A merman ( pl. : mermen ; also merlad or merboy in youth), the male counterpart of the mythical female mermaid , is a legendary creature which is human from the waist up and fish -like from the waist down, but may assume normal human shape. Sometimes mermen are described as hideous and other times as handsome.
184-639: Perhaps the first recorded merman was the Assyrian - Babylonian sea-god Ea (called Enki by the Sumerians ), linked to the figure known to the Greeks as Oannes . However, while some popular writers have equated Oannes of the Greek period to the god Ea (and to Dagon ), Oannes was rather one of the apkallu servants to Ea. The apkallu have been described as "fish-men" in cuneiform texts, and if Berossus
368-563: A vetehinen [ fi ] , a type of neck , is sometimes portrayed as a magical, powerful, bearded man with the tail of a fish. He can cure illnesses, lift curses and brew potions , but he can also cause unintended harm by becoming too curious about human life. In the Inuit folklore of Greenland and northern Canada , the Auvekoejak is a furry merman. In an Italian folktale with medieval roots, Cola Pesce (Nicholas Fish)
552-616: A city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC to the 7th century BC. Spanning from the early Bronze Age to the late Iron Age , modern historians typically divide ancient Assyrian history into the Early Assyrian ( c. 2600–2025 BC), Old Assyrian ( c. 2025–1364 BC), Middle Assyrian ( c. 1363–912 BC), Neo-Assyrian (911–609 BC), and post-imperial (609 BC– c. AD 240) periods, based on political events and gradual changes in language. Assur ,
736-466: A conch shell in the later Hellenistic period . In the 16th century, Triton was referred to as the "trumpeter of Neptune ( Neptuni tubicen )" in Marius Nizolius 's Thesaurus (1551), and this phrase has been used in modern commentary. The Elizabethan period poet Edmund Spenser referred to Triton's "trompet" as well. Another notable merman from Greek mythology was Glaucus . He was born
920-513: A mother goddess , perhaps Rhea or Cybele ; Pindar refers to maidens worshipping Cybele and Pan near the poet's house in Boeotia . The worship of Pan began in Arcadia which was always the principal seat of his worship. Arcadia was a district of mountain people , culturally separated from other Greeks. Arcadian hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in
1104-630: A Message. The cry "The Great Pan is dead" has appealed to poets, such as John Milton , in his ecstatic celebration of Christian peace, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity line 89, Elizabeth Barrett Browning , and Louisa May Alcott . Representations of Pan have influenced conventional popular depictions of the Devil . In the late-eighteenth century, interest in Pan revived among liberal scholars. Richard Payne Knight discussed Pan in his Discourse on
1288-558: A being with a fish head growing above the human head. And the god Ea is also seen as depicted wearing a fish cloak by modern scholars. Triton of Greek mythology was depicted as a half-man, half-fish merman in ancient Greek art . Triton was the son of the sea-god Poseidon and sea-goddess Amphitrite . Neither Poseidon nor Amphitrite were merfolk, although both were able to live underwater as easily as on land. Tritons later became generic mermen, so that multiple numbers of them were depicted in art. Tritons were also associated with using
1472-486: A catfish, and not quite so human-like (cf. merfolk#Renyu or human-fish ). Illustrated depictions of male ningyo do exist from the Edo Period (cf. Ningyo§Male ningyo ). One example is the picture of male human-fish ( 男人魚 , otoko ningyo ) hand-copied by the young lord of Hirosaki Domain . Another is the illustrated sheet of kawaraban newspaper carrying news of the "ningyo from Holland" ( 阿蘭陀渡り人魚 ) , bearing
1656-483: A completely new city or a new name applied to Nineveh, which by this point already rivalled Assur in scale and political importance. The capital was transferred under Tukulti-Ninurta II's son Ashurnasirpal II to Nimrud in 879 BC. An architectural detail separating Nimrud and the other Neo-Assyrian capitals from Assur is that they were designed in a way that emphasized royal power: the royal palaces in Assur were smaller than
1840-590: A girl; the Danish ballad " Rosmer Havmand " is a cognate ballad based on the same legend. " Agnete og Havmanden " is another Scandinavian ballad work with this theme, but it is of late composition (late 18th century). It tells of a merman who had been mated to a human woman named Agnete; the merman unsuccessfully pleaded with her to come back to him and their children in the sea . English folklorist Jacqueline Simpson surmises that as in Nordic (Scandinavian) countries,
2024-490: A half thousand years after the Neo-Assyrian Empire's fall. The Assyrian army was throughout its history mostly composed of levies, mobilized only when they were needed (such as in the time of campaigns). Through regulations, obligations and sophisticated government systems, large amounts of soldiers could be recruited and mobilized already in the early Middle Assyrian period. A small central standing army unit
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#17327918463032208-410: A human and lived his early life as a fisherman. One day, while fishing, he saw that the fish he caught would jump from the grass and into the sea. He ate some of the grass, believing it to have magical properties, and felt an overwhelming desire to be in the sea. He jumped in the ocean and refused to go back on land. The sea gods nearby heard his prayers and transformed him into a sea god. Ovid describes
2392-464: A legacy of great cultural significance, particularly through the Neo-Assyrian Empire, making a prominent impression in later Assyrian, Greco-Roman , and Hebrew literary and religious tradition. In the Old Assyrian period , when Assyria was merely a city-state centered on the city of Assur , the state was typically referred to as ālu Aššur ("city of Ashur "). From the time of its rise as
2576-578: A male merrow named Coomara, a hideous creature with green hair, teeth and skin, narrow eyes and a red nose. The tale was created by Thomas Keightley , who lifted the plot from one of the Grimms' collected tales ( Deutsche Sagen No. 25, "Der Wassermann und der Bauer" or "The Waterman and the Peasant"). In Cornish folklore into early modern times, the Bucca , described as a lonely, mournful character with
2760-539: A man upon the tail of a fish. They are typically used as supporters , and are rarely used as charges . A stuffed specimen of the merfolk was exhibited in London in 1822 was later billed " Fiji mermaid " by P.T. Barnum and put on display in the Barnum's American Museum , New York, in 1842. Although billed as a "mermaid", this has also been bluntly referred to as a "Barnum's merman" in one piece of journalism. This specimen
2944-578: A new capital was perhaps inspired by developments in Babylonia in the south, where the Kassite dynasty had transferred the administration from the long-established city of Babylon to the newly constructed city of Dur-Kurigalzu , also named after a king. It seems that Tukulti-Ninurta I intended to go further than the Kassites and also establish Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta as the new Assyrian cult center. The city
3128-423: A nymph named Pitys , who was turned into a pine tree to escape him. In another version, Pan and the north wind god Boreas clashed over the lovely Pitys. Boreas uprooted all the trees to impress her, but Pan laughed and Pitys chose him. Boreas then chased her and threw her off a cliff resulting in her death. Gaia pitied Pitys and turned her into a pine tree. According to some traditions, Pan taught Daphnis ,
3312-517: A poem called "The Forsaken Merman" about a merman whose human wife abandoned him and their children. Mermen may feature in science fiction and fantasy literature . The Merman's Children by American writer Poul Anderson is inspired by the ballad Agnete og Havmanden . Science fiction writer Joe Haldeman wrote two books on Attar the Merman in which genetically enhanced mermen can communicate telepathically with dolphins. Samuel R. Delany wrote
3496-617: A recovery. Under the Achaemenids, most of the territory was organized into the province Athura ( Aθūrā ). The organization into a single large province, the lack of interference of the Achaemenid rulers in local affairs, and the return of the cult statue of Ashur to Assur soon after the Achaemenids conquered Babylon facilitated the survival of Assyrian culture. Under the Seleucid Empire , which controlled Mesopotamia from
3680-424: A reed. When the air blew through the reeds, it produced a plaintive melody. The god, still infatuated, took some of the reeds, because he could not identify which reed she became, and cut seven pieces (or according to some versions, nine), joined them side by side in gradually decreasing lengths, and formed the musical instrument bearing the name of his beloved Syrinx. Henceforth, Pan was seldom seen without it. Echo
3864-618: A reward the king of the gods placed him amongst the stars as the Constellation Capricorn. The mother of Aegipan, Aix (the goat), was perhaps associated with the constellation Capra. Sybarios was an Italian Pan who was worshipped in the Greek colony of Sybaris in Italy . The Sybarite Pan was conceived when a Sybarite shepherd boy named Krathis copulated with a pretty she-goat amongst his herds. In Pseudo-Plutarch 's De defectu oraculorum ("The Obsolescence of Oracles"), Pan
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#17327918463034048-459: A rustic son of Hermes, how to play the pan-pipes, and also fell in love with him. Women who had had sexual relations with several men were referred to as "Pan girls." Disturbed in his secluded afternoon naps, Pan's angry shout inspired panic ( panikon deima ) in lonely places. Following the Titans' assault on Olympus , Pan claimed credit for the victory of the gods because he had frightened
4232-666: A significant amount of territory into the growing Assyrian Empire. Under Shalmaneser I, the last remnants of the Mitanni kingdom were formally annexed into Assyria. The most successful of the Middle Assyrian kings was Tukulti-Ninurta I, who brought the Middle Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent. His most notable military achievements were his victory at the Battle of Nihriya c. 1237 BC, which marked
