“The Heavenly Jerusalem,” taken from the Apocalypse Tapestry of the Château d’Angers, France. Octave 444, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In a previous blog, I traced the myth of the Garden of Eden back to its Mesopotamian roots. But this was just the beginning. Before long, Eden became more than just an ancient cautionary tale. It became a theological battleground, a mystical riddle, and a prophetic symbol of humanity’s ultimate destiny. As believers reinterpreted the garden, the myth of paradise stretched far beyond its Mesopotamian roots, reaching into doctrines of sin and salvation, mystical visions of union with God, and apocalyptic hopes for a new heaven and a new earth.
Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens – The Earthly Paradise with the Fall of Adam and Eve
What comes to mind when you hear the word Paradise? Perhaps you picture a lush garden filled with trees, flowers, and animals. This image is far older than our modern imaginations and has deep roots in the ancient world. In Mesopotamia, the ‘land between the rivers’, the ability to make the desert bloom through irrigation and hydraulics was seen as the very height of civilization. Kings even styled themselves as gardeners. Not hobbyists tending a backyard patch, but rulers who created vast, cultivated gardens within their cities as living symbols of their duty to uphold and restore the divine order.
Depiction of Jehu King of Israel giving tribute to King Shalmaneser III of Assyria, on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III from Nimrud (circa 827 BC) in the British Museum (London).
When the kings of ancient Assyria wanted to tell the world about their achievements, they didn’t publish press releases or give interviews. Instead, they had their deeds carved into stone and clay: lengthy texts that celebrated victories and praised the gods for granting them power. These are the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: a huge body of texts that give us a direct line into how Assyrian rulers wanted to be remembered.
On the surface, these inscriptions can seem like straightforward historical accounts: the king marched to war, defeated his enemies, and brought back tribute. But it doesn’t take long to realize that they are far from neutral reports. They are propaganda, written to glorify the king and intimidate anyone who might think of resisting. Enemies are always crushed, cities are always captured, and rebellions are always put down. If you take the inscriptions at face value, Assyria looks unstoppable, its rulers larger than life.
And yet, that’s exactly what makes them so fascinating. Hidden behind the bombast are glimpses of the real political world the Assyrians lived in. Why did the king need to emphasize this particular victory? Why describe his enemy in such exaggerated terms? Why repeat certain stock phrases again and again? Reading these texts is a bit like doing a puzzle: you know the pieces are distorted, but with a little practice you can start to see what lies behind the spin.
In this blogpost, I want to share a few rules of thumb: simple strategies historians use to read between the lines of Assyrian propaganda. They won’t solve every mystery, but they can help you approach the inscriptions with a critical eye and appreciate both their artistry and their hidden messages.
You know those moments when you spend months developing an exciting new research idea, pour your heart and soul into a beautifully structured proposal, reread the instructions seventeen times, double-check every footnote — and then don’t get the grant?
Yeah, me too.
Earlier this year, I submitted a proposal for a PhD project called International Relations in the Near East during the Neo-Assyrian Period (c. 1000–609 BCE). The title alone was a page-turner, obviously. And while the proposal was ultimately rejected, I still think the idea is worth sharing — if only so you can see what kind of fascinating research didn’t make it through the system.
What’s the best way to write about a world that no longer exists?
That question has followed me for years, from the first time I opened a book on Mesopotamian history to the moment I started sketching the outlines of my third (Dutch) book, now in the works. It’s a book about Babylon. Not the Babylon of clichés and popular imagination, but the real, messy, deeply human Babylon of the sixth century BCE: a city caught in political, religious, and emotional turmoil, where priests still whispered the names of the gods, omens were read in the liver of a sheep, and rumours moved faster than armies.
But how do you write about such a world? How do you bring it to life without flattening it into a simple story or drowning your reader in footnotes?
That’s the challenge I’ve set for myself, and if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to tell you a bit about the road I’ve taken to try and solve it.
If you’ve followed me for a while, you might remember that I used to blog regularly. The topics ranged widely: sometimes about the Ancient Near East, sometimes about something completely different that happened to spark my interest. It was fun and informal, but I’ll admit it never quite found a steady rhythm. I eventually drifted away from it, especially as other writing projects started taking over.
Fast-forward a few years, and I’ve written two books in Dutch about the ancient world — Het wereldrijk van het Tweestromenland and Alle wegen leiden naar Babel — and I’m currently working on a third. That third book is a bit different: for the first time, I’m combining historical reconstruction with fictional elements. It’s set in Babylon, in the tense final months before Cyrus the Great conquered the city, and it’s my way of trying to imagine what it must have felt like to live in a time of political collapse, religious uncertainty, and imperial propaganda. So far, it’s been one of the most rewarding (and challenging) projects I’ve worked on.
But while writing books has brought me a lot, it has also made one thing very clear: writing is lonely. It’s slow, it’s solitary, and by the time a book comes out, I’m often already neck-deep in the next idea. I miss the immediacy of dialogue — the joy of sharing questions, doubts, discoveries, and curiosities as they come up. I miss having a place to explore half-formed thoughts, and to hear what others think in return.
