Explore the revelations about ancient Mesopotamian hierarchy and other core values conveyed by the Standard of Ur and King Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh

Question

Please provide the best answer for the statement.

Answer 1

3. The main panels of the Standard of Ur, a rectangular box of unknown function, illustrate, on one side, a military victory and, on the other, a banquet celebrating the event, or perhaps a cult ritual. Each panel is composed of three registers, or self-contained horizontal bands. The king, on the “Peace” panel, is recognizable because he is taller than the others, his head breaking the register line on top. This convention is known as social perspective, or hieratic scale (hierarchy of scale).
2. In other registers on the “Peace” side of the Standard, servants bring cattle, goats, sheep, and fish to the celebration. This display of consumption and the distribution of food may have been intended to dramatize the power of the king by showing his ability to control trade routes. On the “War” side of the Standard, the king stands in the middle of the top register, while war chariots trample the enemy on the bottom register. In the middle register, soldiers wearing leather cloaks and bronze helmets lead naked, bound prisoners to the king, who will presumably decide their fate.
3. The Assyrians used their power in part to preserve Mesopotamian culture. Ashurbanipal (r. 668–627 BCE) created the great library at Nineveh, believed to be the first library of texts in history to have been systematically collected and organized, where the clay tablets containing the Epic of Gilgamesh were stored. Each of its many rooms was dedicated to individual subjects—history and government, religion and magic, geography, science, poetry, and important government materials.