The Yale Assyriological seminar is pleased to host Michael Jursa (University of Vienna) for a lecture entitled “Dead Dogs and the Lord of the Universe: Babylonians Write to the Assyrian King” on Wednesday, Sept. 28th at 4:30 pm in the Judaic Studies Room, SML 335b.
Drawing on eighth and seventh century letters sent by Babylonians to the Assyrian court, the talk explores the understanding of political domination that is reflected in these sources. The mentality of their authors – Babylonian clients of the Assyrians, priests and generally urban notables, and tribal chiefs – is compared with that of their Assyrian contemporaries and of their Babylonian successors of the sixth century. The comparison allows proposing a model for the diachronic development of Babylonian ideas about power, domination and political allegiance that can be cast in (roughly) Weberian terms.