them until they show up suddenly at the gates of Assyrai at 614, Ashur invaded in 645, so something happened between those times. That we don’t know about. So with the fall of Assyria we have the Median Mepire who were a lot like the ongols but not that bloody, and also the Babylonian empire. Medes have something that is like “the last great contribution of Near Eastern civ to the world” so unlike the greeks who were running around buck naked, peole of the near east really cared about their outfits, and it was a sign of indecdnty to appear naked. But the Medes had pants!! That’s all new. These people were rider cultures, horse riders sothey do the trouser thing. Kilts don’t work as well.

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Urartu

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North of Assyria whichocntroled an area roughly of the eastern part of Turkey and northwest Iran, part of Arnina? These were the descendents of people we talked about earlier, and Urartu was the last attempt to assert theselves, they were the descendts of Hurrians. They had a wiritng system, and a language called Uratian, written in CUneform script. But its one of those on-affliiated languages that is neither semtic nor endo-eurpoean and it has some hurrian elements. The last we heard of Hurrians was 600 years earlier. The name “Urartu” is what the name of Mount “Urarat” is derived from. So the country is located in a rugged territory in a little corner where Zagros and Tuarous mountains meet. It was really hard for Urartians to go out of their natural boundries, but they managed to expand a little ebit and cause some headache for Assyrians on their nourthern borders. A lot of Uratians sites are in the for of fotresses. There’s some argument that it wa sort of a feudal society, lots of little rulers under one main king. Major bronze working center, ltos of bronze items from there. Depsite some Meso elements they have soe distinct style. And for about 200 y ears or so they had skirmishes from Assyrians under northern territory until Sargon II launches a massive campaign and concquered their capital. Alt of the bronze was then melted down and made into arms.

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Chaldeans

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Chaldea was a Hellenistic designation for a part of Babylonia, mainly around Sumerian Ur, which turned into an independent kingdom under the Chaldees. Known as "Ur of the Chaldees," it went on war campaigns against foreign dynasties ruling southern Mesopotamia, mainly the Akkadians and the Babylonians. It turned into a Babylonian colony in the early days of Hammurabi, but remained in a special position in relation to other cities ruled by Babylon in that region. The 11th dynasty of the Kings of Babylon (6th century BC) is conventionally known to historians as the Chaldean Dynasty. Their kingdom in the southern portion of Babylonia lay chiefly on the right bank of the Euphrates. A semitic people, they appear in the country of the sea-lands about the head of the Persian gulf at about the same time that the Arameans and the Sutu appeared in Babylonia. Though probably of Aramaean stock, they were differentiated from other Arameans due to their geographic location. The Chaldeans were traditional allies of the Elamites and Persians in their struggle against the Assyrians. It was only under Nabopolassar in 625 that the Chaldeans attained lasting control over Babylon, after having defeated Assyria and Egypt at Karchemish, founding the Chaldean dynasty, which lasted until 539 and the rise of the Achaemenid Empire.

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Assurnasirpal II

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The person who saved Asrrya from the Arameans and established the empire is Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE). Most Assyrian emporers name start with the name of a god. His true name means “the god ashru helps his son”. He began a new era in Assyrian history. In one relif of him he has symbols of difffernet deities around him. This is the revial of Assyria of an independent kingdom. He established the city of Nimrud as the capitol of Assyria.

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Nabonidus

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o Nabonidus was the first king to start excavation under the foundations of ancient buildings (around 550 BC)
§ Displayed findings with daughter
§ First museum curator and museum
o Preserved history, wrote about history

the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, reigning from 556-539 BCE. His reign has long been misunderstood. Because of later activities during his reign (for example his referring repeatedly to Ashurbanipal, the last great Neo-Assyrian king, in his royal propaganda and imagery, as well as his special interest in Harran, the last stronghold of the Neo-Assyrians after the fall of Nineveh), it has been proposed that he was an Assyrian. He came to the throne in 556 BC by overthrowing the youthful king Labashi-Marduk. It is possible that he substantiated his claim to the throne by his marriage to Nitocris, who was the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar II and the widow of Nergal-sharezer.

Among other things, the beliefs of Nabonidus' religious policies, and circumstances surrounding Cyrus the Great's conquest of Babylon have changed radically due to new discoveries of the true nature of Nabonidus' life and reign. These initial misinterpretations are due to strongly biased accounts by Persians and Greeks, as well as in the Hebrew bible.

