meetings
TUESDAY, October 18
4:00 pm, 254 Barrows
Remembering Nebuchadnezzar I in the 7th Century BC
Prof. John Nielsen, Loyola University (New Orleans)
Although very little written documentation survives from his reign in the last quarter of the twelfth century BC, a renewed interest in Nebuchadnezzar I is evident in texts dated four centuries later. Most of these new compositions were literary in nature, but they reference to his historical reign, particularly his defeat of the Elamites and restoration of Marduk. This interest was shared by both Babylonians and Assyrians alike and may have been a response to Sennacerib's removal of Marduk from Babylon in 689 and Esarhaddon's subsequent attempt to restore the statue as part of his efforts to legitimize his son, Shamash-shuma-ukin, as the new Babylonian king. The literary compositions undoubtedly helped to shape memory and understanding of the both the recent past as well as the much earlier reign of Nebuchadnezzar I, but it could only penetrate so far into the collective memory. It will be argued that Esarhaddon sought to win the support of the broader Babylonian populace; to do so he had to utilize public space and exploit rituals and celebrations as alternate forms of memory-shaping texts.