Propaganda in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K13362
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 03030:History of Asia and Africa-related
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: Sano Katsuji 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 研究員 (00836067)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: アッシリア王碑文 / アッシリア学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Since the Assyrian royal inscriptions were created based on royal ideology, it is necessary to elucidate all the techniques by which the scribes who created the royal inscriptions represented the Assyrian king as a “strong king,” in order to extract data from them that is considered close to historical facts. Research conducted to this aim has revealed that negative events, such as the diplomatic concessions made by Assyria to other lands and defeats in battle, had been covered up by “rewriting” or “ignoring” the facts. It has also been found that the king had been represented in the royal inscriptions akin to a hero of the epic by using literary techniques and that the king’s military achievements had been exaggerated through techniques such as manipulation of numbers.

Free Research Field

アッシリア学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

アッシリア王碑文を歴史史料として使用するために必要となる知識をアッシリア学内外の研究者に提供できることに研究成果の学術的意義がある。誇張ないし歪曲されたアッシリア王の功績が多数の研究者に歴史的事実として受け入れられている状況にあって、研究代表者が行った調査はアッシリア史の修正に大きく貢献し得る。また、本研究課題の研究成果は、近年関心を集めているアッシリアの文化遺産に対する深い知見を提供できる点において社会的意義を有している。