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Cyrus the Great

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The founder of the Persian empire was Cyrus II or Cyrus the Great. Recent scholarship shows he may have been half Elamite half Persian. He introduces himself in his inscriptions not a a Persian but as the King of Anshan, the capital of Elam. We do know that he was a capabal warrior, over the course of 30 years he managed to expand from a small kingdom in Iran to conquer through Babylon, Anatolia, up into Central Asia, and created the first World empire, the larges Political entitny up to that point in world History. His son, Canbices conquered the lat remaining power in the Middle East, Egypt.
So Cyrus was remembered I bith Eastern and Western cultures, thanks to a number of important documents, including the Cyrus cylinder. Basically it alys out the ideology and philosophey of the empire. It’s a major very important departure from NE morals and traditions. Just 50 or 100 years ago, Babylonians and Assyrians were skinning people alive or stacking skulls of defeated people. But in the cylinder Cyrus marched into Babylon alsmot withot bloodhed, people celebrated Cyrus’s arrival as their savior. What caused Cyrus to be such a celebrated figure in the Bible is that he not only allowed the Hebrews to return to their land but also helped them out with some finicial support to go back and rebuild Jerusulm. The other important document is Cyropaedia, or the education of Cyrus by yet another Greek, Xenophon.

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Divination

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An integral part of the religions of the ancient near-east,divination was largely developed and perfected in the Euphrates valley. Seven different methods of divination were developed from their original religious origins: Apantomancy, Cleromancy, Hepatoscopy, Nephomancy, Ornithomancy, Capnomancy, and Oneiromancy. For example, the method of divination accomplished by examining the liver of sacrificial animals is based in the ancient belief that the liver is the seat of life and of the soul, marking some forms of divination as being more religious based than astronomical, despite that many still forms of astral divination. which is the ceremony surrounding the notion of “safeguarding and protecting the king”.

Divination was practiced in order to obtain yes or no answers to specific questions, and diviners were the ones who solicited omens from the gods and interpreted the answers based on the signs on behalf of those who wished a question answered.

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Nimrud

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Nimrud was established by a Assyrian king, the administrative captil for a while, then with Sargon the Second he moved th capital to a new city, and then it wa movd to Nineveh. Ash II established the city of Nimrud as the capitol of Assyria. Large fortified are where the residents lived. It’s where Leyard began his excavations. He thought it was Nineveh, the capital proclaimed through biblical sources. A large amount of stone was found being used in the arceture of this city. Because of the natural environment, stone is very raire. But you can easily get stone form the mountains nearby. All sorts of new inventions inot the arcetectre like large lion figures. They build walls with mudbrick ten cover the walls with slabs of reliefs or stone sculpture. Aother development is his extensive use of reliefs as a major means of decorating his palace. Wide varity of scene depicted, they aren’t works of art, they have a function or purpose. The visual repretoir is amazing. One relief showing people going to the mountias to cut stone and slabs to use.

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Substitute king

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A ritual by which, in times when the king's life is considered to be in danger, yet his presence is required, a substitute for the king is provided, so as to still have his 'presence' for the ceremony. One example is noted as the king having sent his robe in order to substitute for himself during a celebration of the New Years feast, as he could not be present.

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Phoenicians

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Also fought against Assyrians. They were friends with everyone, paid the tribute and whatever, maritime civilization emerging in today’s Lebabon. But soon they established a Maritime empire but they launched maritime expeditions along the coast of aftica (north) and souther coast of euroe, extablished several colonies that became independnat later like Carthage. They wer ein position of a lot of matieral thaw s in high demand including Ivory. So Phoenicia was the funnel of ivory from Africa was shipped into the near east and used ex4tensively by Asryians. And we see tht Phoencia became a major ceter of Ivory carving, incriperting a wide avrity of elements from Africa, greeze, euroope, and the near east. The Phoenicians were the key brdiing the greek and neareasten civlizations. Greek’s Orientalizing period (700-640 BCE) wher ether eis a lot of contct between the two. As well as Greeks and egptions. So as greeks adopt a lot of concepts from Egptions including art which is vey much eguytion in style, they also orrowed many important conceptual deelopmetns from the near east including the scientices and most importnatnly wiritng. Phoencian alaphabet derived from Aramaic which was borrowed by the greeks and formed the bases of moern western script.

