This volume presents, for the first time in an international context, a historical interpretation of the State Archives of Assyria.
Through the direct quotation of more than 700 texts (letters, inventories, reports, orders and contracts), the court that corresponded with the Assyrian king - the king of the 'four parts of the world' - on political, administrative, and cultural issues is brought back to light. We discover the complexity of an empire stretching across the Middle East between the eighth and seventh centuries BC, from the preparation of imposing public works to the detailed recruitment of militia and cavalry. But many other facets emerge from this framework: the life of the serfs in the Syro-Mesopotamian countryside, caught between poverty and the abuse of authority of their masters; the complex developments of international policy of the Assyrian State from its peak to the final crisis; the practical, scientific and religious tenets behind divination, which guided the rulers of Nineveh in theirdaily decisions.
This Assyria 'in the round' has finally emerged - 150 years after the first archaeological discoveries in Mesopotamia – from the study of the State Archives of Assyria, which have been published in very recent years through an international project, of which the author himself is one of the Editors.