4416-596: A simile about the whole world being revealed as it really is: "seeing the Great God Pan". The novella is considered by many (including Stephen King ) as being one of the greatest horror-stories ever written. In an article in Hellebore magazine, Melissa Edmundson argues that women writers from the nineteenth century used the figure of Pan "to reclaim agency in texts that explored female empowerment and sexual liberation". In Eleanor Farjeon 's poem "Pan-Worship",
4600-532: A skin flap around the waist similar to a hakama . These trouser-like hakama was worn by men, as well as women in some cases. An older (though perhaps lesser known) account of hairen occurs in Shaozi or Shao Yong 's work called Caomuzi ( 草木子 ), which describes the creature as having the shape of a (Buddhist) priest, though diminutive in stature. It has been equated with the umibōzu ("sea-priest, sea acolyte priest") yōkai of Japan. In Finnish mythology ,
4784-479: A territorial state in the 14th century BC and onward, Assyria was referred to in official documents as māt Aššur ("land of Ashur"), marking its shift to being a regional polity. The first attested use of the term māt Aššur is during the reign of Ashur-uballit I ( c. 1363–1328 BC), who was the first king of the Middle Assyrian Empire . Both ālu Aššur and māt Aššur derive from the name of
4968-475: A type of "ichthyocentaur", on the authority of Gesner. Icelandic folklore beliefs speak of sea-dwelling humans (humanoids) known as marbendlar (sing. marbendill ), which is the later Norse, and modern Icelandic form of marmennill . Jón lærði Guðmundsson ('the Learned', d. 1658)'s writings concerning elves includes the merman or marbendill as a "water-elf". This merman is described as seal-like from
5152-412: A unit of their own. Based on surviving depictions, chariots were crewed by two soldiers: an archer who commanded the chariot ( māru damqu ) and a driver ( ša mugerre ). Chariots first entered extensive military use under Tiglath-Pileser I in the 12th–11th centuries BC and were in the later Neo-Assyrian period gradually phased out in favor of cavalry ( ša petḫalle ). In the Middle Assyrian period, cavalry
5336-524: Is a powerful but secretive nature-god, protector of animals, who casts a spell of forgetfulness on all those he helps. He makes a brief appearance to help Rat and Mole recover the Otter's lost son Portly. The goat-footed god entices villagers to listen to his pipes as if in a trance in Lord Dunsany 's novel The Blessing of Pan (1927). Although the god does not appear within the story, his energy invokes
5520-469: Is both charming and selfish - emphasizing our cultural confusion about whether human instincts are natural and good, or uncivilised and bad. J. M. Barrie describes Peter as 'a betwixt and between', part animal and part human, and uses this device to explore many issues of human and animal psychology within the Peter Pan stories. Arthur Machen 's 1894 novella The Great God Pan uses the god's name in
5704-413: Is called the child of Penelope by Apollo . Apollodorus records two distinct divinities named Pan; one who was the son of Hermes and Penelope, and the other who had Zeus and a nymph named Hybris for his parents, and was the mentor of Apollo. Pausanias records the story that Penelope had in fact been unfaithful to her husband, who banished her to Mantineia upon his return. Other sources ( Duris of Samos ;
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5888-474: Is dedicating the altar to the god Pan Heliopolitanus. He built the altar using his own personal money in fulfillment of a vow he made. " In the mystery cults of the highly syncretic Hellenistic era, Pan is identified with Phanes/Protogonos , Zeus , Dionysus and Eros . Numerous different parentages are given for Pan by different authors. According to the Homeric Hymn to Pan , he
6072-678: Is first attested for the site in documents of the Akkadian period in the 24th century BC. Through most of the Early Assyrian period ( c. 2600–2025 BC), Assur was dominated by states and polities from southern Mesopotamia. Early on, Assur for a time fell under the loose hegemony of the Sumerian city of Kish and it was later occupied by both the Akkadian Empire and then the Third Dynasty of Ur . In c. 2025 BC, due to
6256-633: Is revealed to be in a state of half-death. Pan inspired pieces of classical music by Claude Debussy . Syrinx , written as part of incidental music to the play Psyché by Gabriel Mourey , was originally called "Flûte de Pan". Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune was based on a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé . The story of Pan is the inspiration for the first movement in Benjamin Britten 's work for solo oboe, Six Metamorphoses after Ovid first performed in 1951. Inspired by characters from Ovid 's fifteen-volume work Metamorphoses , Britten titled
6440-441: Is said to have been never been seen. In actuality, it may have been just a sea-mammal ( hooded seal , Cystophora cristata ), or the phenomenon of some sea creature appearing magnified in size, caused by mid-range mirage . Medieval Norsemen may have regarded the hafstrambr as the largest sorts of mermen, which would explain why the word for marmennill ('little mer-man') would be given in the diminutive. Other commentators treat
6624-508: Is the child of Hermes and an (unnamed) daughter of Dryops. Several authors state that Pan is the son of Hermes and " Penelope ", apparently Penelope , the wife of Odysseus : according to Herodotus , this was the version which was believed by the Greeks, and later sources such as Cicero and Hyginus call Pan the son of Mercury and Penelope. In some early sources such as Pindar (c. 518 – c. 438 BC) and Hecataeus (c. 550 – c. 476 BC), he
6808-451: Is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, rustic music and impromptus , and companion of the nymphs . He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr . With his homeland in rustic Arcadia , he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, wooded glens, and often affiliated with sex; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. In Roman religion and myth , Pan
6992-531: Is the only Greek god who actually dies. During the reign of Tiberius (AD 14–37), the news of Pan's death came to one Thamus, a sailor on his way to Italy by way of the Greek island of Paxi . A divine voice hailed him across the salt water, "Thamus, are you there? When you reach Palodes , take care to proclaim that the great god Pan is dead." Which Thamus did, and the news was greeted from shore with groans and laments. Christian apologists , including Eusebius of Caesarea , have long made much of Plutarch's story of
7176-416: Is to be believed, Oannes was indeed a being possessed of a fish head and man's head beneath, and both a fish tail and manlike legs. But Berossus was writing much later during the era of Greek rule, engaging in the "construction" of the past. Thus even though figurines have been unearth to corroborate this fish-man iconography, these can be regarded as representing "human figures clad in fish cloaks", rather than
7360-580: The Islamic State , have resulted in most of the Assyrian people living in diaspora . In the Assur city-state of the Old Assyrian period, the government was in many respects an oligarchy , where the king was a permanent, albeit not the only prominent, actor. The Old Assyrian kings were not autocrats , with sole power, but rather acted as stewards on behalf of the god Ashur and presided over
7544-596: The Medes under Cyaxares in 615/614 BC, led to the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire . Assur was sacked in 614 BC and Nineveh fell in 612 BC. The last Assyrian ruler, Ashur-uballit II , tried to rally the Assyrian army at Harran in the west but he was defeated in 609 BC, marking the end of the ancient line of Assyrian kings and of Assyria as a state. Despite the violent downfall of
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7728-564: The Neolithic , the earliest archaeological evidence from Assur dates to the Early Dynastic Period , c. 2600 BC. During this time, the surrounding region was already relatively urbanized. There is no evidence that early Assur was an independent settlement, and it might not have been called Assur at all initially, but rather Baltil or Baltila, used in later times to refer to the city's oldest portion. The name "Assur"
7912-625: The Olympians , if it is true that he gave Artemis her hunting dogs and taught the secret of prophecy to Apollo . Pan might be multiplied as the Pans (Burkert 1985, III.3.2; Ruck and Staples, 1994, p. 132 ) or the Paniskoi . Kerenyi (p. 174) notes from scholia that Aeschylus in Rhesus distinguished between two Pans, one the son of Zeus and twin of Arcas , and one a son of Cronus . "In
8096-633: The Upper and the Lower Seas" and " king of all peoples ". Royal titles and epithets were often highly reflective of current political developments and the achievements of individual kings; during periods of decline, the royal titles used typically grew more simple again, only to grow grander once more as Assyrian power experienced resurgences. The kings of the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods continued to present themselves, and be viewed by their subjects, as
8280-577: The hafstrambr merely as an imaginary sea-monster. A twin-tailed merman is depicted on the Bianco world map (1436). A merman and a mermaid are shown on the Behaim globe ( c. 1490–1493 ). Konrad Gesner in his chapter on Triton in Historia animalium IV (1558) gave the name of "sea- Pan " or "sea- satyr " ( Latin : Pan- vel satyrus marinus ) to an artist's image he obtained, which he said
8464-475: The largest empire then yet assembled in world history, spanning from parts of modern-day Iran in the east to Egypt in the west. The Neo-Assyrian Empire fell in the late 7th century BC, conquered by a coalition of the Babylonians, who had lived under Assyrian rule for about a century, and the Medes . Though the core urban territory of Assyria was extensively devastated in the Medo-Babylonian conquest of