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Assurbanipal

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(668-627 BCE)- the last major king of Assyria. He is the mesoptomian king of exxecelnce, he has it all. The personification of an ideal king. He’s een admired from then to now. A statue showing him in two interesting positions, one holding a lion which is something usually reserved for a semi mythical mesopotimian character ike Gilgamesh, and he’s also hodling a tablet suggesting his educated mind. The empire reached its largest expansion under him, extending from the Persian gul to the Medoterrian to Egypt. Height of military power. He was a brilliant military genius and led his troops into battle himself most times. Assyrians were getting alto of cities but this ccreates a lot of resentment and its not a effective policy if tyring to build a long term empire, so in some ways his acocomlishments cmae back to haunt other kings and led to the demise after he died.
Personality- depicts himself as a warrior, military leader, good at lion hunts- shows him calmly killisng lions with bear ands and such, and hten dediciating htem to various deities. But he was also depicted as omdest, like a servent of the god (carrying a basket of dirt ot build a temple) nad in a rare and unique scene from Ancient neareast he’s depicted banqueting with his Queen. We don’t have any scenes of kings and queens in domestic postre like this normally. Also he describes himself as a scholar, he talks about how he scent out scribes to different parts of the empire to copy and bring back cuneiform inscriptions,a dn this is the most imporoant contribution to OUR knowledge of the civilization cause if it asn’t for him we woud have lost a lot of these texts bt he went though a lot of trouble to make copies and such of diffenet epics andlegends and preserve them in his library at Nineveh. Wide variety of cuneiform tablets, scientific treties, philosophical texts, etc. He mentons tha he was able to read inscriptions before the time of the floord, so proto Sumerian or proto cuneiform, which is odd caue Sumerian was a dead language by then for like 2000 yeas however discoveries were made of an early form of dictionaries with different languages and pictographs with Assyrians equivalents. These discoerins made bythe british and French in the 1900s(?).

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Nebopolassar

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was the first king (625-605 BC) of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.1
He rose into revolt against the Assyrian Empire (which had ruled Babylon for the previous 200 years) in 626 BC, after the last really powerful Assyrian king, Assur-bani-pal, died in 627 BC.
The weakened Assyrians couldn't resist his power and that of the Medes, who combined to sack the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 612 BC, at the Battle of Nineveh. Nabopolassar was left in control of Nineveh and destroyed the remnants of the Assyrian Empire in 609 BC.
Nabopolassar waged war against Egypt from 610 BC until 605 BC. In 605 BC his son Nebuchadrezzar won the Battle of Carchemish shortly before Nabopolassar died. Nebuchadrezzar succeeded him to the throne of Babylon. His favorite food was monkeys as described in ancient texts.
1 D. Brendan Nagle, The Ancient World: A Social and Cultural History, 6th ed., Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, 58.

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Darius I

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(In the Persian Empire) Later on there was a military coo and Darius was brought into power. (Thse names are still common in nowadays, thanks to the signifigance in Biblial sources). The Empire was built by Cyrus and a bt by Cambices. But it was Daris who consolidated and stabilized the Persian empire. He came to powrer in a military coo, accounts of which are recorded in the famous trilingual inscription at Itsotom(?) the key to deciphering Cuneorm. Darius records his battles and victories over rebellious kings. Darius was also capabil warrior and he managed to expand the empire to the borders of India, central Asia, into Caucasia, Europe, Egypt, all the way to LIbia. Darius embarked on a whole new construction project, a gigantic palace complex at Persepolis. That incorperated both NE and Persian elements. Column halls being a Persian thing. Laso Darius revivded Susa by buuidling a large Palacial complex and administrative buildings, and Susa become the administrative center of the empire.

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Omen

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Idealogy and cosmology play important roles in everyday life in the Near East, all dec iosn were made with religious implications in mind. In that system every component, everything around you, nature and all that, are all interconnected through this complex network of divine earthly connection. Therefore every event is somehow related to something else in the network. Crop failure, disasters, all is an outcome of something else going wrong in the system.

