We've discussed in this course that the king of Assyria had a special link with the god Aššur and was seen to be his tool, his human instrument. But nevertheless, a key principle of Assyrian governance was to take advice, to listen to advisers, to take council. And this is something that goes back to a long, long, long tradition. Because in the very remote past, the Assyrians thought that fish creatures came out of the Persian Gulf every day to advise humankind on all matters of civilisation. These fish creatures were humankind's teachers and they were the ones that taught us about life in cities, agriculture, justice, divination, astrology, but also about the state, and especially about the value of kingship. And as part of that, every king needs advisers. So in the remote past, fish creatures that came out of the sea daily, that were amphibious, had this function of being advisers. Now, from an Assyrian perspective, this link was interrupted. There had been a big flood a long, long, long time ago. And ever since then, humans had to take the place of the fish creatures. Humans had to act as advisers. Humans had to make sure that the knowledge that the fish creatures had once taught us was not lost. And because of that, the typical dress of one of these advisers who represented divine knowledge was a fish coat, as you can see here in this image. A fish coat made out of an actual fish. There are enormously big fish in the Tigris and its tributaries and they are called the Tigris salmon. Even today, there are specimens known that have reached the size of two metres and more. And therefore, like Herakles would have worn a lion skin as a coat, an Assyrian adviser would have worn a fish coat with the fish head as a cap. And this is what we see here. We've already discussed a big group of advisers that the Assyrian kings used habitually. Many of them staying in the royal entourage at court and now we are going to discuss another group. So we have focussed previously on the diviners and the astrologers and now we are going to focus on those people that made sure that the king fulfilled a key requirement for his role. And that was that he had to be healthy, he had to be balanced, he had to be sane. This was of imperative importance to the empire and there were people at court, scholars, royal advisors who had this role to fulfil, to make sure that the king was healthy in body, mind, and soul. And here on this amulet, we can see some of them in action. We can see in the detail here in the centre, we can see two men in fish coats with fish heads standing on either side of a bed, and on that bed lies their patient. This scene is shown in the context of an amulet that is concerned with women's health. So to say, it's an amulet that would have been used especially by a pregnant woman or a young mother. Because the demon in the centre of this amulet is the demon Lamaštu, a female demon who preyed on pregnant women, who preyed on young children, babies especially, and this amulet was meant to neutralise her effect as much as possible. And as part of that amulet, we also see a scene, presumably of childbirth, with two doctors standing on either side of the bed. And the key point here is that they are wearing the fish dress. So among the personnel that guaranteed the king's health were people that we would today, presumably, see as doctors, as physicians. But there were others that dealt with the divine, more directly, the supernatural, if you will and those we would be tempted to call exorcists. They would perform various rituals to purify, to balance the world and the king. The distinction that we tend to see between medical personnel and exorcists would not have been a very strict one at all for the Assyrians because every disease was seen as the touch of the gods. Many diseases were called “hand of god X”, and any affliction was seen in a way as divine punishment for some kind of misdemeanour. Whether the person who had committed it would be aware of it or not, would be another question entirely. So a lot of these medical specialists would in effect strive to restore balance, and would therefore not only treat the patient and his or her symptoms, but also make sure that the world around them would be in balance. Good. This is one kind of specialist that would be concerned with the king's welfare, and by extension, of course, the welfare of the empire. The other type of specialist would be musicians. People that we tend to not necessarily associate very directly with well-being or for many, of course, experience a music as something that restores us, that gives us pleasure, and that makes us healthy and sane. The Assyrians were very much of the opinion that music served this purpose and therefore, the king had a great many musicians in his entourage. And they were present at many occasions. Such as here, where the king had just concluded a lion hunt, had slain the lion which we can see here lying at his feet. The king is offering his gratitude to the gods by drinking wine and sacrificing parts of that wine over the lion. He is accompanied by members of his court and here we see two musicians. Let's have a closer look at what music they are playing. They are both playing the same instrument and we can describe this as a psaltery. It's a string instrument and it's a portable string instrument. And the musicians would play this instrument, but they would also sing. And the song that they performed would be on the one hand, of course, a fitting song for the occasion. But as I said, it would be a song that took account of the fact that the king had just slain the lion, that this was an offering to the gods - that in this way by slaying the lion, who stood for everything that was evil in the world, every kind of danger imaginable. That by slaying this lion, the king had performed a ritual that was meant to signify his role as the restorer of balance to the world. So their song would provide, on the one hand, a context for this, but would also contribute to this. And singers and musicians would act in this way in a whole range of different occasions. They would be much, much more than entertainers. They would be personnel - specialists - who were charged with restoring balance, with keeping everything as it should be, and with creating a positive mood. This is their key function. Now, why are they considered scholars? This is because of the languages in which some of their material was performed. On the one hand, they sang in Assyrian, but on the other hand, they also used a very, very, very old language that no one had been speaking for the past millennium, and that language is called Sumerian. The reason why many of the songs were performed in Sumerian, even though very few people would have been able to understand this, was that Sumerian was considered the language of the gods. This old, old language was seen to be the language in which the gods originally communicated with humankind and therefore was seen as fitting, especially fitting for any kind of song that addressed the gods directly. We've encountered various specialists, various experts. We have now focused on the people that brought balance to the king and the world around him. And I want to emphasise how important it is that the king wished to be perceived as someone who took advice despite the fact that he had this link to the god Aššur and was the human instrument of that god. He needed to take others into account, especially if they were thought to have information, knowledge that the king himself could not master. In the 7th century, we have at least two kings who were very highly educated and had a deep interest in the divine knowledge, but they still did not see themselves as mastering that knowledge. And they still referred to scholars when it came to interpreting these things and when it came to performing these things. So the role of the expert at the Assyrian court is very important. And we can close with this image, which we've seen in other context, that shows the king of Assyria deep in conversation with another person. And the other person has an equal role in this conversation.
