Chapter 6, The Ancient Near East, 08 — Transcript

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1. 0:00Gudea of Lagash shows his power in a different, less military way.
2. 0:07Nearly two dozen portraits of this ruler survive, many with inscriptions extolling his good
3. 0:14deeds and devotion to the gods.
4. 0:17The one in the textbook, shown on the right, was placed at the temple of Eninnu, Gudea's
5. 0:24major undertaking in the kingdom of Lagash.
6. 0:28He is seated, hands clasped piously in devotion, with plans for the temple in his lap.
7. 0:35The sculpture is covered in cuneiform inscriptions that emphasize his piety and devotion and
8. 0:42reference, as the textbook states, that this "living statue" will stand for Gudea for eternity
9. 0:50in the presence of the gods.
10. 0:54Just like Akkad defeated Sumer, the Neo-Sumerians defeated Akkad and the Elamites defeated the
11. 1:01Neo-Sumerians.
12. 1:02Around 1790 BCE, King Hammurabi, ruler of the city-state of Babylon, re-established
13. 1:10central control over Mesopotamia, calling the region Babylonia after the name of its
14. 1:17capital city, Babylon.
15. 1:20Hammurabi is famous in Mesopotamian history, for the expansion of his rule, his military
16. 1:26conquests, and, today, for his law code.
17. 1:30Today, we're used to formal laws, but 4,000 years ago, this was new.
18. 1:36Hammurabi wasn't the first ruler to establish laws, but he was the first one to spell out
19. 1:44the full law code in detail.
20. 1:48Written in the Akkadian language, the stele includes 3500 lines of cuneiform outlining
21. 1:54a code of justice and establishing penalties for infractions large and small.
22. 2:00It is established that if a man puts out another man's eye, his own eye should be put out;
23. 2:07you may have heard "an eye for an eye," and it was written here first.
24. 2:12The law declares that if a person steals property from a temple, not only he, but the person
25. 2:18who received the stolen goods, shall be put to death.
26. 2:22If a man hits a pregnant woman and she loses her unborn child, he must pay her 10 shekels-but
27. 2:30if the woman dies, his own daughter shall be put to death.
28. 2:34Many of these laws sound grim to us today, but the stele points out that Hammurabi is
29. 2:42a peacemaker, establishing justice in the land.
30. 2:47In a sculpture at the top of the stele, we see Hammurabi himself.
31. 2:52He is receiving the law-symbolized by the scepter and ring-from the god Shamash himself.
32. 3:01The god-whose divinity is clear by his horned helmet and the flames coming off his shoulders-is
33. 3:06seated, so if he stood, he would be taller than Hammurabi.
34. 3:11Standing, though, the king's head is higher, showing his own authority and ability to accept
35. 3:20and enact the divine laws handed down to his people.
36. 3:26Babylon's enemies to the north were the Assyrians, the most warlike of the cultures we study
37. 3:33this chapter.
38. 3:34They ended up dominating the region during the first half of the first millennium BCE.
39. 3:40They were familiar with the region's history-a series of cultures claiming dominance, only
40. 3:47to be defeated by victors who themselves would then be overthrown.
41. 3:52Thus their palaces were fortified like citadels, as you see in this drawing of the Citadel
42. 4:00of Sargon II.
43. 4:03Standing guard in the massive walls fortifying the palaces were fearsome guardian figures
44. 4:09known as Lamassu.
45. 4:11Again, we see hybridization: the head of a man, complete with majestic beard, atop the
46. 4:18body of winged bull.
47. 4:21We also see the use of some creative artistic license in rendering this imaginary, but intimidating,
48. 4:29figure.
49. 4:30As a sculpture guarding an entrance, the lamassu is designed to be seen both head-on, in which
50. 4:37case we see the face, chest, and two legs-and from the side, where we see the profile of
51. 4:44the body and four legs, apparently in motion.
52. 4:48Only in the view shown here, from the corner, does this mythical beast appear to have not
53. 4:55four but five legs.
54. 4:58The walls of Assyrian palaces were also decorated with relief sculpture, among the finest at
55. 5:05the palace of Ashurbanipal.
56. 5:07You might recognize him by the name the Greeks called him, which was Sardanapalus.
57. 5:12Take a moment to study these relief plaques.
58. 5:17How do these images show royal power-and how does that compare to other images of power
59. 5:23we've seen this chapter?