Rooted in the heavily star-related Assyro-Babylonian religion, wherein gods are identified with/by the heavenly bodies, astrology was developed. Based on this original form of astrology, omens and other forms of predictions were common place, and laid the road for the continued existence of the existence of and belief in omens and predictions of the future. "The most primitive, clumsy, but enduring method...is the simple recording of sequences of unusual or important events." An Omen is considered to be the most basic form of divination.

There are two types: warning about a specific danger predicted by an observable fact or a notification of a propitious development in the future. Furthermore, there are also solicited and unsolicited omens.

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Pasargadae

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Pasargadae was where they went for coronation ceremonies in the Persian Empire. Cyrus had his capitol city at Pasargadae where you can see his tomb, still sanding, and remains of his palaces.

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Nineveh

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Nimrud was established by a Assyrian king, the administrative captil for a while, then with Sargon the Second he moved th capital to a new city, and then it wa movd to Nineveh. Leyard began his excavations at Nimrud. He thought it was Nineveh, the capital proclaimed through biblical sources.
Sennacherib (704-681 BCE) decidd to move the capitol to Nineveh. According to the bible the city of “sin and Wickedness”

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Aramaic

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Like the Akakdians and Amaraites, theyre a group of people showing up from the desert and settling n different areas. While Babylonias were powerful enough to keep them at bay we see that they actually take control of Assyria for about 200 year or so and the most important contribution was the introduction of Aramaic script. It is a Semtic language but it has a different script. The script is what most of the later scripts of the NE are derived from, including Hebrew, Arabic, persion, etc. Even lead to Greek and Latin. Beginign of the end of Cuneform. A lot of corrasponce with other empires becomes in Aramaic, and alto fo inscriptions are in Aramaic, and this is the legacy they passed on to the next major empire, the Persians. (1000BC to about 800 BC, turn of the second to firs millinium).
The person who saved Asrrya from the Arameans and established the empire is Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE).

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Sargon II

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(721-725 BCE)
Usperer who came to the throne of Asyria, he did a lot of construction work on the ‘city of Sargon” accomplished in 16 years. Another king Sargon II (721-725 BCE), he was a usurper cause he called himself the “legitimate king”. He was probably a cousin of the heir to the Assyrian but yeah. Because it’s always a good idea to get away from the main capitol f you are a upserper he moved the capitol to Dur-Sarrukkin, or the modern Khorsabad. Given that he only ruled for 16 years? It hsows the effeciantly of the administration considering how much and the size of the city he as able to build in that time. They manged to start it finish it, and start decorating it in that time.
But when Sargon died in battle (a glorious death for a warrior king) his sn Sennacherib (704-681 BCE) decidd to move the capitol to Nineveh. According to the bible the city of “sin and Wickedness”

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Xerxes

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Xerxes was son of Darius I and Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus the Great. After his accession in October 485 BC, he suppressed the revolts in Egypt and Babylon that had broken out the year before and appointed his brother Achaemenes as governor or satrap over Egypt (Old Persian: khshathrapavan). In 484 BC, he took away from Babylon the golden statue of Bel (Marduk, Merodach), the hands of which the legitimate king of Babylon had to seize on the first day of each year, and killed the priest who tried to hinder him. Therefore Xerxes does not bear the title of King in the Babylonian documents dated from his reign, but King of Persia and Media or simply King of countries (i.e. of the world). This proceeding led to two rebellions, probably in 484 BC and 479 BC. Darius left to his son the task of punishing the Athenians, Naxians, and Eretrians for their interference in the Ionian Revolt and their defeat of the Persians at Marathon.

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Ashur (the god)

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Aššur (also Ashur, Assur; written A-šur, also Aš-šùr, in Neo-Assyrian often shortened to Aš) was the head of the Assyrian pantheon. His origins are unknown but he is one of the Mesopotamian city gods, namely of the city Assur (pronounced Ashur), once the capital of the Old Assyrian kingdom. It might therefore be that he was a personification of the city itself. From about 1300 BC priests attempted to replace Marduk with Ashur in Enuma Elish. From the reign of Sargon II he was identified with Anshar[citation needed] (An-šàr) the father of An, probably because the similarities of the names. In this version of the Enuma Elish Marduk does not appear and instead Ashur slays Tiamat as Anshar. Some scholars have claimed that Ashur was represented as the solar disc that appears frequently in Assyrian iconography. However evidence points out that it is in fact the sun god Shamash. Many Assyrian kings had names that included the name Ashur, including, above all, Ashurnasirpal, Esarhaddon (Ashur-aha-iddina), and Ashurbanipal.

