Ethnicity in Empire 159related to physical appearance, religious practice, language, and forms of material cul-
ture, and may have a link to a bounded territory. Archaeologists have looked to these
differences to understand ethnicity in the past with varying success (Emberling 1997;
Jones 1997, 2008; Meskell 2002). Some scholars emphasize the “primordial” nature of
ethnicity—the sense in which it is seen as coming from ancestors and is thus considered
unchanging—while others have seen it as being “instrumental” in developing in response
to specific social or political needs. (See Chapter 5 in this volume, by Johannes Siapkas.)
More recently, some have approached ethnicity as a form of practice (in the sense that
Pierre Bourdieu or Anthony Giddens use this term), being established and negotiated
in the recurrent practices of daily life (e.g., Jones 1997). These approaches underplay
differences in power and the asymmetric conditions that are powerful influences in the
formation and reshaping of ethnic identities.
The fluidity of ethnic identity in these anthropological discussions differs strikingly from
ancient perspectives, in which power relations, both of political control and of control of
writing itself, allowed the victors to tell a propagandistic history for their own ends. The
Assyrian Empire did not consider ethnicity in all its cross-cultural and historical variabil-
ity; rather, it identified territories as belonging to groups of people speaking particular
languages, worshipping specific deities, and more importantly for their own purposes, as
being ruled by particular kings who were potential allies or enemies. The fact that there
were a number of political units whose rulers spoke Hittite, for example, and who may
not have identified themselves as a coherent group united by a common language, his-
tory, and biological relationship, did not prevent Assyrian imperial texts from labeling
them all as “people of the land of Hatti.”
Imperial strategies for controlling ethnic difference vary. Empires may aim to construct
and maintain an imperial ethnic identity, while subject groups may be acculturated to this
identity, or are by contrast forced by geographic separation or social segregation to remain
separate. Distinct groups that have been incorporated within empires are often used in
military efforts to subjugate new groups, a strategy evident in the ancient empires of
Egypt and Assyria as well as the European empires as late as the twentieth century, when
for example the “British” army in Mesopotamia was composed largely of soldiers from
India, and the “French” army in the Levant was made up largely of Senegalese. The
expansion between ca. 900–600BCof the Assyrian Empire from its core in northern
Mesopotamia to territories beyond exemplifies the challenges to early empires posed by
cultural differences and suggests solutions developed by imperial elites. Before discussing
the politics of identity within the Assyrian Empire, however, we should consider the
nature of our sources.
The most extensive representations of cultural difference in the Assyrian Empire come
from the imperial centers. Royal inscriptions of Assyrian kings list conquered lands
and peoples, along with the products acquired as booty or tribute. Later Assyrian art
similarly depicts foreigners, each having distinctive and stereotyped hairstyle, clothing,
and forms of tribute. The relentlessly ideological portrayal of ethnic others in these
documents is somewhat more nuanced in administrative texts and letters, but even