Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.00.1409151545210.4806@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: ISIS prehistory
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 15:47:07 -0400 (EDT)
ISIS prehistory http://www.alansondheim.org/damnthem2.png The Assyrians publicized their atrocities in reports and illustrations for propaganda purposes. In the tenth and ninth centuries BCE, official inscriptions told of cruelty to those captured. Most were killed or blinded; others were impaled on stakes around city walls as a warning. The bodies were mutilated; heads, hands, and even lower lips were cut off so that counting the dead would be easier. These horrifying illustrations, texts, and reliefs were designed to frighten the population into submission. [...] When surrounding the capital city and shouting to the people inside failed, the Assyrians' next tactic was to select one or more small cities to attack, usually ones that could be easily conquered. Then the Assyrians committed extreme acts of cruelty to show how the entire region would be treated if the inhabitants refused to surrender peacefully. Houses were looted and burned to the round, and the people were murdered, raped, mutilated, or enslaved - acts all vividly portrayed in the Assyrian stone reliefs and royal inscriptions in the palaces. The Assyrian troops regarded looting and rape of a conquered city as partial compensation. [...] The annals of Assurnasirpal II vividly described such tactics: "In strife and conflict I besieged (and) conquered the city. I felled 3,000 of their fighting men with the sword. I carried off prisoners, possessions, oxen, (and) cattle from them. I burnt many captives from them. I captured many troops alive: I cut off of some their arms (and) hands; I cut off of others their noses, ears, (and) extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops. I made one pile of the living (and) one of the heads. I hung their heads on tress around the city. I burnt their adolescent boys (and) girls. I razed, destroyed, burned (and) consumed the city." This type of "psychological" warfare was especially convincing, and the inhabitants, "overwhelmed by the fearful splendor of the god Assur," surrendered. ---- From Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat, Hendrickson, 2008