CONCLUSION

Despite the frequent and flashy display of texts in both palaces and in the open air, their contents were largely lost upon the general onlooker. Akkadian was never a widely read language and it remained cryptic and esoteric during even the floruit of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. While the contents of these texts were underappreciated, their presence in palace reliefs and stelae that glorified the king as elite display inscriptions is not to be undervalued. Rather than serving to communicate verbally, the inclusion of text typically functioned visually to represent abstractly the words of the king and the power he has to make them physical and permanent. The general onlooker may not have been impressed by the words themselves, but merely by their inclusion and juxtaposition with vivid portrays of the king conquering chaotic lands, barbarous enemies, and wild beasts so as to bring order to the empire and enlarge its wealth. Since these inscriptions relied on the visual use of writing to represent the king, they necessitating the use of Akkadian only, even when the local populations would have spoken Aramaic or even Greek. However useful it may have been to use Aramaic to appeal to locals, this was not desired by the king. Instead, he was more interested in the gods and future rulers and who would look upon his image and his words, which were captured in the prestigious Akkadian language. Accordingly, these elite display inscriptions demonstrate the triumphs of the visual over the verbal and of Akkadian over Aramaic in order to glorify the king.