118 



Lutz, Viticulture and Brewing. 



(see Jastrow-Clay, An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilga- 

 mesh Epic, p. 65). Drinking was practised on a large scale at 

 the courts of Babylon and Persia', and Nineveh 2. From the 

 latter city we possess monumental representations of Assyrian 

 banquets 3. The banquet scenes represent the guests only as 

 drinking. The sculpture never shows them eating. We see 

 the servants emptying a huge wine-bowl with drinking-cups. 

 The wine-bowl stands on the ground and is of a tremendous 



No. 27. Assurbanipal reclininfj in a bower (after Jeremias, Das Alte Testa- 

 ment im Lichte des Alien Orients). 



size, reaching up to a man's chest. The prophet Nahum cha- 

 racterizes the Ninevites as drunkards, saying^: "While they 

 are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured, as stubble 

 fully dry". Ishtar bids Assurbanipal: "Eat food, drink strong 

 wine, make music (and) exalt my divinity," a-ktil a-ka-lu si-ti 



i) lltrod. 9, no; Daniel 5, i; Esther i, 3: Diod. Sic. II, 20. 



2) Nahum i, 10. 



3) See Botta, Monument, plates 51 67: 107 114. 



4) Nahum i, 10. 