8648-420: The ālāyû ("village residents"), ālik ilke (people recruited through the ilku system) and the hupšu , though what these designations meant in terms of social standing and living standards is not known. The Middle Assyrian structure of society by and large endured through the subsequent Neo-Assyrian period. Below the higher classes of Neo-Assyrian society were free citizens, semi-free laborers and slaves. It
8832-419: The "death" of Pan came the advent of theology. To this effect, Chesterton claimed, "It is said truly in a sense that Pan died because Christ was born. It is almost as true in another sense that men knew that Christ was born because Pan was already dead. A void was made by the vanishing world of the whole mythology of mankind, which would have asphyxiated like a vacuum if it had not been filled with theology." It
9016-460: The "outer realm" was regarded as a threat to the cosmic order within Assyria and as such, it was the king's duty to expand the realm of Ashur and incorporate these strange lands, converting chaos to civilization. Texts describing the coronation of Middle and Neo-Assyrian kings at times include Ashur commanding the king to "broaden the land of Ashur" or "extend the land at his feet". As such, expansion
9200-597: The Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I, the earliest ruler of Assur to use the style šarrum (king) and the title ' king of the Universe '. Shamshi-Adad I appears to have based his more absolute form of kingship on the rulers of the Old Babylonian Empire. Under Shamshi-Adad I, Assyrians also swore their oaths by the king, not just by the god. This practice did not survive beyond his death. The influence of
9384-539: The Assyrian Empire and the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire invested few resources in rebuilding it, ancient Assyrian culture and traditions continued to survive for centuries throughout the post-imperial period. Assyria experienced a recovery under the Seleucid and Parthian empires, though it declined again under the Sasanian Empire , which sacked numerous cities and semi-independent Assyrian territories in
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#17327918463039568-496: The Assyrian Empire, Assyrian culture continued to survive through the subsequent post-imperial period (609 BC – c. AD 240) and beyond. The Assyrian heartland experienced a dramatic decrease in the size and number of inhabited settlements during the rule of the Neo-Babylonian Empire founded by Nabopolassar; the former Assyrian capital cities Assur, Nimrud and Nineveh were nearly completely abandoned. Throughout
9752-456: The Assyrian administration was the position of vizier ( sukkallu ). From at least the time of Shalmaneser I onward, there were grand viziers ( sukkallu rabi’u ), superior to the ordinary viziers, who at times governed their own lands as appointees of the kings. At least in the Middle Assyrian period, the grand viziers were typically members of the royal family and the position was at this time, as were many other offices, hereditary. The elite of
9936-412: The Assyrian heartland were also significantly fragmented, it would ultimately be relatively easy for the reinvigorated Assyrian army to reconquer large parts of the empire. Under Ashur-dan II ( r. 934–912 BC), who campaigned in the northeast and northwest, Assyrian decline was at last reversed, paving the way for grander efforts under his successors. The end of his reign conventionally marks
10120-466: The Assyrian kings could also grant arable lands to individuals in exchange for goods and military service. To overcome the challenges of governing a large empire, the Neo-Assyrian Empire developed a sophisticated state communication system , which included various innovative techniques and relay stations . Per estimates by Karen Radner , an official message sent in the Neo-Assyrian period from
10304-470: The Assyrian kings. The modern name "Assyria" is of Greek origin, derived from Ασσυρία ( Assuría ). The term's first attested use is during the time of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC). The Greeks called the Levant " Syria " and Mesopotamia "Assyria", even though the local population, both at that time and well into the later Christian period, used both terms interchangeably to refer to
10488-515: The Assyrian lands adopted distinct appellations for the region, with a significant portion of these names also being rooted in Aššur . The Achaemenid Empire referred to Assyria as Aθūrā ("Athura"). The Sasanian Empire inexplicably referred to Lower Mesopotamia as Asoristan ("land of the Assyrians"), though the northern province of Nōdšīragān , which included much of the old Assyrian heartland,
10672-471: The Assyrian national deity Ashur. Ashur probably originated in the Early Assyrian period as a deified personification of Assur itself. In the Old Assyrian period the deity was considered the formal king of Assur; the actual rulers only used the style Išši'ak ("governor"). From the time of Assyria's rise as a territorial state, Ashur began to be regarded as an embodiment of the entire land ruled by
10856-489: The Elizabethan poets. Douglas Bush notes, "The goat-god, the tutelary divinity of shepherds, had long been allegorized on various levels, from Christ to 'Universall Nature' (Sandys) ; here he becomes the symbol of the romantic imagination, of supra-mortal knowledge. ' " In the late-nineteenth century Pan became an increasingly common figure in literature and art. Patricia Merivale states that between 1890 and 1926 there
11040-551: The Greek ones, the shortened form "Syria" is attested as a synonym for Assyria, notably in Luwian and Aramaic texts from the time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, modern scholars overwhelmingly support the conclusion that the names are connected. Both "Assyria" and the contraction, "Syria," are ultimately derived from the Akkadian Aššur . Following the decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the subsequent empires that held dominion over
11224-410: The Middle Assyrian Empire, there were several groups among the lower classes, the highest of which were the free men ( a’ılū ), who like the upper classes could receive land in exchange for performing duties for the government, but who could not live on these lands since they were comparably small. Below the free men were the unfree men ( šiluhlu̮ ). The unfree men had given up their freedom and entered
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#173279184630311408-399: The Middle Assyrian period, foot soldiers were divided into the sạ bū ša kakkē ("weapon troops") and the sạ bū ša arâtē ("shield-bearing troops") but surviving records are not detailed enough to determine what the differences were. It is possible that the sạ bū ša kakkē included ranged troops, such as slingers ( ṣābū ša ušpe ) and archers ( ṣābū ša qalte ). The chariots in the army composed
11592-555: The Near East. In his ninth campaign, Ashurnasirpal II marched to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea , collecting tribute from various kingdoms on the way. A significant development during Ashurnasirpal II's reign was the second attempt to transfer the Assyrian capital away from Assur. Ashurnasirpal restored the ancient and ruined town of Nimrud , also located in the Assyrian heartland, and in 879 BC designated that city as
11776-621: The Neo-Assyrian Empire was expanded and included several different offices. The Neo-Assyrian inner elite is typically divided by modern scholars into the "magnates", a set of high-ranking offices, and the "scholars" ( ummânī ), tasked with advising and guiding the kings through interpreting omens. The magnates included the offices masennu (treasurer), nāgir ekalli (palace herald), rab šāqê (chief cupbearer), rab ša-rēši (chief officer/eunuch), sartinnu (chief judge), sukkallu (grand vizier) and turtanu (commander-in-chief), which at times continued to be occupied by royal family members. Some of
11960-614: The Neo-Assyrian army was likely several hundred thousand. The Neo-Assyrian army was subdivided into kiṣru , composed of perhaps 1,000 soldiers, most of whom would have been infantry soldiers ( zūk , zukkû or raksūte ). The infantry was divided into three types: light, medium and heavy, with varying weapons, level of armor and responsibilities. While on campaign, the Assyrian army made heavy use of both interpreters/translators ( targumannu ) and guides ( rādi kibsi ), both probably being drawn from foreigners resettled in Assyra. The majority of
12144-407: The Old Assyrian period, it is evident that women were free to learn how to read and write. Both men and women paid the same fines, could inherit property, participated in trade, bought, owned, and sold houses and slaves, made their own last wills, and were allowed to divorce their partners. Records of Old Assyrian marriages confirm that the dowry to the bride belonged to her, not the husband, and it
12328-531: The Temple of Pan at Apollonopolis Magna in ancient Egypt . In the fourth century BC Pan was depicted on the coinage of Pantikapaion . Archaeologists, while excavating a Byzantine church of around 400 AD in Banyas , discovered in the walls of the church an altar of the god Pan with a Greek inscription, dating back to the second or third century AD. The inscription reads, " Atheneon son of Sosipatros of Antioch
12512-650: The Trojan war. Herodotus concluded that that would be when the Greeks first learnt the name of Pan. The goat-god Aegipan was nurtured by Amalthea with the infant Zeus in Crete. In Zeus' battle with Typhon , Aegipan and Hermes stole back Zeus' "sinews" that Typhon had hidden away in the Corycian Cave . Pan aided his foster-brother in the battle with the Titans by letting out a horrible screech and scattering them in terror. According to some traditions, Aegipan
12696-602: The Vergilian commentator Servius ) report that Penelope slept with all 108 suitors in Odysseus' absence, and gave birth to Pan as a result. This myth reflects the folk etymology that equates Pan's name (Πάν) with the Greek word for "all" (πᾶν). According to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology , Apollodorus has his parents as Hermes and Oeneis, while scholia on Theocritus have Aether and Oeneis. Like other nature spirits, Pan appears to be older than
