Substitute King Ritual
The substitute king ritual was an ancient Mesopotamian religious rite of human sacrifice, documented most clearly in Assyria, which was performed to safeguard the king from danger perceived to come from evil omens. These omens were generally thought to arise from certain astronomical events such as eclipses. During the course of the ritual the king symbolically abdicates his throne and a substitute is placed there in his stead for a period of up to 100 days. Though he possessed no real power, the substitute king would live and hold court at the palace and enjoy the wealth and prestige of the king. Simultaneously the real king would go into hiding, accessible only to his closest advisors.Radner, Karen. The Trials of Esarhaddon: The Conspiracy of 670 BC. University College London, 2004. Throughout the ritual many exorcistic rites were performed in order to transfer the danger arising from the evil omens from the real king onto the substitute. At the end of this time the substitute is ...
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Mesopotamian
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia occupies modern Iraq. In the broader sense, the historical region included present-day Iraq and Kuwait and parts of present-day Iran, Syria and Turkey. The Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians) originating from different areas in present-day Iraq, dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history () to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire. Later the Arameans dominated major parts of Mesopotamia (). Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. It has been identifie ...
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