From Ritual Emergence to Codified Sovereignty: How Relational Cuts Shift Ontology
Babylonian and Assyrian cosmologies inherited the emergent, polycentric relational world of Sumer/Akkad but shifted it toward codified, centralised, and legally anchored order. Whereas early Mesopotamian thought foregrounded continuous negotiation with distributed powers, the Babylonian-Assyrian horizon foregrounds top-down regulation of reality, where human and divine activity operate within an increasingly textual and decreed cosmos.
1. World as Emergent Ritual-Cyclic Order
(Shift: World as Imperial-Codified Order)
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Sumerian worlds emerged through ongoing ritual engagement, with instability requiring continual human-divine interaction.
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Babylonian-Assyrian worlds, by contrast, are pre-structured and codified: cosmic and social order is encoded in laws, omens, and royal decrees.
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The universe is less negotiable, though humans still participate in sustaining order through ritual — now interpreted against the backdrop of fixed authority.
2. Gods as Distributed Powers of Situational Necessity
(Shift: Gods as Centralised Sovereign Authorities)
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Sumerian deities were functional nodes within relational systems, each influencing specific domains.
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Babylonian-Assyrian theology centralises divinity, often concentrating multiple powers in a supreme figure (e.g., Marduk), creating a hierarchically stratified system.
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Divine agency becomes imperialised, reflecting a shift from situational responsiveness to codified authority.
3. Humanity as Co-Maintainers of Cosmic Precarity
(Shift: Humanity as Subjects of Cosmic Legislation)
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In Sumer/Akkad, humans actively co-maintained order, with ritual success shaping cosmic stability.
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Babylon/Assyria reframes humans as subordinates, obligated to follow divine law and royal mediation to prevent chaos.
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Agency persists, but it is embedded within obedience and compliance, not improvisational negotiation.
4. Meaning as Ritual-Actualised, not Pre-Defined
(Shift: Meaning as Codified, Textually Mediated)
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Sumerian practice actualised meaning through performance, emphasising relational cuts and perspective.
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Babylonian-Assyrian texts (e.g., law codes, omen literature) predefine relational possibilities, constraining which actualisations are intelligible or efficacious.
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Semiotic agency shifts: from enacted interpretation to sanctioned enactment.
5. Ontology as Co-Dependent Stabilisation
(Shift: Ontology as Legally Anchored Order)
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Sumerian ontology relies on mutual adjustment of gods, humans, and environment.
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Babylonian-Assyrian ontology encodes relational stability in normative and legal frameworks.
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Instantiation remains crucial — events are intelligible only in context — but the context is increasingly predetermined, producing less ontological openness.
6. Relational Signature Line
| Concept | Sumer/Akkad | Babylon/Assyria |
|---|---|---|
| Systemic Potential | Distributed, negotiable | Codified, hierarchical |
| Instantiation | Relationally emergent | Compliance within law/ritual |
| Construal | Flexible, performance-based | Textually sanctioned and anticipated |
| Agency | Co-maintenance | Obedience-mediated action |
| Meaning | Emergent in action | Structured by decree |
Liora Micro-Myth: The Tablet of Many Names
Liora discovered a clay tablet, etched with the names of every deity in the city. As she touched each symbol, it glowed faintly.
A voice murmured:
“Here, meaning is fixed. Touching one name must produce this effect, not another. Reality itself follows the writing.”
Liora smiled faintly. She understood: the world had shifted from the lake of potential to the tablet of law, yet the cut she chose still enacted a perspective — albeit a constrained one.
Three-Line Takeaway
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Babylonian-Assyrian thought transforms emergent ritual cosmology into legally and textually anchored order.
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God, human, and cosmos are now hierarchically stratified, though relational cuts still operate within the codified system.
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Relational ontology shows that potential, instantiation, and construal remain operative, but the space of possibility is more tightly bounded.
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