12880-458: The Worship of Priapus (1786) as a symbol of creation expressed through sexuality. "Pan is represented pouring water upon the organ of generation; that is, invigorating the active creative power by the prolific element." John Keats 's "Endymion" (1818) opens with a festival dedicated to Pan where a stanzaic hymn is sung in praise of him. Keats drew most of his account of Pan's activities from
13064-429: The aptness of the name: "for he may lawfully be said in the Greek tongue to be Pan, since he is our all. For all that we are, all that we live, all that we have, all that we hope, is him, by him, from him, and in him." In this interpretation, Rabelais was following Guillaume Postel in his De orbis terrae concordia . The nineteenth-century visionary Anne Catherine Emmerich , in a twist echoed nowhere else, claims that
13248-561: The attackers. In the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), it is said that Pan favored the Athenians and so inspired panic in the hearts of their enemies, the Persians. In two late Roman sources, Hyginus and Ovid , Pan is substituted for the satyr Marsyas in the theme of a musical competition ( agon ), and the punishment by flaying is omitted. Pan once had the audacity to compare his music with that of Apollo , and to challenge Apollo,
13432-484: The beginning of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BC). Through decades of conquests, the early Neo-Assyrian kings worked to retake the lands of the Middle Assyrian Empire. Since this reconquista had to begin nearly from scratch, its eventual success was an extraordinary achievement. Under Ashurnasirpal II ( r. 883–859 BC), the Neo-Assyrian Empire became the dominant political power in
13616-445: The beginning of the end of Hittite influence in northern Mesopotamia, and his temporary conquest of Babylonia, which became an Assyrian vassal c. 1225–1216 BC. Tukulti-Ninurta was also the first Assyrian king to try to move the capital away from Assur, inaugurating the new city Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta as capital c. 1233 BC. The capital was returned to Assur after his death. Tukulti-Ninurta I's assassination c. 1207 BC
13800-607: The bishopfish ( sea bishop ), and Gudger suspected these were misinformation based on the aforementioned hoax mermaids from the East. Gudger also noted that the mermaid-like bishopfish could well be simulated by a dried specimen of a ray. A dried ray bears a vaguely anthropomorphic shape, and can be further manipulated to enhance its desired monstrous look. Such figures made of sharks and rays eventually came to be known as Jenny Hanivers in Great Britain. Matthew Arnold wrote
13984-477: The bottom of this hierarchy were lower officials, such as village managers ( rab ālāni ) who oversaw one or more villages, collecting taxes in the form of labor and goods and keeping the administration informed of the conditions of their settlements, and corvée officers ( ša bēt-kūdini ) who kept tallies on the labor performed by forced laborers and the remaining time owed. Individual cities had their own administrations, headed by mayors ( ḫazi’ānu ), responsible for
14168-411: The capital to the new city of Dur-Sharrukin in 706 BC and the year after, Sennacherib transferred the capital to Nineveh, which he ambitiously expanded and renovated, and might even have built the hanging gardens there, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The 671 BC conquest of Egypt under Esarhaddon ( r. 681–669 BC) brought Assyria to its greatest ever extent. After
14352-628: The chase. Being a rustic god, Pan was not worshipped in temples or other built edifices, but in natural settings, usually caves or grottoes such as the one on the north slope of the Acropolis of Athens . These are often referred to as the Cave of Pan. The only exceptions are the Temple of Pan on the Neda River gorge in the southwestern Peloponnese – the ruins of which survive to this day – and
14536-403: The city assembly had disappeared by the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period. Though the traditional iššiak Aššur continued to be used at times, the Middle Assyrian kings were autocrats, in terms of power having little in common with the rulers of the Old Assyrian period. As the Assyrian Empire grew, the kings began to employ an increasingly sophisticated array of royal titles. Ashur-uballit I
14720-401: The city's formal king. That the populace of Assur in the Old Assyrian period often referred to the king as rubā’um ("great one") clearly indicates that the kings, despite their limited executive power, were seen as royal figures and as being primus inter pares (first among equals) among the powerful individuals of the city. Assur first experienced a more autocratic form of kingship under
14904-399: The civil administration and the army began to be occupied by eunuchs with deliberately obscure and lowly origins since this ensured that they would be loyal to the king. Eunuchs were trusted since they were believed to not be able to have any dynastic aspirations of their own. From the time of Erishum I in the early Old Assyrian period onward, a yearly office-holder, a limmu official,
15088-606: The collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Assur became an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I . Assur was under the Puzur-Ashur dynasty home to less than 10,000 people and likely held very limited military power; no military institutions at all are known from this time and no political influence was exerted on neighboring cities. The city was still influential in other ways; under Erishum I ( r. c. 1974–1934 BC), Assur experimented with free trade ,
15272-471: The common designation of the mermaid. This gender classification however is not in alignment with the medieval source described above, which pairs the margýgr with the ( hafstrambr ). According to Norwegian folklore dating back to the 18th century, havmand [ no ] takes the mermaid ( havfrue ) as wife, and the offspring or young they produce are called marmæler (sing. Norwegian : marmæle ). Norwegian mermen ( havmænd ) were later ascribed
15456-420: The common meaning of the term. A number of wardum are however also recorded as being bought and sold. The main evidence concerning the lives of ordinary women in ancient Assyria is in administrative documents and law codes. There was no legal distinction between men and women in the Old Assyrian period and they had more or less the same rights in society. Since several letters written by women are known from
15640-405: The country. Governors had to pay both taxes and offer gifts to the god Ashur, though such gifts were usually small and mainly symbolic. The channeling of taxes and gifts were not only a method of collecting profit but also served to connect the elite of the entire empire to the Assyrian heartland. In the Neo-Assyrian period, an extensive hierarchy within the provincial administration is attested. At
15824-471: The death of Ashurbanipal ( r. 669–631 BC), the Neo-Assyrian Empire swiftly collapsed. One of the primary reasons was the inability of the Neo-Assyrian kings to resolve the "Babylonian problem"; despite many attempts to appease Babylonia in the south, revolts were frequent all throughout the Sargonid period. The revolt of Babylon under Nabopolassar in 626 BC, in combination with an invasion by
16008-490: The death of Pan. Due to the word "all" in Greek also being "pan," a pun was made that "all demons" had perished. In Rabelais ' Fourth Book of Pantagruel (sixteenth century), the Giant Pantagruel , after recollecting the tale as told by Plutarch, opines that the announcement was actually about the death of Jesus Christ , which did take place at about the same time (towards the end of Tiberius ' reign), noting
16192-415: The decline and made significant conquests, their conquests were ephemeral and shaky, quickly lost again. From the time of Eriba-Adad II ( r. 1056–1054 BC) onward, Assyrian decline intensified. The Assyrian heartland remained safe since it was protected by its geographical remoteness. Since Assyria was not the only state to undergo decline during these centuries, and the lands surrounding
16376-590: The detailed illustrated depictions of Pan included in the volume are by the artists Giorgio Ghisi , Sir James Thornhill , Bernard Picart , Agostino Veneziano , Vincenzo Cartari , and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo . In the Percy Jackson novels , author Rick Riordan uses "The Great God Pan is dead" quote as a plot point in the novel The Sea of Monsters , and in The Battle of the Labyrinth Pan
16560-421: The earliest known such experiment in world history, which left the initiative for trade and large-scale foreign transactions entirely to the populace rather than the state. Royal encouragement of trade led to Assur quickly establishing itself as a prominent trading city in northern Mesopotamia and soon thereafter establishing an extensive long-distance trade network, the first notable impression Assyria left in
16744-406: The early 14th century BC as the Middle Assyrian Empire. In the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods, Assyria was one of the two major Mesopotamian kingdoms, alongside Babylonia in the south, and at times became the dominant power in the ancient Near East . Assyria was at its strongest in the Neo-Assyrian period, when the Assyrian army was the strongest military power in the world and the Assyrians ruled
16928-445: The early Middle Assyrian kings to expand and consolidate territories in northern Mesopotamia. Under the warrior-kings Adad-nirari I ( r. c. 1305–1274 BC), Shalmaneser I ( r. c. 1273–1244 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I ( r. c. 1243–1207 BC), Assyria began to realize its aspirations of becoming a significant regional power. These kings campaigned in all directions and incorporated
17112-420: The eldest daughter of a family was consecrated as a priestess. She was not allowed to marry and became economically independent. Wives were expected to provide their husbands with garments and food. Although marriages were typically monogamous , husbands were allowed to buy a female slave in order to produce an heir if his wife was infertile . The wife was allowed to choose that slave and the slave never gained
