Envisioning the Past Through Memories by Davide Nadali

Author:Davide Nadali [Nadali, Davide]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Ancient History, Egypt, Middle East
ISBN: 9781474223973
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-08-11T04:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

Jennifer Ross theorizes that, presenting reality through the filter of ideology, royal Neo-Assyrian art removed the ‘lived experience’ from its original time and place.53 According to this scheme, royal imagery would have manifested and sustained the sacred phenomenon of elite ideological memory on an eternal plane, where rulers’ images were prioritized over the mortal body as the everlasting presence of the Neo-Assyrian ‘king’ and ‘kingship’. Images could therefore have stabilized the king’s presence in space as well as in historical and metaphysical time. For instance, once a king departed – whether he left the palace, left the capital or died – the essence, presence and memory of king and kingship would linger in his carved images at the heart of the empire.54 As demonstrated by Ashurnasirpal II’s depiction behind his own throne (BM 124531), the ‘seat’ of the empire would never be empty.55 Reflecting the essential and unending role of royal images, Neo-Assyrian texts document that rulers vigorously restored and preserved royal sculptures.56 Maintained by mortal hands as devices of elite ideological memory, images of kings and kingship would thus have been empowered to sustain the empire for eternity.

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