December 2023

Some years ago I went to an exhibition at the British Museum in London about Ashurbanipal, ruler of the huge neo-Assyrian empire in the 7^th century BCE. Among the panels was part of the great king’s achievements, as declared by himself. It sounded just like a modern CV, or at least, the ones I was taught to write towards the end of my working life. Later I came across a similar declaration from the Norse period, by Rognald Kali Kollsson, Earl of Orkney in the mid-12th century CE. I was interested to see what the two leaders considered to be their qualifications for their jobs.

Ashurbanipal reigned between 669 – 631BCE. Although he was popular with his subjects, he was noted for his ruthlessness and cruelty to anyone who opposed him, even by the standards of his day. Some of the scenes recorded on the carved stone reliefs that decorated his palace at Nineveh record some nasty deeds. This one shows a peaceful scene where he is enjoying an al-fresco meal with his queen in a garden – until you notice the severed head hanging from the tree on the left.

He wasn’t shy about stating his qualifications for the job of king of Assyria. His CV proudly stated that he was good at maths, including complex multiplications and divisions – the Assyrians were advanced mathematicians. It’s nice to meet a head of state who considered being good at maths important for the job. He claimed to be good at ancient languages as well, (Greats at Oxford springs to mind) and could read difficult texts in both Akkadian and Sumerian. He himself would have spoken Assyrian, a Semitic language, for everyday use. Unusually for a monarch in those days, Ashurbanipal could read and write, and palace reliefs show him with long reed pens tucked into his belt, used for making the wedge-shaped impressions in soft clay of cuneiform, the earliest known writing in the world.  He was also good at sport, including archery, riding, throwing javelins and driving chariots.

The king had a passion for books and knowledge, and had a library which was famous for centuries afterwards, predating the famous library in Alexandria. He sent agents to temples all over his territory to collect copies of significant works on many subjects. These now form a priceless record of Assyrian civilisation, written at the time by the Assyrians themselves, among them the “Epic of Gilgamesh”, one of the oldest known works of literature in the world. The texts were preserved when the fire which eventually destroyed the palace at Nineveh baked the clay tablets hard, and they were protected when the walls collapsed on top of them. They were excavated in the mid-19^th century and many are now in the British Museum.

Rognvald Kali Kolsson (1136-58) didn’t rule an empire but he controlled a substantial earldom. He was the nephew of St Magnus Erlundson and built St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall during a power struggle with his cousin for the earldom. He later obtained control of Caithness on mainland Scotland as well.

The earl boasted of having nine skills. Like Ashurbanipal, he was proud of being able to read and write (the Vikings used runes), and compose poetry. The Orkneyingasaga describes a number of places and people he visited on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1151. This included a famous visit to Ermengard, the beautiful princess of Narbonne, about whom he wrote a number of poems recorded in the Saga. He was clearly smitten with her, but did not accept an offer to stay and marry her and rule Narbonne with her.  

Rognvald was good at the courtly arts of 12^th century Europe, including chess and playing a musical instrument. Like Ashurbanipal, he was good at archery, and he could ski (he was born and brought up in Norway) and row, as a good Viking should. He doesn’t seem to have included advanced mathematics among his achievements though. Rognvald and his companions made it home to Orkney but he was killed in 1158, buried in St Magnus Cathedral and (probably) canonised in 1192 by Pope Celestine III.

So it appears that literacy and sport were important for a ruler hundreds or even thousands of years ago, but numeracy was an optional extra!