Karen Radner | Assyrian Imperial Power and How to Oppose It

Karen Radner, LMU Munich and University College London
In the early first millennium BC, the ancient kingdom of Assyria became the dominant power of the Middle East. Attitudes and preferences of the imperial center shaped the lives and lifestyles between the Nile and the Caspian Sea. What made the Assyrian Empire so successful? And was it possible to oppose this exemplary lowland predatory state?
Lecture starts at 6:46
Q&A starts at 1:11:06

Пікірлер: 105

  • @ashurhedo9273
    @ashurhedo92733 жыл бұрын

    Thank you to the wonderful German lady for this presentation about the ancient Assyrians. The modern Assyrians appreciate your words of wisdom.

  • @derrickbonsell
    @derrickbonsell3 жыл бұрын

    When I'm a Greek pirate raiding the Levantine coast I'll keep this in mind.

  • @perfectallycromulent
    @perfectallycromulent5 жыл бұрын

    I could have used this 3000 years ago.

  • @mouthpiece200

    @mouthpiece200

    3 жыл бұрын

    3001

  • @jjs8426

    @jjs8426

    2 жыл бұрын

    You still can you know....

  • @laxman90210

    @laxman90210

    2 жыл бұрын

    Good times with my homies opposing Assyrian power back in the day

  • @assyrianforever2362
    @assyrianforever23623 жыл бұрын

    Assyria Will Rise .I am proud to be an Assyrian.

  • @jari2018

    @jari2018

    3 жыл бұрын

    So will you start to record in cuniform instad of the bastarded form of alphabet that rose with hieroglyps? and also count numbers in base 60 . Mayan people i Mexico are now rediscovering their alphabet and number system.

  • @Ktotwf

    @Ktotwf

    2 жыл бұрын

    I think you might have missed the point

  • @mrlefty1276

    @mrlefty1276

    Жыл бұрын

    @@jari2018 our alphabet is based on the Aramaic language and derived from the Phoenicians. It is the basis of ALL Western alphabets. It had nothing to do with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Get educated before stating erroneous comments. Your head's not just a hat rack son 😉

  • @mrlefty1276

    @mrlefty1276

    Жыл бұрын

    ABSOLUTELY RIGHT 💯

  • @vdoniel
    @vdoniel5 жыл бұрын

    Lecture begins 6:15

  • @Ramsez

    @Ramsez

    5 жыл бұрын

    thx bruh

  • @jolujo5842

    @jolujo5842

    4 жыл бұрын

    Yeah....hard to deal with the blah blah blah of the introduction

  • @Dosadniste2000

    @Dosadniste2000

    4 жыл бұрын

    Actually begins at 7:20 :))

  • @matthewsutton3682

    @matthewsutton3682

    3 жыл бұрын

    Is it just me or do academics tend to always overdo the introductions to any lecture or seminar?

  • @maryshamon7704

    @maryshamon7704

    3 жыл бұрын

    Thanks

  • @ranierieustaquio
    @ranierieustaquio5 жыл бұрын

    Such an enlightening lecture from Ms. Radner! Assiria is truly a fascinating subject.

  • @anonemoose9130
    @anonemoose91303 жыл бұрын

    This stuff is available for free. Outstanding.

  • @voyeurchamp
    @voyeurchamp3 жыл бұрын

    More lectures on Assyrian Empire, please 🙏. Loved this one. ❤️

  • @rubennikoghosyan5709
    @rubennikoghosyan57095 жыл бұрын

    A really nice lecture. I liked it.

  • @AntiquityCentury21
    @AntiquityCentury214 жыл бұрын

    For me, Assyria takes the cake as the most interesting ancient empire.

  • @sagesarabia5053

    @sagesarabia5053

    2 жыл бұрын

    I am Assyrian. Many think we no longer exist but we do. Our ancestors were some of the most innovative people

  • @AntiquityCentury21

    @AntiquityCentury21

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@sagesarabia5053 Thank you my friend. Some of us know you are still around! I would love to visit the historic homeland some day.

