The Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II was known as one of the Assyrian Empire's greatest Kings, he greatly enlarged the empire's size and was a great patron of the arts who built lavish libraries and grape gardens in the empire's capital at Nineveh. However, like many of his ruthless ancestors, he prided himself on broadcasting his sometimes genocidal deeds on the great monuments to instill terror to the many people under his sway. The Assyrians were brutal conquerors and frequently enacted draconian punishments upon their subjugated peoples, ranging from deporting whole populations to the deserts to die to wholesale genocide of whole tribes and cities.
To punish Tela- one of the great cities that rebelled against him. In his inscriptions upon one of the great monuments Ashurnasirpal proclaimed:
" I built a pillar over against the city gate and I flayed all the chiefs who had revolted and I covered the pillar with their skins. Some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes and others I bound to stakes round the pillar. I cut the limbs off the officers who had rebelled. Many captives I burned with fire and many I took as living captives. From some I cut off their noses, their ears, and their fingers, of many I put out their eyes. I made one pillar of the living and another of heads and I bound their heads to tree trunks round about the city. Their young men and maidens I consumed with fire. The rest of their warriors I consumed with thirst in the desert of the Euphrates.
This treatment of defeated cities would become Ashurnasirpal II’s trademark and would include skinning insubordinate officials alive and nailing their flesh to the gates of the city and “dishonoring the maidens and boys” of the conquered cities before setting them on fire.
Submitted October 01, 2019 at 04:12AM by spiceprincesszen https://ift.tt/2px37pJ
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