Mesopotamian War

Bahrani talks in Chapter 7 of Rituals of War about “Omens of Terror.” This was a very interesting chapter to understand the culture back then. The chapter begins with discussions and examples about queries to the sun god Samas that people made prior to making any major decision (in fact, even minor questions were asked.) Specific questions, such as questions regarding when or where or whether or not to attack an enemy, were commonly asked. As we have discussed in class last time, however, it is very interesting, and funny, to note that most of these questions are yes-or-no questions. This would not make it very hard for the gods reply, especially if they were to look into animal’s insides to find these answers. For instance, once they had asked the question and expected answer from a sheep’s liver, they could always interpret the organ as either a yes or a no. There’s no room for the gods to not answer the questions, which to me, was quite fascinating to note. It is as if they’re forcing the gods to answer no matter what they asked. The major question remains, however: what if the outcome was not as predicted from these signs? Did they keep adjusting (did they ever adjust) the interpretations of these signs after they had recorded them into tablets? Or did they always associate those cases with stories about gods getting angry with them?

The chapter also discusses about divine weapons and then the substitute kings, both of which were very fascinating to me. I have never really heard about putting substitute kings on the throne just because there were unfavorable signs about the actual king, and I feel that this characteristic emphasized how important and integral religions and ideologies were to their politics and culture.

Chapter 8 is primarily about the war itself and the views on war in that period. One interesting aspect in this section is when Bahrani claims that war was considered a separate space and time to these people. For instance, “to kill in war is appropriate and sanctioned.” This strikes to me as important because this is actually true even in later empires up onto today. We often somehow justify ourselves that war is an exception to moral standards and normal order. It’s quite interesting to see similar characteristics even as far as about three millennia ago.