17296-419: The end of the 2nd century BC, the city may have become the capital of its own small semi-autonomous Assyrian realm, either under the suzerainty of Hatra, or under direct Parthian suzerainty. On account of the resemblance between the stelae by the local rulers and those of the ancient Assyrian kings, they may have seen themselves as the restorers and continuators of the old royal line. The ancient Ashur temple
17480-459: The entire region. It is not known whether the Greeks began referring to Mesopotamia as "Assyria" because they equated the region with the Assyrian Empire, long fallen by the time the term is first attested, or because they named the region after the people who lived there, the Assyrians. Because the term is so " similar to Syria ", scholars have been examining since the 17th century whether the two terms are connected. And because, in sources predating
17664-460: The face of an old man. In China and Japan there are also accounts of the "sea human" ( 海人 , Chinese: hairen , Japanese: kaijin ), some of these accounts are of European origin. A known description of the hairen occurs in a work in Chinese called Zhifang waiji ( 職方外紀 ), actually written by a European. Here Ai Rulüe ( Giulio Aleni ) stated that there are two kinds of hairen . The example of
17848-481: The first Assyrian capital, was founded c. 2600 BC, but there is no evidence that the city was independent until the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur , in the 21st century BC, when a line of independent kings starting with Puzur-Ashur I began ruling the city. Centered in the Assyrian heartland in northern Mesopotamia, Assyrian power fluctuated over time. The city underwent several periods of foreign rule or domination before Assyria rose under Ashur-uballit I in
18032-461: The first kind had a beard. The second type of hairen described by Aleni was actually a female woman, identifiable as the Mermaid of Edam [ nl ] captured in 1403, with drooping skin, as if she were dressed in [a pao 袍 type of robe]. Later, a Japanese source ( Nagasaki bunkenroku ) gave description of the kaijin encompassing features of both types: it had chin hair as well as
18216-615: The fishes and cete ( Ancient Greek : κήτη , romanized : kḗtē , "sea monsters"). This illustration was apparently ultimately based on a skeletal specimen and mummies . Gesner explained that such a creature was placed on exhibit in Rome on 3 November 1523. Elsewhere in Gesner's book it is stated the "sea monster ( monstrum marinum )" viewed on this same date was the size of a 5-year-old child. It has been remarked in connection to this by one ichthyologist that mermen created by joining
18400-590: The form of a human or merman, also known as encantado ("enchanted one" in Portuguese ) and with the habit of seducing human women and impregnating them. In the folklore of the Dogon of Mali , ancestral spirits called Nommo had humanoid upper torsos, legs and feet, and a fish-like lower torso and tail. Mermen or "tritons" see uncommon use in British heraldry , where they appear with the torso, head and arms of
18584-441: The general characteristic that they are of "a dusky hue, with a long beard, black hair, and from the waist upwards resemble a man, but downwards are like a fish." While the marmæler does literally mean 'sea-talker', the word is thought to be a corruption of marmenill , the aforementioned Old Norse term for merman. An alleged marmennill prophesying to an early Icelandic settler has already been noted (cf. §Medieval period ). In
18768-411: The geographical and ethnic origin of slaves, there is only a single known such reference in Old Assyrian texts (whereas there are many describing slaves in a general sense), a slave girl explicitly being referred to as Subaraean , indicating that ethnicity was not seen as very important in terms of slavery. The surviving evidence suggests that the number of slaves in Assyria never reached a large share of
18952-408: The god of the lyre , to a trial of skill. Tmolus , the mountain-god, was chosen to judge. Pan blew on his pipes and gave great satisfaction with his rustic melody to himself and to his faithful follower, Midas , who happened to be present. Then Apollo struck the strings of his lyre. Tmolus at once awarded the victory to Apollo, and all but Midas agreed with the judgment. Midas dissented and questioned
19136-454: The historical record. Among the evidence left from this trade network are large collections of Old Assyrian cuneiform tablets from Assyrian trade colonies, the most notable of which is a set of 22,000 clay tablets found at Kültepe , near the modern city of Kayseri in Turkey. As trade declined, perhaps due to increased warfare and conflict between the growing states of the Near East, Assur
19320-628: The ideological status of Assur was never fully superseded and it remained a ceremonial center in the empire even when it was governed from elsewhere. The transfer of the royal seat of power to other cities was ideologically possible since the king was Ashur's representative on Earth. The king, like the deity embodied Assyria itself, and so the capital of Assyria was in a sense wherever the king happened to have his residence. The first transfer of administrative power away from Assur occurred under Tukulti-Ninurta I, who c. 1233 BC inaugurated Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta as capital. Tukulti-Ninurta I's foundation of
19504-432: The intermediaries between Ashur and mankind. This position and role was used to justify imperial expansion: the Assyrians saw their empire as being the part of the world overseen and administered by Ashur through his human agents. In their ideology, the outer realm outside of Assyria was characterized by chaos and the people there were uncivilized, with unfamiliar cultural practices and strange languages. The mere existence of
19688-641: The justice of the award. Apollo would not suffer such a depraved pair of ears any longer and turned Midas' ears into those of a donkey . Pan could be multiplied into a swarm of Pans, and even be given individual names, as in Nonnus ' Dionysiaca , where the god Pan had twelve sons that helped Dionysus in his war against the Indians. Their names were Kelaineus, Argennon, Aigikoros, Eugeneios, Omester, Daphoenus, Phobos, Philamnos, Xanthos, Glaukos, Argos, and Phorbas. Two other Pans were Agreus and Nomios . Both were
19872-596: The late 19th and early 20th century, when the Ottomans grew increasingly nationalistic, further persecutions and massacres were enacted against the Assyrians, most notably the Sayfo (Assyrian genocide), which resulted in the deaths of as many as 250,000 Assyrians. Throughout the 20th century, many unsuccessful proposals have been made by the Assyrians for autonomy or independence. Further massacres and persecutions, enacted both by governments and by terrorist groups such as
20056-484: The late 4th to mid-2nd century BC, Assyrian sites such as Assur, Nimrud and Nineveh were resettled and a large number of villages were rebuilt and expanded. After the Parthian Empire conquered the region in the 2nd century BC, the recovery of Assyria continued, culminating in an unprecedented return to prosperity and revival in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. The region was resettled and restored so intensely that
20240-415: The local economy and production. Some regions of the Assyrian Empire were not incorporated into the provincial system but were still subjected to the rule of the Assyrian kings. Such vassal states could be ruled indirectly through allowing established local lines of kings to continue ruling in exchange for tribute or through the Assyrian kings appointing their own vassal rulers. Through the ilku system ,
20424-633: The loss of political power, the Assyrians continued to constitute a significant portion of the population in northern Mesopotamia until religiously motivated suppression and massacres under the Ilkhanate and the Timurid Empire in the 14th century, which relegated them to a local ethnic and religious minority. The Assyrians lived largely in peace under the rule of the Ottoman Empire , which gained control of Assyria in 16th century. In
20608-413: The love of any man but was enraptured by Narcissus . As Echo was cursed by Hera to only be able to repeat words that had been said by someone else, she could not speak for herself. She followed Narcissus to a pool, where he fell in love with his own reflection and changed into a narcissus flower. Echo wasted away, but her voice could still be heard in caves and other such similar places. Pan also loved
20792-423: The magnates also acted as governors of important provinces and all of them were deeply involved with the Assyrian military, controlling significant forces. They also owned large tax-free estates, scattered throughout the empire. In the late Neo-Assyrian Empire, there was a growing disconnect between the traditional Assyrian elite and the kings due to eunuchs growing unprecedently powerful. The highest offices both in
20976-468: The magnates", when powerful officials and generals were the principal wielders of political power rather than the king. This time of stagnation came to an end with the rise of Tiglath-Pileser III ( r. 745–727 BC), who reduced the power of the magnates, consolidated and centralized the holdings of the empire, and through his military campaigns and conquests more than doubled the extent of Assyrian territory. The most significant conquests were
21160-454: The mare Skálm chooses to "lie down under her load". In a subsequent fishing trip the man was drowned, survived by the boy who stayed behind. The hafstrambr is a merman, described as a counterpart to the hideous mermaid margýgr in the Konungs skuggsjá ("King's mirror", c. 1250 ). He is said to generally match her anthropomorphic appearance on the top half, though his lower half
21344-554: The meetings of the city assembly, the main Assyrian administrative body during this time. The composition of the city assembly is not known, but it is generally believed to have been made up of members of the most powerful families of the city, many of whom were merchants. The king acted as the main executive officer and chairman of this group of influential individuals and also contributed with legal knowledge and expertise. The Old Assyrian kings were styled as iššiak Aššur ("governor [on behalf] of Ashur "), with Ashur being considered
