King Ashurbanipal, the sick and paranoid Nebuchadnezzar of Daniel 4

by Damien F. Mackey I asked the librarian if they had any books on paranoia. She whispered, ‘they’re right behind you!’ King Ashurbanipal had a mighty library. And he, too, suffered from paranoia. AI Overview Yes, Assyrian King Ashurbanipal suffered from depression, experiencing sickness, grief, discord, and exhaustion, along with feelings of being unjustly treated by his god. Royal and medical records from the time described psychological and physical symptoms of depression, and Ashurbanipal's writings and inscriptions reveal his own experiences with these conditions. Ashurbanipal is to be multi-identified (= Esarhaddon; Nebuchednezzar; Nabonidus). And his major alter egos suffered from paranoia and lengthy chronic illness. Arguably his most famous alter ego - though there were several notable ones - was the similarly long reigning (about 43 years) Nebuchednezzar the Chaldean, of whose dreadful illness (the symptoms of which medical experts love to dissect) we are famously told in Daniel 4:33-34: Immediately what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird. At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. Historians, not cognizant of the full scope of this mighty Assyro-Chaldean king, think that what Daniel was describing here may actually have befallen King Nabonidus instead, and that this latter eccentric king was the one who better fits Daniel’s “Nebuchadnezzar”: Daniel’s “Nebuchednezzar” a better fit for King Nabonidus? (4) Daniel's "Nebuchednezzar" a better fit for King Nabonidus? Well, that is fine by me, since I have identified Nebuchednezzar with Nabonidus. Daniel’s Mad King was Nebuchednezzar, was Nabonidus (4) Daniel’s Mad King was Nebuchednezzar, was Nabonidus And Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Belshazzar (Daniel 5:1-2), was Nebuchednezzar’s son, Belshazzar (Baruch 1:11, 12), was Nabonidus’s son, Belshazzar: https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2022/who-wrote-the-book-of-daniel-part-3-the-prayer-of-nabonidus “… R. P. Dougherty published some ancient Babylonian documents that proved that Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus and ruled Babylon while his father was gone for ten years in Tema in Arabia”. King Ashurbanipal himself, of course, campaigned at length in Arabia, and this all needs to become far better known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashurbanipal “Assyrian interests in the Levant and other western territories were at times challenged on account of Arab tribal groups raiding Assyrian territories or disrupting trade. On occasion, the Assyrian army intervened, deposing and replacing problematic tribal rulers.[71] Ashurbanipal oversaw two campaigns against Arab tribes, though their chronology is somewhat uncertain and his narrative of these conflicts was altered over the course of his later reign. The Arabian campaigns have received relatively little attention from modern historians but they are the conflicts with the most lengthy and detailed accounts in Ashurbanipal's own writings.[72] Ashurbanipal's first campaign against the Arabs was conducted some time before the war with Shamash-shum-ukin, primarily against the Qedarites.[71] Ashurbanipal's earliest account of his campaign against the Qedarites was created in 649 BC and describes how Yauta, son of Ḫazaʾil, king of the Qedarites, revolted against Ashurbanipal together with another Arab king, Ammuladdin, and plundered the western lands of the Assyrian Empire. According to Ashurbanipal's account, the Assyrian army, together with the army of Kamas-halta of Moab, defeated the rebel forces. Ammuladdin was captured and sent in chains to Assyria but Yauta escaped. In the place of Yauta a loyal Arabian warlord called Abiyate was granted kingship of the Qedarites. Ashurbanipal's account of this conflict is markedly different from the accounts of his other campaigns: the phrase "in my nth campaign" (otherwise always used) is missing, the defeat of the enemy is explicitly attributed to the army rather than to Ashurbanipal personally, and Yauta escapes rather than being captured and/or executed.[73] A second version of the narrative, composed a year later, also includes that Ashurbanipal defeated Adiya, a queen of the Arabs, and that Yauta fled to another chieftain, Natnu of the Nabayyate, who refused him and remained loyal to Ashurbanipal. Even later versions of the narrative also include mentions of how Yauta previously revolted against Esarhaddon, years prior. These later accounts also explicitly connect Yauta's rebellion to the revolt of Shamash-shum-ukin, placing it at the same time and suggesting that the western raids by the Arabs were prompted by the instability caused by the Assyrian civil war.