Audience & Interaction

Our discussions about ideology andpropaganda, and its place within Neo-Assyrian imperial expansion fromthe 9^th - 7^th centuries, repeatedly drew meback to the idea of audience and its importance in constructing acohesive and successful ideology. Although the texts and visualrepresentations that bear the Assyrian ideological messageoccasionally describe their intended audiences, the real individualsand groups exposed to these sources (in one way or another) must havebeen far more heterogeneous than described. Though future princesand gods are the most common groups addressed in the inscriptions,such masterful works must have affected some sort of larger audience. Similarly, the audiences exposed to the visual manifestations ofAssyrian ideology must have varied significantly, depending on thelocation and accessibility of the work in question. The access ofcertain key groups and their ability to comprehend these messageswould have been crucial for internal cohesion and continued Assyrianexpansion (Liverani 1979). Through this response, I will attempt toanalyze how certain audiences would have interacted with andunderstood various ideological media, including the so-called WhiteObelisk and the throne room of Assurnasirpal II.

The White Obelisk presents aninteresting challenge in a discussion of audience, interaction, andunderstanding; its artistic syntax is so unique that it took scholarsmore than a century to understand the monument's program. Unlikemost Mesopotamian stelae, read either top down or bottom up, theWhite Obelisk was organized from both the top and bottom, so that,alternating corresponding registers, one ended up at the center(Pittman 1996). Such an idiosyncratic arrangement mimicked the viewof one entering a royal throne room, bedecked in wall paintings (orinscribed orthostats), gaze moving left and right while the bodyitself proceeded forward towards the king (Pittman 1996). Althoughaiming to capture an encounter with an Assyrian throne room, themonument's odd syntax may have left some ancient viewers perplexed. Alternatively, the monument's scene-by-scene construction may haveaided a casual observer's understanding of some of its message –and, due to its central place on the monument (maybe even at eyelevel), that “some” would most probably be the presentation oftribute and dignitaries to the Assyrian king. This is all the moresignificant since the subject matter, mode of presentation, andprobable location in antiquity point to an audience which would nothave had access to the throne room (Pittman 1996), let alone theirmonarch in all of his imperial glory. Such a resident of theAssyrian heartland would have seen this continuous depiction oftribute and submission, his king at the center, and would haveunderstood, in Liverani's terms, how “the foreigner, while stillremaining in a position of inferiority, shows his availability tobeing absorbed in the Assyrian cosmos” (Liverani 1979).

The throne room and palace ofAssurnasirpal stand in marked contrast to the White Obelisk in theirapparent accessibility, yet partake in a shared ideology. TheAssyrian monarch was at the heart of the program, the prime mover inevery narrative scene (Winter 1981). These reliefs would haveshowcased the “the power of the king and of the state, asdemonstrated in the historical event” (Winter 1981), yet theseevents would have been interpreted differently by the variousaudience groups present. To take the example of tribute, an Assyrianelite in the throne room may have understood these scenes similarlyto the audience of the White Obelisk, yet with the perspective of aninsider, at the top of the system; they may have understood in thesethe king's imposition of order on foreign lands as well as hisconsolidation of the center, so frequently expressed in the royalinscriptions. Foreign elites, on the other hand, may have seen inthese depictions their subservient status, as well as the associatedconsequences of stopping tribute (Winter 1981). To take anotherexample, people with varying levels of literacy would have understoodthe standard inscription that abounds in the palatial program quitedifferently. Those who were illiterate may well have seen in theseAssyrian power, expressed through an arcane, incomprehensible writingsystem, though they may or may not have known of the details of theroyal campaigns. Semi-literate individuals would probably have knownthe details of these military excursions, and would have associatedwith them with the inscription. Fully-literate members of the court,though almost certainly confined to the scribes and specialists,would have had quite a different reaction to all of this cuneiform. On the one hand, they would have known the full contents of theseideologically motivated texts, but on the other, they would haverealized that all of the inscriptions were the same, and that somewere not even finished, stopping mid-word (contra Winter 1981)!

These two important Assyrian visualtexts would have been accessible to different audiences, who throughform, content, or orientation, would have interacted with them inunique ways, and come away with varied messages. Although we are farfrom certain, we may begin to understand how these audiencesunderstood the texts that they read. Yet for those who lived underthe yoke of Assur, and yet did not interact with royal monuments, wecan only guess at how they were effected by state ideology. Whethercharacterized by word of mouth or forced labour and taxation –their interactions will undoubtedly remain lost.

Sources

Liverani, Mario; 1979."TheIdeology of the Assyrian Empire" in Power and Propaganda: ASymposium on Ancient Empires. M.T. Larsen (ed.). Copenhagen: 297-317.

Pittman, Holly; “The White Obeliskand the problem of historical narrative in the art of Assyria,” ArtBulletin 78 (1996) 334-355.

Winter, Irene J.; 1981."RoyalRhetoric and the Development of Historical narrative in Neo-AssyrianReliefs", Studies in Visual Communication 7: 2-38.