21528-765: The monkey's upper body with a fish's lower extremity have been manufactured in China for centuries; and such merchandise may have been imported into Europe by the likes of the Dutch East India Company by this time (cf. Bartholin's siren ). Mummies (Feejee mermaids) were certainly being manufactured in Japan in some quantity by the 19th century or even earlier (cf. §Hoaxes and sideshows ). The "sea-satyr[e]" appears in Edmund Spenser 's poem The Faerie Queene (1590), and glossed by Francis J. Child as
21712-413: The monster Typhon, he dived into the river Nile ; the parts above the water remained a goat, but those under the water transformed into a fish. Pan is famous for his sexual prowess and is often depicted with a phallus . Diogenes of Sinope , speaking in jest, related a myth of Pan learning masturbation from his father, Hermes , and teaching the habit to shepherds. There was a legend that Pan seduced
21896-510: The moon goddess Selene , deceiving her with a sheep's fleece. One of the famous myths of Pan involves the origin of his pan flute , fashioned from lengths of hollow reed. Syrinx was a lovely wood- nymph of Arcadia, daughter of Ladon , the river-god. As she was returning from the hunt one day, Pan met her. To escape from his importunities, the fair nymph ran away and didn't stop to hear his compliments. He pursued from Mount Lycaeum until she came to her sisters who immediately changed her into
22080-563: The movement, "Pan: who played upon the reed pipe which was Syrinx, his beloved." The British rock band Pink Floyd named its first album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in reference to Pan as he appears in The Wind in the Willows . Andrew King, Pink Floyd's manager, said Syd Barrett "thought Pan had given him an understanding into the way nature works. It formed into his holistic view of
22264-437: The nearest being the idea of a "city of kingship", i.e. an administrative center used by the king, but there are several examples of kingdoms having multiple "cities of kingship". Due to Assyria growing out of the Assur city-state of the Old Assyrian period, and due to the city's religious importance, Assur was the administrative center of Assyria through most of its history. Though the royal administration at times moved elsewhere,
22448-406: The new capital of the empire. Though no longer the political capital, Assur remained the ceremonial and religious center of Assyria. Ashurnasirpal II's son Shalmaneser III ( r. 859–824 BC) also went on wide-ranging wars of conquest, expanding the empire in all directions. After Shalmaneser III's death, the Neo-Assyrian Empire entered into a period of stagnation dubbed the "age of
22632-595: The original man-like water-dwellers of England probably lacked fish-like tails. A "wildman" caught in a fishnet, described by Ralph of Coggeshall ( c. 1210 ) was entirely man-like though he liked to eat raw fish and eventually returned to the sea. Katharine Mary Briggs opined that the mermen are "often uglier and rougher in the British Isles". Mermen, which seldom frequent American folklore , are supposedly depicted as less beautiful than mermaids. The Irish fakelore story of " The Soul Cages " features
22816-402: The people who followed those gods should be subjected to the representative of Ashur, the Assyrian king. The kings also had religious and judicial duties. Kings were responsible for performing various rituals in support of the cult of Ashur and the Assyrian priesthood. They were expected, together with the Assyrian people, to provide offerings to not only Ashur but also all the other gods. From
23000-494: The phrase "the Great Pan" was actually a demonic epithet for Jesus Christ , and that "Thamus, or Tramus" was a watchman in the port of Nicaea , who, at the time of the other spectacular events surrounding Christ's death, was then commissioned to spread this message, which was later garbled "in repetition." In modern times, G. K. Chesterton has repeated and amplified the significance of the "death" of Pan, suggesting that with
23184-519: The political situation in northern Mesopotamia was highly volatile, with Assur at times coming under the brief control of Eshnunna , Elam and the Old Babylonian Empire . At some point, the city returned to being an independent city-state, though the politics of Assur itself were volatile as well, with fighting between members of Shamshi-Adad's dynasty, native Assyrians and Hurrians for control. The infighting came to an end after
23368-480: The population and settlement density reached heights not seen since the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The region was under the Parthians primarily ruled by a group of vassal kingdoms, including Osroene , Adiabene and Hatra . Though in some aspects influenced by Assyrian culture, these states were for the most part not ruled by Assyrian rulers. Assur itself flourished under Parthian rule. From around or shortly after
23552-440: The population of ancient Assyria were farmers who worked land owned by their families. Old Assyrian society was divided into two main groups: slaves ( subrum ) and free citizens, referred to as awīlum ("men") or DUMU Aššur ("sons of Ashur"). Among the free citizens there was also a division into rabi ("big") and ṣaher ("small") members of the city assembly. Assyrian society grew more complex and hierarchical over time. In
23736-468: The population. In the Akkadian language , several terms were used for slaves, commonly wardum , though this term could confusingly also be used for (free) official servants, retainers and followers, soldiers and subjects of the king. Because many individuals designated as wardum in Assyrian texts are described as handling property and carrying out administrative tasks on behalf of their masters, many may have in actuality been free servants and not slaves in
23920-491: The prime Pan, reflecting his dual nature as both a wise prophet and a lustful beast. Aegipan , literally "goat-Pan," was a Pan who was fully goatlike, rather than half-goat and half-man. When the Olympians fled from the monstrous giant Typhoeus and hid themselves in animal form, Aegipan assumed the form of a fish-tailed goat. Later he came to the aid of Zeus in his battle with Typhoeus, by stealing back Zeus' stolen sinews. As
24104-755: The region, including Assur itself. The remaining Assyrian people , who have survived in northern Mesopotamia to modern times, were gradually Christianized from the 1st century AD onward. Ancient Mesopotamian religion persisted at Assur until its final sack in the 3rd century AD, and at certain other holdouts for centuries thereafter. The triumph of ancient Assyria can be attributed not only to its vigorous warrior-monarchs but also to its adeptness in efficiently assimilating and governing conquered territories using inventive and advanced administrative mechanisms. The developments in warfare and governance introduced by ancient Assyria continued to be employed by subsequent empires and states for centuries. Ancient Assyria also left
24288-472: The retinue of Dionysos , or in depictions of wild landscapes, there appeared not only a great Pan, but also little Pans, Paniskoi, who played the same part as the Satyrs ". Herodotus wrote that according to Egyptian chronology, Pan was the most ancient of the gods; but according to the version in which Pan was the son of Hermes and Penelope, he was born only eight hundred years before Herodotus, and thus after
24472-580: The rise of Bel-bani as king c. 1700 BC. Bel-bani founded the Adaside dynasty , which after his reign ruled Assyria for about a thousand years. Assyria's rise as a territorial state in later times was in large part facilitated by two separate invasions of Mesopotamia by the Hittites . An invasion by the Hittite king Mursili I in c. 1595 BC destroyed the dominant Old Babylonian Empire, allowing
24656-534: The rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire ( c. 1363–912 BC). Ashur-uballit I was the first native Assyrian ruler to claim the royal title šar ("king"). Shortly after achieving independence, he further claimed the dignity of a great king on the level of the Egyptian pharaohs and the Hittite kings . Assyria's rise was intertwined with the decline and fall of the Mitanni kingdom, its former suzerain, which allowed
24840-522: The rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire. The success of Assyria was not only due to energetic kings who expanded its borders but more importantly due to its ability to efficiently incorporate and govern conquered lands. From the rise of Assyria as a territorial state at the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period onward, Assyrian territory was divided into a set of provinces or districts ( pāḫutu ). The total number and size of these provinces varied and changed as Assyria expanded and contracted. Every province
25024-416: The sailors actually heard the excited shouts of the worshipers of Tammuz , Θαμούς πανμέγας τέθνηκε ( Thamoús panmégas téthnēke , "All-great Tammuz is dead!"), and misinterpreted them as a message directed to an Egyptian sailor named 'Thamus': "Great Pan is Dead!" Van Teslaar explains, "[i]n its true form the phrase would have probably carried no meaning to those on board who must have been unfamiliar with
25208-424: The services of others on their own accord, and were in turn provided with clothes and rations. Many of them probably originated as foreigners. Though similar to slavery, it was possible for an unfree person to regain their freedom by providing a replacement and they were during their service considered the property of the government rather than their employers. Other lower classes of the Middle Assyrian period included
25392-429: The short story Driftglass in which mermen are deliberately created surgically as amphibious human beings with gills, while in J. K. Rowling 's Harry Potter , a race of merpeople live in a lake outside Hogwarts . Assyria Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform : [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] , māt Aššur ) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as
