A little more about Assyria

Well, I interviewed Dr. Paul Hoskisson on Monday and quickly arrived at the conclusion that a lot of the information in my last post is just someone’s interpretation of the original texts.  Brother Hoskisson stated “you can’t read into texts from different places.  Assyria is different.”  Some of my sources strayed from the knowledge contained in the original texts and gather information from other societies.   For example, the original texts do not specifically say that musicians were spared (although one refers to women being kept to become singers), that was just one scholar's interpretation. (Sorry Samuel)  

A soldier and three lyre players
(possibly Judean  prisoners, but no one knows for sure.  It does not include a descriptive inscription)

Some information also stemmed from my own faulty conclusions.  I assumed hymns would be sung, however I now know that the Assyrians never wrote down any form of musical notation, so we have no way of knowing if the so called “hymns” were actually sung.  They may just be poems written for gods or cities that the author never had any intention of being sung.  The Assyrians did have instruments, there is pictorial and textural evidence of instruments, but we have no idea what the music sounded like because no notation was written down.

From the interview, I learned that there are three periods in Assyrian history:

• Old Assyrian- when Assyria was economically aggressive, not militarily aggressive.
• Middle Assyrian- Assyria starts to expand, but is later conquered by Babylon and the entire area goes through a period of about 200yrs of darkness when almost no knowledge is kept or preserved



The assault of Lachish (lots of archers)

• Neo-Assyrian- Assyria rises up against Babylon and starts to expand in about 1000B.C. and continues to conquer until 609B.C. when they “become too cultured to fight” and are conquered themselves.

Most knowledge available to scholars comes from the Neo-Assyrian period.  This period was marked by conquests of other societies, and as a result, Assyria adopted cultural aspects from those they conquered.  Their in some evidence to suggest they adopted the Babylonians Akitu Festival.

Tablet containing description of rites in Akitu festival 

The Akitu Festival was a New Years celebration.  The creation story was preformed at said festival.  The actual story was recited while others would act out the scenes being described.  The plot follows Marduk, a young god who ends up saving the older gods through a battle with Tiamat.  Man was then created from the blood of the fallen god.  The final scene shows the gods in their mansions affirming the supremacy of Marduk.

Tablet describing New Years Festival

 So little is known about Assyrian drama and music, that brother Hoskisson told me I could make something up and no one would know the difference.  I am unfortunately not creative enough to come up with really good false information, so I gave you the information (hopefully it's correct) I have been able to find.