What is the most interesting role at the Royal Court and why? I think the most interesting role, at least one I would want to have at the royal court, would be to be the court astrologer. So, that when the king wants advice about doing something you go and check the stars and tell him, "Yeah, it's good you do this. It's bad you do this", or if you see something up in the stars that portends illness or death for the king, you warn him. So, it's a nice, easy job in some ways, unlike the court extispicist who has to go out and slaughter sheep and then inspect their entrails, which could be rather gruesome I would think. So, looking at the stars, taking part in meetings and living at the court, having a pretty good life. That's what I would want. The most interesting role in the royal court to me, was the place of the eunuchs or the eunuch at the court. Now, it might seem strange why a eunuch would be so important, but to be honest, he's the one, or set of people, that you would probably not fear if you're an Assyrian king. And so, in a sense he got to have the insider look into the Assyrian court without being suspected of being, perhaps, as part of plots. Of course sometimes they were part of plots. But generally, we think that a eunuch perhaps might be able to get away with more and see more in the Assyrian court. So, it may have been an interesting place to see what was happening in court, and the kinds of machinations and sort of insider dealings that were happening in the Assyrian court. It would have been a great place to see everything happen. I would say that the most interesting role is that of the “ummânu” which could be translated as scholar or perhaps better teacher in the case of the ummânu of Assurbanipal who was also in the court of Esarhaddon. And his name was Balasi. And he has many letters that survive to Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. And I think it's very interesting as a role firstly because, it means that you could be a scholar, you could learn a lot, you could get to read the omen texts. But also because it's a role of real power. It's a role where you're a close adviser to the king; you’re trusted by the king. And if you tell the king that there's a bad omen he may even not leave his chambers, which appeals to me. So, in my opinion the most interesting job in the Assyrian court, as well as today, is the job of being a scholar. Because why, when you're a scholar at the Assyrian court you can not only care about your own research, You can only in a subtle way influence the king: tell him, "What you want to do is not what this omen said according to my interpretation, so you better not do it." It depends. But certainly the people tied to the exorcists, or the chief scribes, the intellectuals of the courts in some reigns had a very good time, in the sense also economically. They were very well remunerated and they also had the king's ear every day of the week, which was not a bad job. Well, there are certainly many interesting roles to play at the royal court. But for me as a scholar, I would probably say (a subjective approach) that it would be the chief scholar of the Assyrian king. All these kings had one individual who served as their main intellectual and religious adviser. We know some of these people by name, and these individuals certainly had a chance to impact royal decision making in all sorts of interesting ways. And it seems they were also in charge of writing royal inscriptions. So, they would be the ones to shape the way that image of both the kings they served and the Assyrian empire in general. They would have to do this in consultation with the king. We have letters telling us that the king had an impact on how such inscriptions were to be phrased. But they were the ghost writers who were ultimately responsible to write these texts. I think you would not want to be in the position of advising the king, predicting, being a diviner, to tell him when to take a certain action or not. Because the minute you got that wrong, your position and your head could be in jeopardy. So, I think, something that would be interesting would be, something like a chamberlain, somebody who's always near the king, hears what's going on but is not actively involved in his decision making processes. And therefore, is never liable to offer the kind of advice that could lead to some potential disaster. I should probably say that I want to fulfil some female role, but I will still go with wanting to be the chariot driver of the king, preferably of Assurbanipal, because Assurbanipal got on famously well with his chariot driver and gave him lots of gifts including many property all over the empire. And I think that would be very nice. As a chariot driver I would get to steer the best chariots in the Assyrian Empire and the world's finest vehicle anywhere. I would have the best horses of course. I’s be wherever the king would fulfil a prominent role, that means I would basically witness some of the most important events in history in the 7th century, without being in the firing line when things inevitably went wrong at times. Because as the chariot driver, I'd be a confidant to the King but I would not be one of his official advisers. And therefore, I wouldn't be blamed. That’s good I think. For me, it's the cup-bearer hands down. As chief cup-bearer to the Assyrian king, you got to meet all the top people, you would hear all the gossip going on in the court, and if you lived long enough, you would be able to taste all the best wines from across the empire. From my point of view, I would say, the wine merchant. Because you travel from the shore of the Mediterranean Sea to the Zagros and you try to look for the best of wines for the royal courts. And then you have the possibility of finding and seeing all the different containers for transporting the wine - so, thinking about the logistics, the best way of optimising the transport of these very costly supplies. And so, yes, I would say for me, this would be the most interesting part. I would like to be a part of the team with artists and artisans to decorate the palaces and temples with sculptures. The reason is that, I want to witness the process of creating reliefs for each room, suggesting my ideas to improve the visual scheme of pictorial narratives. I would have to say the kalû or lamentation priest, because he was actively involved in building rituals that took place during various phases of construction of temples, palaces, and city walls. I am extremely interested in the building of monumental architecture in Assyria, so therefore, the role of kalû priest would be most suited for me. I imagine the position of leading architects and construction engineers in the Assyrian empire exciting. In the construction sector, there were great challenges to master and the Assyrians have left very impressive buildings.
