Amorite ladies at the Neo-Assyrian court. Building up an image, deconstructing an image, transmitting an image

The physical and ideological construction of the Assyrian empire was undoubtedly an unprecedented achievement in Mesopotamian history, a complex and multi-faceted operation, including a wide and capillary administrative organization. In this contribution an aspect of the new image of the empire is dealt with, in which foreign women of the Assyrian court played a role. Their presence and their visibility should be considered in terms of ethnicity. The presence and visibility of foreigners and the presence and visibility of foreign artefacts were certainly used by the central Assyrian power to show the extent of their conquests; at the same time, this presence, and the eventual influence they had on the Assyrian culture, contributed to the creation of an empire which was naturally multi-cultural and sovra-national.