Becoming Empire: Neo-Assyrian palaces and the creation of courtly culture

Abstract

Assyria (911–612 BCE) can be described as the founder of the imperial model of kingship in the ancient Near East. The Assyrian court itself, however, remains poorly understood. Scholarship has treated the court as a disembodied, textual entity, separated from the physical spaces it occupied – namely, the palaces. At the same time, architectural analyses have examined the physical structures of the Assyrian palaces, without consideration for how these structures were connected to people’s lives and works. The palaces are often described as secluded, inaccessible locations. This study presents the first model of the Assyrian court contextualized in its actual palaces. It provides a nuanced model highlighting how the court organized the immense flow of information, people and goods entering the palace as a result of the empire’s increased size and complexity. It argues that access to the king was regulated by three gates of control which were manned by specific types of personnel and a more situational organization that moved within the physical spaces of the palace and was contingent on the king’s activity.

Building Walls, Social Groups and Empires: A Study of Political Power and Compliance in the Neo-Assyrian Period

“…During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, numerous palaces were built in the different capitals and in the provinces. These palaces were important administrative centres run by a multitude of officials (Groß , Kertai 2019;Groß 2020;Politopoulos 2020: 141). The royal household played a fundamental role.…”

Memória e cerimônia nos palácios assírios (Iº milênio A.E.C.): um estudo de uma sala do palácio sudoeste de Nínive

“…Além disso, nos palácios, os reis e rainhas eram enterrados. Por fim, era um centro de produção de textos, de onde partiam as cartas oficiais e os tratados (VERDE-RAME, 2014;GROß;KERTAI, 2019), onde se materializavam as inscrições reais (RUSSELL, 1999) e onde se produziam e acumulavam, especialmente no contexto do I milênio A.E.C., a produção do "conhecimento cuneiforme" da tradição mesopotâmica (RADNER; ROBSON, 2011).…”