  • @mrlefty1276

    @mrlefty1276

    Жыл бұрын

    Thank you for your kind comments. Assyrians number between 3-5 million world wide. We are near extinction due to Islamic oppression and the diaspora. We still speak eastern Aramaic and were among the first people to collectively convert to Christianity.

  • @AntiquityCentury21

    @AntiquityCentury21

    Жыл бұрын

    @@mrlefty1276 Of course. I feel terrible for what has transpired over the past decade and longer. You as a people deserve so much better, from the West and from your neighbors.

  • @blaircolquhoun7780
    @blaircolquhoun7780 Жыл бұрын

    I studied the Assyrian Empire forty-two years ago when I was in college. Thank you. I'm learning a lot more than I did then with the new information that's come out since 1980. Most of these Assyrian kings I've never heard of.

  • @uhoh007
    @uhoh0073 жыл бұрын

    Outstanding lecture, thank you.

  • @skellingtonmeteoryballoon
    @skellingtonmeteoryballoon3 жыл бұрын

    Happy I found this lecture :) 😊

  • @awuma
    @awuma2 жыл бұрын

    So many lessons for the present!

  • @alainarnaud9528
    @alainarnaud95285 жыл бұрын

    Great lecture, vielen Dank!

  • @simonstergaard
    @simonstergaard4 жыл бұрын

    I like the unusual angle thet Karen uses in this talk... it somehow makes dusty academic considerations seems alive and modern.

  • @tomfastic4
    @tomfastic44 жыл бұрын

    Fantastic lecture. More content like this!

  • @SpaceExplorer
    @SpaceExplorer5 жыл бұрын

    thank you

  • @deryckavyamaioli9154
    @deryckavyamaioli9154 Жыл бұрын

    Charming, scholarly and a superb passion for bringing historicity to a modern lens. She is fantastic (ya?).

  • @doogelyjim8627
    @doogelyjim8627 Жыл бұрын

    great great presentation

  • @NumberSixRule
    @NumberSixRule4 жыл бұрын

    Fascinating! Hard to miss the parallels between appeasing the rebellious cities via taxation and some country's policies vis a vis corporate tax policy.

  • @elmersbalm5219

    @elmersbalm5219

    3 жыл бұрын

    The age old fight between state and the wealthy. Republics and parliaments don’t automatically solve anything. The democratic process is easily captured. We can only rely on an enlightened elite to stave off a revolution. Good luck with that.

  • @Fredmayve

    @Fredmayve

    Жыл бұрын

    @@elmersbalm5219 Why should there not be revolution?

  • @rainhawk5264
    @rainhawk52642 жыл бұрын

    @Professor Radner, vielen Dank. sehr interessanter Vortrag und Ausschnitt einer kurzen Phase nicht des Anfangs ...aber einer kurzen Phase/Zeit unserer Zivilisation ...es gibt jedoch Hinvweise wer "Assur" und "Kalho", wirklich herkommen...auch Sie haben teilweise dieses mit Ihren Aussagen bestätig....und ich verspeche Ihnen, es wird viele aus allen Wolken fallen lassen ...

  • @andrewdarnley4608
    @andrewdarnley46084 жыл бұрын

    Great lectures but the format of presenting the speaker in a thumbnail bottom right of the screen is a pain.

  • @BelgianGeneral
    @BelgianGeneral2 жыл бұрын

    I'm a bit confused about what's said at 19:50: "It is only when the kingship is invented in the 14th century by Ashur-Ubalit that the king of Assyria also takes on the role of a military commander; traditionally the role is religious in nature". So then the 14th century is NOT the moment kingship is invented, right? Can anyone help me with this?

  • @TheYOUSIFYOUSIF
    @TheYOUSIFYOUSIF3 жыл бұрын

    Tudiya or Tudia (Akkadian: 𒂅𒁲𒅀) is the earliest Assyrian king named in the Assyrian King List. He ruled in 2450 BC 2400. Assyria's size was 1,400,000 km2 (540,000 sq mi) in 670 BC which covered the following countries; Iraq, Syria, Israel, southeast Turkey , Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, western Iran, Kuwait, and Lebanon. Saudi Arabia alone is over 4 times the size of Spain! Also Egypt is twice the size of Spain!!