[74] In both accounts, the Qedarite lands were thoroughly plundered at the conclusion of the war.[71]” [End of quote] See, here, how failure to put together all of the Humpty Dumpty broken pieces, that is, Ashurbanipal as Esarhaddon, necessitates historical duplicating: “Even later versions of the narrative also include mentions of how [the Arabian] Yauta previously [sic] revolted against Esarhaddon, years prior”. Such instances of history repeating itself, which Mark Twain assures us does not happen, led me to write the following article: More clues in support of my view that Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal were one and the same king https://www.academia.edu/108468804/More_clues_in_support_of_my_view_that_Esarhaddon_and_Ashurbanipal_were_one_and_the_same_king Getting back to the Chaldean king’s son, Belshazzar, he is also known as Amēl Marduk (Evil Merodach), son of Nebuchednezzar. He is a biblical character and is archaeologically attested as well: AI Overview Amēl-Marduk, known in the Bible as Evil-Merodach, was a Babylonian king who ruled for two years and is recorded in 2 Kings and Jeremiah for his release of Jehoiachin, the former king of Judah, from prison. The biblical account states that in the first year of his reign, Evil-Merodach allowed Jehoiachin to live in the palace and receive regular food, which may have been influenced by a Judean official in his own household. Now, the very biblical incident of King Nebuchednezzar’s lengthy absence from his kingdom (due to temporal insanity) may be found when prince Amēl-Marduk had to take charge of the kingdom for a time: Nebuchednezzar’s madness historically identified https://www.academia.edu/119197085/Nebuchednezzars_madness_historically_identified “… officials … bewildered by the king's behavior, counseled Evilmerodach to assume responsibility for affairs of state so long as his father was unable to carry out his duties. Lines 6 and on would then be a description of Nebuchadnezzar's behavior as described to Evilmerodach”. British Museum tablet No. BM 34113. This whole situation, Nebuchednezzar and Amēl-Marduk, Nabonidus and Belshazzar, recurs yet again with Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin, horrendously reconstructed by historians as Ashurbanipal’s older brother in charge of Babylon. No, Shamash-shum-ukin was, in fact, his son, the Crown Prince, who had to take the reins at Babylon for the time when Ashurbanipal was incapacitated, and was: Not able to shake the hand of Bel https://www.academia.edu/119201480/Not_able_to_shake_the_hand_of_Bel During this time of the Great King’s sickness and alienation, the Crown Prince was not authorized to take the hand of Bel at the New Year’s feast in Babylon. And we find this situation repeated again with Nebuchednezzar’s alter ego, Ashurbanipal, who, for many years did not take the hand of Bel. Shamash-shum-ukin was also the last king of Assyro-Babylonia, Sin-sharishkun, was also Belshazzar, similarly thought to have died in defence of his capital. And here comes another duplication. According to standard history, we are told that: “Aššur-etil-ilāni was succeeded by his brother Sîn-šar-iškun under uncertain, though not necessarily violent, circumstances”. While that is largely true as it reads, it urgently needs to be explained. For Aššur-etil-ilāni was, guess who?: Esarhaddon, re-named Ashur-Etil-Ilani-Mukin-Apli, and then duplicated by historians as Ashur-Etil-Ilani (5) Esarhaddon, re-named Ashur-Etil-Ilani-Mukin-Apli, and then duplicated by historians as Ashur-Etil-Ilani It is thus correct - but quite wrongly construed by historians - that Esarhaddon (Ashur-Etil-Ilani-Mukin-Apli)/Ashurbanipal was succeeded by his, not “brother”, but son, Shamash-shum-ukin/Sîn-šar-iškun. Sîn-šar-iškun’s tragic end was exactly that of Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchednezzar. Here is another example of historical duplicating (Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal): https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004430761/BP000011.xml?language=en&srsltid=AfmBOopc-ZA2OHLN-N-coa6jmAUU2vDoc71iNf-SEWS826fP05boYHwj Depression at the Royal Courts of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal Greta Van Buylaere While the concept of depression