To crush the bones of one's father; or the Assyrian way

There is this interesting relief of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal as he sits in his palace at Nineveh. In the relief is the king himself, his servants, a woman who is perhaps a wife, and the head of the king of Elam. Now, it is a little difficult to see the head of the Elamite king, but if you look at the second tree in the top left you will see the head of this king whom Ashurbanipal conquered. Could you imagine going into a meeting with the Assyrian king, and as you are in the waiting room a picture of what happens if you piss off the king is hanging in front of you! I have also heard a theory that the woman in the relief is the Elamite king's wife! I don't know if that is true or not, but that just goes to show just how ruthless the Assyrians were.

Another interesting story I have heard about the Assyrians, is that when they conquered a civilization, they used a form of psychological terror to make sure that there would be no rebellions or uprisings amongst the conquered people. One aspect of this was to take Nobel prisoners, sons of kings, generals, aristocrats, and march them to Nineveh, and then, once every one saw that the Assyrians were victorious, they would then 'eliminate' the prisoners. One way they did this was to have the sons of a king crush their fathers bones and then scatter them to the wind. Another was to force a general to march with his slain kings head tied around his neck.

I guess the moral of the story is that you should not get on the Assyrians bad side. But, what I think we should all take from this is that just because all this happened thousands of years ago does not mean we should forget the suffering of the people who lived through it. This is all well before the 'color' era of Herodotus, but that doesn't mean that an entire peoples suffering should be relegated to, perhaps, a paragraph in a text book.

Also if you look at the face of Ashurbanipal, it is destroyed! that is because when Assyria fell, the sackers of the city gouged out the faces of the Assyrian reliefs! That is how hated the Assyrians were!

If you have anything to add to the discussion I look forward to it!