  • @patshelby9285

    @patshelby9285

    Жыл бұрын

    Thank you for expanding our perspective.

  • @bobzdar9442
    @bobzdar94424 жыл бұрын

    1:19:11. Holy S***t! This scared the s***t out of me!

  • @cathyfarcks1242
    @cathyfarcks1242 Жыл бұрын

    Intrigued by the "nationalisation" of horses. I guess they were essentially military hardware, and oxen were normal draft animals?

  • @InshushaGroupie
    @InshushaGroupie4 жыл бұрын

    The MOOC mentioned is here: www.coursera.org/learn/organising-empire-assyrian-way

  • @gebarowskibrikanovic9210
    @gebarowskibrikanovic92103 жыл бұрын

    "Zakutu" in Assyrian Language means "Triumph" not "Freedom"

  • @Fredmayve

    @Fredmayve

    Жыл бұрын

    Thanks

  • @zswooden
    @zswooden4 жыл бұрын

    Did you hear that, Freedom=non-taxation. She just said there must be a form for that! A way out Nemo. She is super smart and it´s nice that she says ya´ a lot.

  • @ThePinkus
    @ThePinkus6 ай бұрын

    I was wondering if the taboo on pig meat in some cultures could possibly trace back to when pigs where outside of the scope of what was considered "civilized" livestock breeding and, incidentally, not taxed. It seems plausible that in such context an association between being outside of "civilization" and consuming pig meat could develop, and, in time, the stigma pass onto the pigs themselves. Ofc, the way the taboo developed might have nothing to do with this, and perhaps it is already known.

  • @maxsonthonax1020
    @maxsonthonax10202 жыл бұрын

    Starts 7:20.

  • @AlanCanon2222
    @AlanCanon22223 ай бұрын

    6:45 lecture begins

  • @vecvan
    @vecvan Жыл бұрын

    46:54 Queen 💖

  • @mrlefty1276
    @mrlefty1276 Жыл бұрын

    ASSYRIAN PRIDE WORLD WIDE 💯

  • @laxman90210
    @laxman902102 жыл бұрын

    Why is she comparing everything to size of modern Russia? Back then the civilized world was small and Assyria was the largest amongst kingdoms of the time

  • @DidivsIvlianvs
    @DidivsIvlianvs4 жыл бұрын

    Ya.

  • @laxman90210
    @laxman902102 жыл бұрын

    I’m going to watch this just in case time travel becomes possible

  • @RonJohn63
    @RonJohn635 жыл бұрын

    5:07 *Texas* and labor. LOL

  • @Ramsez
    @Ramsez5 жыл бұрын

    Finally I know how to stick it to the Assyrians!

  • @ElinT13
    @ElinT134 жыл бұрын

    Very nice yet easy to follow lecture! And now I know: Assyria went down because of tax exemptions. :-)

  • @retsehcmaharg

    @retsehcmaharg

    3 жыл бұрын

    Add to that the abolishing of the rule against perpetuities one state at a time.

  • @tbdkuphk

    @tbdkuphk

    3 жыл бұрын

    The way I see it the question that has to be asked, when looking into the topic of 'survival and collapse of empires' should be: 'Why did the empire continued to exist'? (as an empire). Meaning: how did a core state managed to keep on augmenting many regions and states into one entity. Forming and maintaining an empire, achieved via force, is not a natural result, even of a successful military action. Most victories did not end up with creating an empire. We know how the Assytians achieved their empire and know to some extent how they kept it. The mystery (and I believe it's still pretty much a mystery) is why it stopped working in the 30s or 20s of the 7th century BCE.

  • @Rossion64
    @Rossion643 жыл бұрын

    I thought that Assur was the prototype for a universal king God

  • @mrlefty1276

    @mrlefty1276

    Жыл бұрын

    ASHUR (assur is a misspelling coined by the Greeks because they didn't pronounce SH in their language) was the war god and chief deity of the ASSYRIANS

  • @naimulhaq9626
    @naimulhaq96265 жыл бұрын

    It is time to elaborate the Vedic name of Asura with Assur and similar similarities with other names, like Vritrghna (Vedic Indra) who might have been a god of Gobekli Tepe.

