All things women.
True or false. Once a coffin was used, the person laid rest there for all eternity?
False. It is said that burial chambers COULD be reused after a 25 year period. However, the higher the rank the less likely it would happen to you.
What is my title if I'm a MI.E.GAL?
What am I if I'm not wife/ consort.
"woman of the palace"
According to historical texts, some women of the royal household were able to purchase property.
True or False?
True. Texts record transactions (purchase of slaves and loan of silver) made by women identified by name only.
Each palace had a section for what?
A special area for women.
Who did a king praise when coming to the throne?
His mother! As she was able to legitimise his birth and provide an opportunity for her son to be king.
A ranking hierarchy existed within palace walls and the lowest of them was who?
Mf.ERIM.E.GAL (CONCUBINES) also could be a general term for woman of the palace.
If not their relationship to the king then to who? Another woman.
True or false.
Some kings used texts and inscriptions to publicly show affection to their wives or consorts.
True! Some even built palaces specifically for them.
King Sennecharib:
"And for Tasmetum-sarrat, Mf.L.GAL, my beloved wife, whose features Belet-ili has made perfect above all women, I had a palace of loveliness, delight and joy built."
Why is little known about the daughters and sisters of kings?
Many are believed to have been married off for diplomacy to foreign kings and left the palace. Or married to high officials.
Assyrian kings built cities, palaces, temples, and public works as expressions of their...
power
The only two queen mothers for whom we have inscriptions, Samu-rammat and Naqia, were always careful to include reference to who?
Both their husbands and sons, and sometimes even their fathers-in-law.
Women were recognised or identified as what instead of their individuality?
Their title
The sources that refer to royal women are easily grouped into four categories, each with its own conventions for naming individuals. Name one of these groups:
Canonical (e.g., legends of Semiramis), monumental (royal inscriptions and public monuments), archival (legal, administrative, and most Neo-Assyrian letters) and personal (inscriptions on personal items such as bowls, beads, and mirrors).
The king maintained residences at various cities in Assyria and most of these contained a separate court complex for women.
Name 3 cities where palaces women resided in?
Textual evidence attests to women's quarters in palaces at Nimrud, Nineveh, Kilizi, Tarbisu, Khorsabad, Assur and/or Ekallate.
Assyria was the major power Near-East and had the largest empire the world has ever seen, during this time period.
Was it 900-600BC?
Why would it have been important to choose the manager of the domestic wing from among those women who were not intimate with the king?
It would lessen the chance for jealousy and friction in the domestic quarters.
A woman achieves the highest rank of all when she can claim to be what?
Who if not the daughter-in-law of a king, wife of a king and mother of a king.
In her funerary inscription, the MI.E.GAL Jaba explicitly refers to a MI.ERIM.E.GAL as a narante MAN (translated to):
"favourite of the king."
Concubines in palaces represented various groups of women, name 4 of these groups.
Ageing women who had lived with the previous king, women related to the king but without another male protector (aunts or widowed sisters-in-law, for example), women from the household of a defeated king, women who belonged to the entourage of some foreign princess sent to Assyria for diplomatic marriage, foreign hostages and their companions, and women who were sent to live at the palace by their families in hopes of achieving advancement.
Why are we relatively well informed about the kings, the events of their reigns, and the officials who served them, but the women of the period remain obscure?
Is this what happens when there is an abundant of monuments and textual records from this period documented and influenced by men in areas of politics, military affairs, religion, and commerce.
From outsiders looking into the palace there was structure and order amongst the women. But what was the reality?
To ensure order and minimal quarrelling, women weren't given autonomy over their own lives, spread out across multiple palaces, mainly confined to the palaces, not mentioned as individuals in inscriptions and/or lacked an individual identity.
Due to the fact that most Assyrian texts were created by men for the public expression of royal ideology (itself inherently male), texts belonged to well-established categories which meant what?
Texts followed a strict formulae.
The Akkadian term sekret ekalli literally means "enclosed woman of the palace." What does this imply?
That these women had little, if any, life outside its confines.
Why is it difficult to know where the women of the palace really come from?
Aside from not always having their names published, the names that were are considered to be west-Semitic and eventually became common in Assyria.
Why were royal women considered a threat and an asset?
Women were able to legitimise the heir to the thrown but also pose a threat because the honour of a man depends on the purity of his women, and therefore ". .. the woman's purity is the husband's affair because his honour lies first in his capacity to defend his wife." In royal inscriptions when the Assyrian king takes possession of an enemy king's women and children, he not only validates his own masculinity, but also essentially insults his enemy, whose manhood and reputation are thereby dealt a terrible blow.