as a clinical diagnosis is unknown in Meso- potamia, descriptions of the symptoms of depression in cuneiform medical records demonstrate that Assyrians and Babylonians were familiar with the phenomenon. These medical descriptions are remarkably objective: subjec- tive feelings and thoughts are absent in Mesopotamian descriptions of men- tal illness. Such subjective feelings and thoughts of a depressive nature are, however, found in letters and literary sources. For this paper, I focus on Neo- Assyrian documents from emotionally depressed men living at the royal courts of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. The kings themselves are known to have suf- fered from bouts of depression and several scholars like Adad-šumu-uṣur and his son Urdu-Gula wrote of their unhappiness and despair in letters to the kings. Their depression was triggered by illness, grief, stress, job loss, social pres- sure, etc. The vocabulary used in these “personal” documents partly overlaps with that of the medico-magical corpus, but the expression ḫīp libbi is used dif- ferently. …. Nowhere, I think, do we get a more graphic account of the Great King’s terrible illness than in the case of: Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchenezzar (5) Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar “As we know from the correspondence left by the roya1 physicians and exorcists … his days were governed by spells of fever and dizziness, violent fits of vomiting, diarrhoea and painful earaches. Depressions and fear of impending death were a constant in his life. In addition, his physical appearance was affected by the marks of a permanent skin rash that covered large parts of his body and especially his face”. Karen Radner The following piece on our king’s paranoia, though not of itself a laughing matter, is quite funnily presented here: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/611-ancient-dms/transcript/ …. DAVID DAMROSCH: The Assyrians, because of the way they’d set up their whole economy, were truly a militaristic state. And the state really required constant warfare to bring in more and more goods. So, they wanted to project an image of almost totalitarian power. And the text that they wrote for publication project infinite power–the infinite sagacity on the part of the king–the infinite loyalty on the part of the king’s ministers. JOE ROSENBERG: But remember, the tablets that were found also contain the private palace records. And the story they tell is quite different than the image the Assyrians were publicly projecting because, at this specific moment in history we’ve gone back to here, there’s a king named Esarhaddon. And it turns out that the all-powerful Esarhaddon was almost hilariously neurotic. ROMAN MARS: His DMs reveal a different king than what was presented out front. JOE ROSENBERG: Yeah, and that’s putting it mildly. DAVID DAMROSCH: Esarhaddon was terminally indecisive. And he was also the most powerful person in the world. But he worries about everything. JOE ROSENBERG: So, just to give you the flavor of Esarhaddon, David told me about this one letter he writes to his chief scribe where, basically, Esarhaddon was getting ready to invade yet another country but then, when he was exiting the palace, a mongoose apparently passed under his chariot. ROMAN MARS: I hate it when that happens! JOE ROSENBERG: I know, it’s the worst. And apparently this one little thing is enough to totally freak him out because he immediately starts asking his chief priest, “What could this mean? You know, I’ve heard it said that a mongoose passing under your legs is a bad omen. So, maybe we shouldn’t invade? Then again, technically, the mongoose passed under my chariot not my legs, so maybe it’s okay. I don’t know what to do now, what do you think?” And the advisor writes back, and this is from the actual tablet, “As to what my lord the king wrote to me, does the omen, if something passes between the legs of a man, apply to something that came out from underneath the chariot? It does apply.” ROMAN MARS: Oh… JOE ROSENBERG: However, he goes on to say that Esarhaddon has it all backwards and not to worry because this is actually a bad omen for his enemies. “So, should we say mercy for the Nabateans? Why? Are they not hostile kings? They will not submit beneath my lord the king’s chariot.” And this letter is basically par for the course for Esarhaddon. His whole reign was pretty much him endlessly over-interpreting omens. DAVID DAMROSCH: And Esarhaddon… If lightning strikes