  • @Dick_Interritus

    @Dick_Interritus

    4 жыл бұрын

    Any suggestions on where I can find more information about Vritrghna in particular about any connections to Gobekli Tepe?

  • @naimulhaq9626

    @naimulhaq9626

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@Dick_Interritus Search for a U-Tube video 'language of the people of Gobekli Tepe' (I don't keep bookmarks, sorry and I don't remember the title).

  • @Dick_Interritus

    @Dick_Interritus

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@naimulhaq9626 No problem, that is a good start. Thank you.

  • @TheObserversTV

    @TheObserversTV

    3 жыл бұрын

    If there is any connection between Asuras and Ashur, it would be because the Indians took Ashurism around the 2nd century BC - 2nd century AD from the Assyrians (Ashur).

  • @mrlefty1276

    @mrlefty1276

    Жыл бұрын

    It all began in ASSYRIA & BABYLON so there are countless deities, theological concepts and religions derived from the land between two rivers (Mesopotamia)

  • @romusromulus
    @romusromulus3 жыл бұрын

    Ja?

  • @prof.dr.4224
    @prof.dr.42243 жыл бұрын

    The original people of Assyria were not Semitic. Before 4000 BC, Southern Babylon was the original home of the Sumerians from India and Northern Babylon originally came from central Asia. The modern name Mesopotamia came from the original Madhya Vedi, according to the Historians History of the World (Vol 1 and 2, 1902). One of the most famous Kings of Babylon was Asur Bani Pal, a pure Sanskrit name. Both Hittite and Mitranis used to speak the Indo-European language. Their gods were Vedic gods. HR Hall, curator of the British Museum wrote (Hall, 1939), “The ethnic type of the Sumerians so strongly marked in their statues and relief was as different from those of the races which surround them as was their language from those of the Semites; they were decidedly Indian in type. The face type of the average Indian of today is no doubt much the same as that of his race ancestors thousands of years ago. And it is by no means improbable that the Sumerians were an Indian race. It was in the Indian home, perhaps the Indus valley; we suppose for them, that their culture developed. There their writings may have invented and progressed from purely pictorial to simplified and abbreviated from which afterward in Babylonia took on its peculiar cuneiform appearance owing to its being written with a square-ended stylus on soft-clay. There is little doubt that India must have been one of the earliest centers of human civilization and it seems natural to suppose that the strange un-Semitic people who came from the East to civilize the West were of Indian origin, especially when we see with our eyes how very Indian the Sumerians were in type”. There was a linguistic and ethnic resemblance between the Sumerians and the Dravidians, people from South India. Both Rig Veda and Mahabharata mentioned the Deva-Asura war, which lasted 32 years in which Devas, the Aryans of North India, driven other tribes. In both Harappa and Babylon, an unknown script was discovered, demonstrating a close connection between the Indus valley and Babylon. Woolley in Ur found a similar seal with a very early cuneiform inscription (Woolley, 1929). Indus culture is older than Sumerian and Egyptian culture (Hall, 1939, 1928). References: Hall, H. R., 1939, A Season’s Work at Ur, Al-Ubaid, Abu Shahrain (Eridu) and Elsewhere: Being An Unofficial Account of the British Museum Archaeological Mission to Babylonia, London: Methuen Hall, H.R., 1928, The Discoveries at Ur and seniority of Sumerian Civilization, Antiquity, 2, 5, pp 56- 98; Williams, H.S., 1902, Historians History of the World, Edinburgh: Morrison & Gibbs Woolley, C., 1929, Ur of the Chaldees, London: Ernest Benn ( This is quoted from our forthcoming book, Ethics, Morality and Business, to be published by Palgrave-Macmillan.

  • @wigglezbaby5631

    @wigglezbaby5631

    3 жыл бұрын

    Very interesting information! Thank you for sharing. It’s people like you that make me go straight to the comments when ever watch a presentation. Did you mention at the bottom that your publishing a book?

