Excavations at Nineveh - Part 2_ The Assyrian Army

Okay, so it's just a brief stop, but that's all to do with art and technology and so on. This is to do with the military, and everything that's sort of here immortalises this whole campaign, right? And what you've got is a Syrian commander here, reporting to his boss, and at his feet there's a pile of heads. And why is that? Because that's how the military commander got his bonuses. He got his extra pay for the backup. He brings back the heads of the enemy commanders. You can't just cut off any soldier's head, because you need to be sure it's a noble, so the hairdos that tell you that these are men of nobility, they're in command and control. So he gets his extra pay. Now, it's 700 BC, so it's later than the time I'm going to think of, but you just go back to the time of David, and think about David and Goliath, right? The champion, who would bang his head on one of these crossbows here. You know, it's fascinating that, because David goes, he takes the stones, he throws the one stone which strikes Goliath, and Goliath falls down. Then you notice nothing really happens. What does David do? Because we all go, oh David, this is all a bit nasty, you know, killing the giant is one thing, but now it's getting horrible. David goes and cuts his head off, and he gives it to the king. And at that point, the Philistine army run away, because that's the definitive marker that they won. So until the head of the champion is cut off and presented to the king, you know, we're still not quite sure what's going to happen. When the king has the head of the commander in his hand, everybody else runs away. So it's basically 300 years old before that, but it's still a culturally understood norm for finishing the battle, if you like. Kids always love it when you come here, there's all sorts of legs and arms and things being thrown in a bonfire.