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#6277
tmbergan
Participant

The Assurnasirpal II Killing Lions is a nice visual example of how Mesopotamian cultures showed their power. In the Kahn Academy video, they mentioned that it was a rule that only kings were allowed to kill the lions. They would do so to show their strength and to demonstrate how the king protects his citizens from the outside forces of nature. A lot of the kings also had artwork with them in close proximity to some of the gods they worshipped, placing them above their citizens as they were seen as being on a similar level of power to the gods. They built ziggurats probably with that idea that it shows just how close they are to a specific god with the massive structures emphasizing their power. Saddam Hussein has used the Ziggurat of Ur specifically for more modern political forces, as he parked his fighter jets near it to try and prevent the US military from bombing the ancient site. He had also restored a lower portion of the ziggurat to show his power to his own people, though it might not have been for religious reasons like previous rulers had done.