  • @TheYOUSIFYOUSIF

    @TheYOUSIFYOUSIF

    3 жыл бұрын

    Ashurbanipal was Assyrian(not Babylonian) Also you mentioned that his name being pure Sanskrit, Aššur-bāni-apli or Aššur-bāni-habal, meaning in Akkadian which is Semetic language "Ashur has given a son-heir" Maybe his name is similar to Sanskrit’s name, but name similarity doesn’t imply scientific proof. If Assyrian, Babylonians were not Semitic, why would they speak Akkadian a Semitic language? When Sumerians(non-Semitic group) migrated to Iraq, they weren’t the first who inhabited Iraq, but they were the first to invent the writings and other innovations. Regarding the origin of Sumerians, scientists think that the marsh Arabs(whom have been residing in isolation in south of Iraq) are the direct descendants of Sumerians. Marsh Arabs’ DNA showed no connection to Indians, furthermore, their DNA results was different from Other Iraqis (the control group)

  • @Eamonshort1

    @Eamonshort1

    2 жыл бұрын

    She said they spoke a Semitic language. I speak a Germanic one but am not german ethnically

  • @767scarecrow

    @767scarecrow

    Жыл бұрын

    Your sources are dated. We still don't know the origins of the Sumerians.

  • @Fredmayve

    @Fredmayve

    Жыл бұрын

    Are there no genomic studies?

  • @spitefulwar
    @spitefulwar3 жыл бұрын

    The United States is a community of tax-payers ... and granting tax exemptions is a very bad idea indeed.

  • @davidgavary9022
    @davidgavary90223 жыл бұрын

    England is a small country but rulled half of the world once, So did Vatican. I wish there was a video from the Friedrich Delitzsch two lectures very different than yours. Assyria should be seen through out Sir Austen Henry Layard eyes or judgment . It seems you are German so go and search your roots in ancient Assyria and there is no kurdestan it's simply northern Iraq .Only the Jews oppose the Assyria or the Assyrians because of some biblical claims that the Assyrians destroyed their ten tribes out of their twelve tribes , historicaly is not true since only bible talks of the twelve tribes not history. Poor Assyrians have gone from disasters to disasters becuase of that false claim.

  • @tbdkuphk

    @tbdkuphk

    3 жыл бұрын

    Jews do not 'oppose' Assyria or Assyrian. I do not know where you got this from, but it's untrue. The exile of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel (that is the so called '10 tribes') is described briefly as a mere historical note, and anyway attributed to the fact they were sinners. Same for Babylon, by the way.

  • @MyNebukadnezar
    @MyNebukadnezar4 жыл бұрын

    Quite a banal and boring presentation which could have been done in 10 minutes. The Assyrians routinely used mass deportations after conquest during their territorial expansion. Travel and relocation is an interesting euphemism for this.

  • @andrewsuryali8540

    @andrewsuryali8540

    3 жыл бұрын

    But like the lecture itself points out the mass deportations were beneficial to the conquered elites in that they got closer to the center of imperial power. They may grumble in the beginning but they never rebelled in the end. The rebellions were always started by non-deported provincial rulers. This shows why the system was effective and remained in use into Babylonian times. If you read between the lines in the Bible even its writers had to admit this. Ezekiel may have grumbled and incited all he wanted but he never actually managed to get a movement started. Ezra basically had to drag Zerubbabel back to Judah. To the deported elites from a backwater state, becoming a citizen of what would have been a modern, cosmopolitan superpower of its time would have seemed more like an upgrade than an exile. If this was the response to the more ruthless Babylonians, the Assyrian deportations must have been viewed more positively by its victims.

  • @_Diana_S

    @_Diana_S

    3 жыл бұрын

    And they made every relocated person a citizen of Assyria. it was like: "you are all Assyrians now", so no green cards, no refugees deportations. Is not it nice?

  • @johnrutledge3892
    @johnrutledge3892 Жыл бұрын

    Is this about minimum wages and education ?

Келесі