
Inside the court of Ashurbanipal, king of the world - jedwhite
https://www.1843magazine.com/culture/look-closer/inside-the-court-of-ashurbanipal-king-of-the-world
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KSS42
Obligatory Dan Carlin history podcast reference :

[https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-
kings...](https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings/)

[https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-57-kings-kings-
ii...](https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-57-kings-kings-ii/)

[https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-58-kings-kings-
ii...](https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-58-kings-kings-iii/)

(should be available through your favourite podcast app).

This King of Kings series is about the Achaemenid Persian Empire but it does
go into details about the Assryian Empire and Ashurbanipal.

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sogwiz
Thanks for sharing! The Assyrian language itself is threatened by various
factors, so I created an online English to Assyrian dictionary using (React &
MongoDB for the app. Scrapy + Java to power the data matching) to help
preserve the language. I owe alot of the development choices behind the web
app to the useful posts on hackernews! The frontend code is also available on
GitHub. I get feedback from Assyrian parents trying to keep the language alive
and from non Assyrians trying to learn, typically to impress their significant
other and share a commonality.

[http://sargonsays.com](http://sargonsays.com)

What I'll try to do next is create an Alexa skill. Languages are important

~~~
idoubtit
Please note the modern Assyrian language is not directly related to the old
Assyrian language that was used on the tablets at the time of Ashurbanipal.
Modern Assyrian derives from the Aramean, which became the vernacular language
in most of the Near East during the first millenium BC. The written Assyrian
language of tablet derived from the Akkadian, with a few traces of the
Sumerian language. All of these were semitic languages, so they had
similarities, except for the Sumerian which is an isolate.

~~~
klipt
> Modern Assyrian derives from the Aramean

From Wikipedia it seems Aramean refers to the people, their language was
_Aramaic_.

~~~
kingofpandora
It's complicated ... But as the previous poster said what is called Assyrian
today is indeed derived from ancient Aramean rather than ancient Assyrian.

The real contention is that the same group of modern people today can't decide
what their ancestry is: Assyrian or Aramean. They fight about it a lot.

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mcguire
"The god of scribes has bestowed on me the gift of the knowledge of his art. I
have been initiated into the secrets of writing. I can even read the intricate
tablets in Shumerian; I understand the enigmatic words in the stone carvings
from the days before the Flood …”

\-- Ashurbanipal

(Horrible translation, but the best I could do now.)

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rtx
That name sounds like something from ancient India. Ashur-Bani-Pal could be
translated to Demon-Voice-Protector or Sky-Voice-Protector. I wonder if there
were some links between the two cultures.

~~~
mcguire
Ashurbanipal means something like "Assur Protects Him" in Akkadian, the
Semitic language of Mesopotamia.

There were significant contacts with India going back thousands of years,
apparently.

~~~
rraghur
Also I've heard in Zoroastrianism asuras are the good guys and devas the bad
guys whereas in Hinduism it's the other way around... So ashurbanipal
literally means God protects him

Here's one interesting read on how the myths evolved
[https://videshisutra.com/2013/03/22/hariti-saraswatis-
persia...](https://videshisutra.com/2013/03/22/hariti-saraswatis-persian-
cousin/)

~~~
vram22
>in Zoroastrianism asuras

Yes, except that they call them ahura, IIR(ead)C. Similarly, that sacred /
intoxicating drink of the Vedas, called soma, was called haoma in Persia, I've
read.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_(drink)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_\(drink\))

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ashurbanipal
Very cool, I endorse this post!

Older episodes of Dan Carlin’s hardcore history podcast that cover this period
have put the whole ancient near east into context. highly recommend.

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crwalker
I keep suggesting that folks name their next child Ashurbanipal, Shalmaneser,
or Tiglath-Pileser. So far nobody has taken up the offer ... but think of the
excellent nicknames: "time to wrap up The Prince and study some more endgame
strategies, Tiggy!"

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rajekas
Even the name percolates down the sands of time. The fifth Mughal emperor and
builder of the Taj Mahal took the name "Shahjahan," i.e., King of the World.
Like Ceasar becoming Kaiser, etymology recapitulates history.

~~~
pachydermfort
Though Assurbanipal doesn't really translate to 'king of the world' (see my
comment below), the title in Akkadian is actually 'shar mātāti,' which is all
the more striking. I haven't been able to find whether Akkadian shar shares a
common root with Persian shah, although the ancient Achaemenid Persian empire
did consciously model itself on a friendlier, ecumenical Assyrian model.

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dahidahi1
Ashurbanipal sounds so much like Sanskrit. Did the Assyrians have Indian
heritage or links with ancient (medieval) India.

Also how is “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, the world’s oldest epic? We have far
older epics like Ramayana, Mahabharata etc.

~~~
schoen
According to the estimates cited on Wikipedia, the Epic of Gilgamesh is about
9-10 centuries older than the Mahabharata, which in turn is older than the
Ramayana.

~~~
dahidahi1
Ramayana predates Mahabharata. I think that's what you meant.

But even Wikipedia estimates that Gilgamesh himself lived between 2500 BC and
2000 BC. The authentic date of an existing record of the Gilgamesh epic is
only from 700 BC. The Mahabharata on the other hand, is from at least 5000 BC.
The Ramayana is even older, from 7000 BC.

~~~
foobarchu
This is outside my wheelhouse of history, but the citations on Wikipedia claim
the Ramayana is at most from 7th century BC. That's a big pretty difference
from your claim (which I find extremely suspect to begin with).

~~~
dahidahi1
I can understand why you may find it suspicious. The problem is the abundance
of the rather fake history about the dating of the great Indian events &
epics. For a very long time, the narrative was monopolized by people who
believed that the history of mankind (or life?) is not more than 5000 years
ago, (mainly because of the bible or something else)? Therefore, when the
British & other Marxist historians found something older than the purported
5000 years, they had to adjust every event in Indian / Hindu history to match
it. Too many things have been "adjusted" in this way, unfortunately.

When modern human species evolved approximately 200,000 years ago, it should
not be so far fetched to imagine that advanced civilizations existed 10,000
years ago?

A google search provides many good resources & links that I will just fill up
my comment to provide. These resources have documented many many proofs,
events more than 3000 years ago cannot be treated the same as events 500 or
even 1000 years ago, because the archeological remains would not survive that
long unfortunately. Please try this:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=dating+the+ramayana](https://www.google.com/search?q=dating+the+ramayana)

I think the research done by PN Oak & Dr. Koenraad Elst would be most
pertinent. I am assuming that you are not limited or prejudiced by the
timelines provided in the bible or something else.