25576-557: The skin of a conger eel and hair of seaweed, was still placated with votive offerings of fish left on the beach by fishermen. Similarly vengeful water spirits occur in Breton and Gaelic lore, which may relate to pre-Christian gods such as Nechtan . In China and in Japan, there are various accounts of "human-fish" ( 人魚 , Chinese: renyu , Japanese: ningyo ), and these presumably occurred in male forms also. However, Chinese human-fish have been described (and illustrated) as resembling
25760-602: The smaller kingdoms of Mitanni and Kassite Babylonia to rise in the north and south, respectively. Around c. 1430 BC, Assur was subjugated by Mitanni, an arrangement that lasted for about 70 years, until c. 1360 BC. Another Hittite invasion by Šuppiluliuma I in the 14th century BC effectively crippled the Mitanni kingdom. After his invasion, Assyria succeeded in freeing itself from its suzerain, achieving independence once more under Ashur-uballit I ( r. c. 1363–1328 BC) whose rise to power, independence, and conquests of neighboring territory traditionally marks
25944-458: The sons of Hermes, Agreus' mother being the nymph Sose, a prophetess: he inherited his mother's gift of prophecy, and was also a skilled hunter. Nomios' mother was Penelope (not the same as the wife of Odysseus). He was an excellent shepherd, seducer of nymphs, and musician upon the shepherd's pipes. Most of the mythological stories about Pan are actually about Nomios, not the god Pan. Although, Agreus and Nomios could have been two different aspects of
26128-530: The speaker tries to summon Pan to life after feeling "a craving in me", wishing for a "spring-tide" that will replace the stagnant "autumn" of the soul. A dark version of Pan's seductiveness appears in Margery Lawrence 's Robin's Rath , both giving and taking life and vitality. Pan is the eponymous "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" in the seventh chapter of Kenneth Grahame 's The Wind in the Willows (1908). Grahame's Pan, unnamed but clearly recognisable,
26312-486: The status of a second wife. Husbands who were away on long trading journeys were allowed to take a second wife in one of the trading colonies, although with strict rules that must be followed: the second wife was not allowed to accompany him back to Assur and both wives had to be provided with a home to live in, food, and wood. Pan (god) In ancient Greek religion and mythology , Pan ( / p æ n / ; Ancient Greek : Πάν , romanized : Pán )
26496-426: The story "The Merman", a captured marbendill laughs thrice, and when pressed, reveals to the peasant his insight (buried gold, wife's infidelity, dog's fidelity) on promise of release. The peasant finds wonderful gray milk-cows next to his property, which he presumes were the merman's gift; the unruly cows were made obedient by bursting the strange bladder or sac on their muzzle (with the stick he carried). In Sweden,
26680-412: The superstition of the merman ( Swedish : hafsman ) abducting a human girl to become his wife has been documented ( Hälsingland , early 19th century); the merman's consort is said to be occasionally spotted sitting on a holme (small island), laundering her linen or combing her hair. There is a Swedish ballad ( Swedish : visa [ sv ] ) entitled " Hafsmannen " about a merman abducting
26864-480: The supreme judicial authority in the empire, though they generally appear to have been less concerned with their role as judges than their predecessors in the Old Assyrian period were. The kings were expected to ensure the welfare and prosperity of the Assyria and its people, indicated by multiple inscriptions referring to the kings as "shepherds" ( re’û ). No word for the idea of a capital city existed in Akkadian,
27048-441: The temples but the situation was reversed in the new capitals. Sargon II transferred the capital in 706 BC to the city Dur-Sharrukin, which he built himself. Since the location of Dur-Sharrukin had no obvious practical or political merit, this move was probably an ideological statement. Immediately after Sargon II's death in 705 BC, his son Sennacherib transferred the capital to Nineveh, a far more natural seat of power. Though it
27232-421: The time of Ashur-resh-ishi I onward, the religious and cultic duties of the king were pushed somewhat into the background, though they were still prominently mentioned in accounts of building and restoring temples. Assyrian titles and epithets in inscriptions from then on generally emphasized the kings as powerful warriors. Developing from their role in the Old Assyrian period, the Middle and Neo-Assyrian kings were
27416-587: The time of the Neo-Babylonian and later Achaemenid Empire , Assyria remained a marginal and sparsely populated region. Toward the end of the 6th century BC, the Assyrian dialect of the Akkadian language went extinct, having toward the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire already largely been replaced by Aramaic as a vernacular language. Under the empires succeeding the Neo-Babylonians, from the late 6th century BC onward, Assyria began to experience
27600-644: The transformation of Glaucus in the Metamorphoses , describing him as a blue-green man with a fishy member where his legs had been. A merman is called marmennill in Old Norse, attested in the Ladnámabók . An early settler in Iceland ( c. 11th century ) allegedly caught a merman while fishing, and the creature prophesied one thing: the man's son will gain possession of the piece of land where
27784-476: The twentieth-century Neopagan movement . Many modern scholars consider Pan to be derived from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European god *Péh₂usōn , whom they believe to have been an important pastoral deity ( *Péh₂usōn shares an origin with the modern English word "pasture"). The Rigvedic psychopomp god Pushan (from PIE zero grade *Ph₂usōn ) is believed to be a cognate of Pan. The connection between Pan and Pushan, both of whom are associated with goats,
27968-413: The upper classes of ancient Assyria survives than for the lower ones. At the top of Middle and Neo-Assyrian society were members of long-established and large families called "houses". Members of this aristocracy tended to occupy the most important offices within the government and they were likely descendants of the most prominent families of the Old Assyrian period. One of the most influential offices in
28152-561: The vassalization of the Levant all the way to the Egyptian border and the 729 BC conquest of Babylonia . The Neo-Assyrian Empire reached the height of its extent and power under the Sargonid dynasty , founded by Sargon II ( r. 722–705 BC). Under Sargon II and his son Sennacherib ( r. 705–681 BC), the empire was further expanded and the gains were consolidated. Both kings founded new capitals. Sargon II moved
28336-399: The waist down. Jón the Learned also wrote down a short tale or folktale concerning it, which has been translated under the titles "The Merman" and "Of Marbendill". Jón Árnasson , building on this classification, divided the water-elves into two groups: the male marbendill vs. the female known variously as hafgýgur, haffrú, margýgur , or meyfiskur . But in current times, hafmey is
28520-545: The western border province Quwê to the Assyrian heartland, a distance of 700 kilometers (430 miles) over a stretch of lands featuring many rivers without any bridges, could take less than five days to arrive. Such communication speed was unprecedented before the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and was not surpassed in the Middle East until the telegraph was introduced by the Ottoman Empire in 1865, nearly two and
28704-507: The world." Brian Jones , a founding member of The Rolling Stones , strongly identified with Pan. He produced the live album Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka , about a Moroccan festival that evoked the ancient Roman rites of Pan. Musician Mike Scott of the Waterboys refers to Pan as an archetypal force within us all, and talks about his search for “The Pan Within",
28888-694: The world; for example, at the Booth Museum in Brighton. Such fake mermaids handcrafted from monkeys and fish were being made in China and the Malay Archipelago , and imported by the Dutch since the mid-16th century, according to ichthyologist E. W. Gudger . Several natural history books published around this time ( c. 1550s ) carried entries on the mermaid-like monk-fish ( sea monk ) and
29072-445: The worship of Tammuz which was a transplanted, and for those parts, therefore, an exotic custom." Certainly, when Pausanias toured Greece about a century after Plutarch, he found Pan's shrines, sacred caves and sacred mountains still very much frequented. However, a naturalistic explanation might not be needed. For example, William Hansen has shown that the story is quite similar to a class of widely known tales known as Fairies Send
29256-661: The younger folk of the village to revel in the summer twilight, while the vicar of the village is the only person worried about the revival of worship of the old pagan god. Pan features as a prominent character in Tom Robbins ' Jitterbug Perfume (1984). The British writer and editor Mark Beech of Egaeus Press published in 2015 the limited-edition anthology Soliloquy for Pan which includes essays and poems such as "The Rebirthing of Pan" by Adrian Eckersley, "Pan's Pipes" by Robert Louis Stevenson , "Pan with Us" by Robert Frost , and "The Death of Pan" by Lord Dunsany . Some of
29440-459: Was a human boy until his mother cursed him to become part fish. As a merman, he occasionally assisted fishermen, but was summoned by a king who ordered him to explore the seabed and bring back items. Cola Pesce reluctantly went on the king's errands, only to disappear. The boto (river dolphins) of the Amazon River regions of northern Brazil , is described according to local lore as taking
29624-520: Was a nymph who was a great singer and dancer and scorned the love of any man. This angered Pan, a lecherous god, and he instructed his followers to kill her. Echo was torn to pieces and spread all over Earth. The goddess of the Earth, Gaia , received the pieces of Echo, whose voice remains repeating the last words of others. In some versions, Echo and Pan had two children: Iambe and Iynx . In other versions, Pan had fallen in love with Echo, but she scorned