a distant town, Esarhaddon takes it personally. He writes a letter to one of his advisors who writes back, “As to what my lord the king wrote to me, why does the king look for trouble? Why does he look for it in a peasant’s hut? There’s no evil inside the palace. And when has the king ever visited that town?” So, the poor advisor is, you know… Nothing escapes the king’s worry. ROMAN MARS: I mean, the advisor is actually surprisingly blunt with the most powerful man in the entire known world. JOE ROSENBERG: Yeah, it’s true. And we actually know that the advisor who wrote that last one was a guy named Balasi, who clearly was one of the few people who can speak this frankly with the king. And his letters to him appear to grow more and more impatient. So, for example, at another point, there’s this minor earthquake, apparently, which sends Esarhaddon into one of his spirals. DAVID DAMROSCH: And now Balasi replies in tones of complete exasperation. “Was there no earthquake in the times of the king’s fathers and grandfathers? Did I not see earthquakes when I was small?” And you see his advisors writing to each other, saying, “Why is the king like this? What can we do? Why is he so worried about an earthquake in the south of the country? How can we stop this? How can we reassure him?” ROMAN MARS: I mean, the level of detail here is just amazing. Like, these are exchanges between people that are 2,500 years old. And you really feel like you’re getting a window into, like, an unhealthy level of neuroses and paranoia from Esarhaddon, which is, of course, bad for him but potentially devastating to everyone around him. JOE ROSENBERG: Yes. Although in his defense, like a lot of pathologically neurotic people, he’s not being totally illogical either in his case when it comes to worrying about omens because Lisa says that you have to understand that, back then, no matter what you believed, the stakes around omens were really high. LISA WILHELMI: If you live in a world where everything is influenced by the divine and there is no question as to the involvement of divinity in what happens on Earth, then the omen literature and the divination and its processes are very political. They are what drives politics. ROMAN MARS: Oh, I see. So, there wasn’t really an option to ignore omens, even if you wanted to. JOE ROSENBERG: Correct. And another part of Esarhaddon’s problem is he himself, as a boy, grew up in a time of plots and counterplots and splinter groups. You know, his own father was killed by one of his brothers in a coup. ROMAN MARS: Hmm. JOE ROSENBERG: But ultimately for Esarhaddon, all of these considerations only drive him, you know, deeper into his neuroses. And he just grows increasingly–and really illogically–suspicious of basically every person in his orbit. So, in addition to obsessing over omens, he is also commissioning multiple independent oracles and cross-checking the results so that the gods can tell him who on his staff might be betraying him. And the small print on Esarhaddon’s oracle requests? It’s just wild. So, here, I just want you to read this one. ROMAN MARS: Okay. “Shamash, great lord. Give me a definitive answer to what I ask you. Will any of the eunuchs, or the bearded officials, the king’s entourage, or any of his brothers and uncles, or junior members of the royal line, or any relative of the king whatever, or the prefects, or the recruitment officers, or his personal guard, or the king’s chariot men, or the keepers of the inner gates, or the keepers of the outer gates, or the attendants and lackeys of the stables, or the cooks, confectioners, and bakers, the entire body of craftsmen, or their brothers, or their sons, or their nephews, or their friends, or their guests, or their accomplices make an uprising and rebellion against Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, and kill him? That’s a long list of people he does not trust. …. Little wonder, then, that King Ashurbanipal’s famous library was stacked with medical and related texts: AI Overview The Library of Ashurbanipal contains significant medical texts, most notably the fragmented Nineveh Medical Encyclopaedia. These 7th-century BC texts are the world's most systematised medical literature prior to Galen, comprising diagnostic descriptions, therapeutic prescriptions with drug preparation details, medical incantations, and ritualistic healing procedures. The collection offers insights into Assyrian drugs, symptomology, prognosis, and the influence of Mesopotamian medicine on later traditions.