That’s why I’ve decided to return to blogging. But this time, with a clearer sense of what I want to use it for.
Inmiddels ruim twee jaar geleden verscheen Het Wereldrijk van het Tweestromenland. Het was een debuut waar je als beginnend schrijver alleen maar van kunt dromen: intussen al zes drukken, lovende recensies in de NRC en de Volkskrant, uitgeroepen tot Boek van de Maand bij VPRO’s OVT, genomineerd voor de Homerusprijs 2022. Uitgeverij Omniboek kwam dan ook al snel met de vraag of ik nog meer boeken wilde schrijven. Tegen dat verzoek zei ik natuurlijk geen nee.
Bij het schrijven van mijn eerste boek merkte ik dat het door de brede opzet soms moeilijk was om op elk onderwerp even diep in te gaan. Uiteindelijk is het toch vooral een boek over politiek-militaire geschiedenis geworden, met minder aandacht voor zaken als bestuur, economie, religie en wetenschap. Ik besloot daarom dat ik in mijn volgende boeken de andere thema’s wilde uitdiepen. Over de vraag welk thema in mijn eerstvolgende boek centraal zou staan, hoefde ik niet lang na te denken: het werd langeafstandshandel.
According to the Sumerian King List, kingship was already in the third millennium BC an ancient institution. But is this correct? Where and how did Sumerian kingship originate?
The Sumerian King List is one of the oldest historiographical documents known to mankind. The earliest version dates back to the Neo-Sumerian Period (2112-2004 BC) and lists all the kings who had “held kingship” up to that time, along with their home city and the length of their reign.
The Sumerian King List presents kingship as a divine gift that had been bestowed upon mankind in primordial times and that was passed down from king to king and from city to city by the will of the gods. Interestingly, this kingship could only be held by one person at a time.
In the distant past, when Assyria still reigned supreme, two tribes of nomadic horsemen wreaked havoc across Asia. They were known as the Cimmerians and the Scythians.
The Cimmerians lived on the steppes north of the Black Sea until they were driven from their homeland by the Scythians, who had themselves been driven from their own homeland in Central Asia by the nomadic Massagetae.
The Cimmerians fled, passing the Caucasus on the side of the Black Sea, and reached Anatolia. There, they raided the prosperous kingdoms of Phrygia and Lydia, until they were finally defeated by King Alyattes of Lydia (r. 610–560 BC), who went on to conquer all the lands west of the River Halys.
The Scythians pursued the Cimmerians, passing the Caucasus on the side of the Caspian sea, reaching Iran. When the Scythians found out that the Cimmerians had taken another route, they decided to attack the Median kingdom ruled by Cyaxares (r. 625–585 BC) instead. The Scythians ruled the region for 28 years, conducting raids as far as Palestine, until they were finally defeated by Cyaxares, who reclaimed his throne and went on to conquer all the lands east of the River Halys.
Toen Ahura Mazda deze wereld in beroering zag, schonk hij het (koningschap) aan mij en maakte hij me tot koning, opdat ik koning zou zijn. Bij de gratie van Ahura Mazda herstelde ik (de wereld) in haar oorspronkelijke staat. Wat ik tegen hen (d.w.z. de onderdanen) zei, dat deden zij, zoals ik verlangde. Als je je afvraagt: “Van hoeveel landen heeft Darius zich meester gemaakt?” kijk dan naar de beelden [van hen] die de troon dragen. Dan zul je het weten, dan zal het je bekend worden: de speer van een Pers reikt ver. Dan zal het je bekend worden: een Pers heeft waarlijk ver van Perzië slag geleverd. Alles wat ik gedaan heb, heb ik door de wil van Ahura Mazda gedaan. Ahura Mazda schonk me hulp, totdat ik mijn werk volbracht had. Moge Ahura Mazda mij, mijn koningshuis en dit land beschermen tegen onheil. Hierom bid ik tot Ahura Mazda, moge Ahura Mazda het me geven! O sterveling, laat dat wat Ahura Mazda bevolen heeft je niet tegenstaan! Verlaat het rechte pad niet! Kom niet in opstand! Naqsh-e Rustam Inscriptie
Met deze woorden beschreef de Perzische koning Darius I (r. 522-486 v. Chr.) in een inscriptie bij zijn graf in Naqsh-e Rustam zijn eigen heerschappij. In zijn bijna veertig jaar op de troon consolideerde hij de veroveringen van zijn voorgangers en vormde hij het Midden-Oosten om tot een politieke eenheid: een ‘oikoumene’. Voor zijn onderdanen leek het alsof Darius over de gehele bewoonde wereld regeerde. Maar liefst 44% van de toenmalige wereldbevolking viel onder het gezag van Darius; een percentage dat sindsdien door geen enkel ander wereldrijk is geëvenaard. In dat opzicht was het Perzische Rijk het meest wereldomvattende rijk dat ooit heeft bestaan.