29808-473: Was also sometimes called Atūria or Āthōr . In Syriac, Assyria was and is referred to as ʾĀthor . Agricultural villages in the region that would later become Assyria are known to have existed by the time of the Hassuna culture , c. 6300–5800 BC. Though the sites of some nearby cities that would later be incorporated into the Assyrian heartland, such as Nineveh , are known to have been inhabited since
29992-470: Was an "astonishing resurgence of interest in the Pan motif". He appears in poetry, in novels and children's books, and is referenced in the name of the character Peter Pan . In the Peter Pan stories, Peter represents a golden age of pre-civilisation in both the minds of very young children (before enculturation and education), and in the natural world outside the influence of humans. Peter Pan's character
30176-468: Was an example of fake mermaids posed in " The Scream " style, named after Edvard Munch 's painting; mermaids in this pose were commonly made in the late 18th and early 19th century in Japan. A similar fake "mermaid" at the Horniman Museum has also been relabeled by another curator as a "merman", where "mermen" or "feejee mermaids" are used as generic terms for such concocted mummies. DNA testing
30360-633: Was an intrinsic part of nearly every society in the ancient Near East. There were two main types of slaves in ancient Assyria: chattel slaves , primarily foreigners who were kidnapped or who were spoils of war, and debt slaves , formerly free men and women who had been unable to pay off their debts. In some cases, Assyrian children were seized by authorities due to the debts of their parents and sold off into slavery when their parents were unable to pay. Children born to slave women automatically became slaves themselves, unless some other arrangement had been agreed to. Though Old Babylonian texts frequently mention
30544-445: Was cast as a moral and necessary duty. Because the rule and actions of the Assyrian king were seen as divinely sanctioned, resistance to Assyrian sovereignty in times of war was regarded to be resistance against divine will, which deserved punishment. Peoples and polities who revolted against Assyria were seen as criminals against the divine world order. Since Ashur was the king of the gods, all other gods were subjected to him and thus
30728-406: Was elected from the influential men of Assyria. The limmu official gave their name to the year, meaning that their name appeared in all administrative documents signed that year. Kings were typically the limmu officials in their first regnal years. In the Old Assyrian period, the limmu officials also held substantial executive power, though this aspect of the office had disappeared by the time of
30912-469: Was established in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, dubbed the kiṣir šarri ("king's unit"). Some professional (though not standing) troops are also attested in the Middle Assyrian period, dubbed ḫurādu or ṣābū ḫurādātu , though what their role was is not clear due to the scarcity of sources. Perhaps this category included archers and charioteers , who needed more extensive training than normal foot soldiers . The Assyrian army developed and evolved over time. In
31096-506: Was first identified in 1924 by the German scholar Hermann Collitz . The familiar form of the name Pan is contracted from earlier Πάων , derived from the root * peh₂- (guard, watch over). According to Edwin L. Brown, the name Pan is probably a cognate with the Greek word ὀπάων "companion". In his earliest appearance in literature, Pindar 's Pythian Ode iii. 78, Pan is associated with
31280-608: Was followed by inter-dynastic conflict and a significant drop in Assyrian power. Tukulti-Ninurta I's successors were unable to maintain Assyrian power and Assyria became increasingly restricted to just the Assyrian heartland, a period of decline broadly coinciding with the Late Bronze Age collapse . Though some kings in this period of decline, such as Ashur-dan I ( r. c. 1178–1133 BC), Ashur-resh-ishi I ( r. 1132–1115 BC) and Tiglath-Pileser I ( r. 1114–1076 BC) worked to reverse
31464-487: Was frequently identified with Faunus , a nature god who was the father of Bona Dea , sometimes identified as Fauna ; he was also closely associated with Silvanus , due to their similar relationships with woodlands, and Inuus , a vaguely-defined deity also sometimes identified with Faunus. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement of western Europe and also in
31648-665: Was frequently threatened by larger foreign states and kingdoms. The original Assur city-state, and the Puzur-Ashur dynasty, came to an end c. 1808 BC when the city was conquered by the Amorite ruler of Ekallatum , Shamshi-Adad I . Shamshi-Adad's extensive conquests in northern Mesopotamia eventually made him the ruler of the entire region, founding what some scholars have termed the " Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia ". The survival of this realm relied chiefly on Shamshi-Adad's own strength and charisma and it thus collapsed shortly after his death c. 1776 BC. After Shamshi-Adad's death,
31832-411: Was headed by a provincial governor ( bel pāḫete , bēl pīhāti or šaknu ) who was responsible for handling local order, public safety and economy. Governors also stored and distributed the goods produced in their province, which were inspected and collected by royal representatives once a year. Through these inspections, the central government could keep track of current stocks and production throughout
32016-419: Was however not maintained as capital after Tukulti-Ninurta I's death, with subsequent kings once more ruling from Assur. The Neo-Assyrian Empire underwent several different capitals. There is some evidence that Tukulti-Ninurta II ( r. 890–884 BC), perhaps inspired by his predecessor of the same name, made unfulfilled plans to transfer the capital to a city called Nemid Tukulti-Ninurta , either
32200-562: Was inconclusive as to species (and nothing on gender was disclosed), but despite being catalogued as a "Japanese Monkey-fish", it was determined to contain no monkey parts, but only the teeth, scales, etc. of fish. Another "merman" specimen supposedly found in Banff, Alberta , is displayed at the Indian Trading Post. Other such "mermen", which may be composites of wood carvings, parts of monkeys and fish, are found in museums around
32384-420: Was inherited by her children after her death. Although they were equal legally, men and women in the Old Assyrian period were raised and socialized differently and had different social expectations and obligations. Typically, girls were raised by their mothers, taught to spin, weave, and help with daily tasks and boys were taught trades by masters, later often following their fathers on trade expeditions. Sometimes
32568-444: Was interpreted with concurrent meanings in all four modes of medieval exegesis : literally as historical fact, and allegorically as the death of the ancient order at the coming of the new. In more modern times, some have suggested a possible naturalistic explanation for the myth. For example, Robert Graves ( The Greek Myths ) reported a suggestion that had been made by Salomon Reinach and expanded by James S. Van Teslaar that
32752-435: Was mainly used for escorting or message deliveries. Under the Neo-Assyrian Empire, important new developments in the military were the large-scale introduction of cavalry, the adoption of iron for armor and weapons, and the development of new and innovative siege warfare techniques. At the height of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian army was the strongest army yet assembled in world history. The number of soldiers in
32936-422: Was not meant as a permanent royal residence, Ashur-uballit II chose Harran as his seat of power after the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC. Harran is typically seen as the short-lived final Assyrian capital. No building projects were conducted during this time, but Harran had been long-established as a major religious center, dedicated to the god Sîn . Because of the nature of source preservation, more information about
33120-474: Was possible through steady service to the Assyrian state bureaucracy for a family to move up the social ladder; in some cases stellar work conducted by a single individual enhanced the status of their family for generations to come. In many cases, Assyrian family groups, or "clans", formed large population groups within the empire referred to as tribes. Such tribes lived together in villages and other settlements near or adjacent to their agricultural lands. Slavery
33304-485: Was restored in the 2nd century AD. This last cultural golden age came to an end with the sack of Assur by the Sasanian Empire c. 240. During the sack, the Ashur temple was destroyed again and the city's population was dispersed. Starting from the 1st century AD onward, many of the Assyrians became Christianized , though holdouts of the old ancient Mesopotamian religion continued to survive for centuries. Despite
33488-442: Was that of an "ichthyocentaur" or "sea-devil". Gesner's sea-devil ( German : Meerteufel ) has been described by a modern commentator as having "the lower body of a fish and the upper body of a man, the head an horns of a buck-goat or the devil, and the breasts of a woman", and lacks the horse-legs of a typical centaur . Gesner made reference to a passage where Aelian writes of satyrs that inhabit Taprobana 's seas, counted among
33672-452: Was the first to assume the style šar māt Aššur ("king of the land of Ashur") and his grandson Arik-den-ili ( r. c. 1317–1306 BC) introduced the style šarru dannu ("strong king"). Adad-nirari I's inscriptions required 32 lines to be devoted just to his titles. This development peaked under Tukulti-Ninurta I, who assumed, among other titles, the styles "king of Assyria and Karduniash ", " king of Sumer and Akkad ", "king of
33856-557: Was the son of Pan, rather than his father. The constellation Capricornus is traditionally depicted as a sea-goat , a goat with a fish's tail (see "Goatlike" Aigaion called Briareos, one of the Hecatonchires ). A myth reported as "Egyptian" in Hyginus 's Poetic Astronomy (which would seem to be invented to justify a connection of Pan with Capricorn) says that when Aegipan —that is Pan in his goat-god aspect —was attacked by
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