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Ahura Mazda

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Ahura Mazda (Ahura Mazdā) is the Avestan language name for a divinity exalted by Zoroaster as the one uncreated Creator, hence God. (Sacred Spirit)
The Zoroastrian faith is thus described by its adherents as Mazdayasna, the worship of Mazda. In the Avesta, "Ahura Mazda is the highest object of worship", the first and most frequently invoked divinity in the Yasna liturgy. In Zoroastrian cosmogony and tradition, all the lesser divinities are also creations of Mazda. Although Ahura Mazda is accepted to be the conceptual equivalent of a proto-Indo-Iranian divinity, the details are a matter of speculation and debate. Scholarly consensus identifies a connection to the prototypical *vouruna and *mitra, but whether Ahura Mazda is one of these two, or both together, or even a superior of the two has not been conclusively established.
Although the principle of a creator divinity was not new to the two Indo-Iranian cultures, Zoroaster gives Ahura Mazda an entirely new dimension by characterizing the Creator as the one uncreated God. All physical creation (geti) was thus a product of - and ran according to - a master plan, inherent to Ahura Mazda, and violations of the order (druj) were violations against creation, and thus violations against Ahura Mazda. This concept of asha versus the druj should not be confused with the good-versus-evil battle evident in western religions, for although both forms of opposition express moral conflict, the asha versus druj concept is more subtle and nuanced, representing, for instance, chaos (that opposes order); or 'uncreation', evident as natural decay (Avestan: nasu) that opposes creation; or more literally 'the Lie' of Yasna 31.1 (that opposes truth, righteousness).

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Persepolis

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Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire. Darius embarked on a whole new construction project, a gigantic palace complex at Persepolis. That incorperated both NE and Persian elements. Column halls being a Persian thing. Darius made up a lot of roads, the most important was the royal road of which we know the one from Persepolis to Susa to through to Sardus. Lsat but not least, to show how much NE socities have advanced by then, in the 1930s when excavations were done at Persepolis, they discovered archive of Cuneform tablets, mostly in Elamite, which provide such detail insights into daily activities of the area surroindung Persepolis, showing a cosmopolitan religious/culturally tolerant society. Socially extremely progressive. On the tablets are the first known examples of female foremen, women leading groups of male workers, owning land and property, women being granted leave of absence during pregnancy and childbirth for four months with pay!! NO evidence for slavery, everyone is getting paid for their labor. But hat doesn’t mean all emancipation of slaves cuase if other peope, eygpitions and such, wanted to keep slaves they were allowed to, but Persians in Persia didn’t do it.

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Zoroastrianism

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The Persians are Indo-European people, and believed in a single diety, but a dualism of good and evil. But the prime diety who is depicated like what we see in Assryian reliefs. Ahhuramazada- the god (means Sacred Spirit). We know about the god through the teaches of Zoroaster, the founder of the religion which is active now. Zoroastism form the east, Yahism(?) from the west, both promting the notion of a single god. Historically, Zoroastrianism appears in mid-5th century BC, despite having been started in 9th/10th century BC. Zoroastrianism is widely held as being the 'missing link' between eastern and western religions, and is believed to have had more influence on mankind than any other single religion. Though many of the facets of Zoroastrianism went on to inspire other very different religions, Zoroastrianism is not in itself without previous religions upon which it has drawn, specifically the historical Vedic religion. The Avesta is the name of the collection of Zoroastrian sacred texts.

Ahura Mazda is the beginning and the end, the creator of everything which can and cannot be seen, the Eternal, the Pure and the only Truth. Daena (din in modern Persian) is the eternal Law, whose order was revealed to humanity through the Mathra-Spenta 'Holy Words'. Daena has been used to mean religion, faith, law, even as a translation for the Hindu and Buddhist term Dharma, religious duty, but which can also mean social order, right conduct, or simply virtue. Daena should not be confused with the fundamental principle asha (Vedic rta), the equitable law of the universe, which governed the life of the ancient Indo-Iranians. In Zoroastrianism, good transpires for those who do righteous deeds. Those who do evil have themselves to blame for their ruin.