Dr Stephanie Dalley is an Assyriologist who taught at the Oriental Institute in Oxford for 28 years. She has worked on excavations in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Jordan, and has lectured widely at home and abroad. She has published texts from excavations, museums and private collections, as well as books for more general readers, most recently The City of Babylon: A history c.2000 BC - AD 116 (CUP 2021), and featured in two TV documentaries on the Hanging Gardens, a World Wonder.

Abstract: In the 13th century BC an Assyrian king used the name of a primeval god Anshar for a second, historical emanation of the god who represented all other gods, Assyrian and foreign, for the purpose of enforcing valid oaths of loyalty and ensuring the lethal punishment of perjurers. Four centuries later a new dynasty highlighted the role of the god to ensure dynastic succession and keep foreign levies loyal; similar catch-all gods may be identified in the Levant for large alliances. A New Year Festival house was built and a new cult statue installed at Ashur. Sculptures indicate the catch-all nature of the god as a statue, whose symbol was the winged disk. The cult survived the fall of the Assyrian Empire

Thursday, 31 October 2024
6—7 pm (UK time)

This lecture will be a hybrid session which will be accessible both online (see below) and in person in the Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre.
No need to register if attending in person.
In order to participate in this lecture online, please register at this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcldeihrTIqG93rYCKRr2rWpm5H00Fr3vRm

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