08/06/2024
The ancient Assyrians often treated their enemies cruelly, and they proudly depicted their treatment on reliefs.
These two reliefs date to the reign of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (c. 669–631 BC). The first one depicts the death of the Elamite king, Teumman (also Teumann), and his son, Tammaritu, during the battle of Til-Tuba (River Ulai) in c. 653 BC. Teumman had been waging war against Ashurbanipal, but during the battle, which Ashurbanipal decisively won, Teumman met his end.
The second relief depicts Ashurbanipal and his queen relaxing at a banquet while the head of Teumman hangs from a tree (far left). Ashurbanipal described his victory and the fate of his enemy:
"Like the onset of a terrible hurricane, I overwhelmed Elam in its entirety. I cut off the head of Teumann, their king, – the haughty one, who plotted evil. Countless of his warriors I slew. Alive, with my hands, I seized his fighters. With their corpses I filled the plain about Susa as with baltu and ashagu. Their blood I let run down the Ulai; its water I dyed red like wool."
Ashurbanipal also went on to destroy the Kingdom of Elam:
"I had the sanctuaries of the land Elam utterly destroyed and I counted its gods and its goddesses as ghosts… I destroyed and devastated the tombs of their earlier and later kings… I took their bones to Assyria. I prevented their ghosts from sleeping and deprived them of funerary-offerings and libations… On a march of one month and twenty-five days, I devastated the districts of the land Elam and scattered salt and cress over them."
Brutal stuff!
Click for full image.