Hard working even before slavery!

As I look around, I see many fellow warrior partners that battled with me while fighting under Sumer. We are as close as brothers! We not only fought battles alongside one another, we constructed roads, temples and palaces! One palace we built housed the great Assyrian King; Shamshi-Adad I. This took many years, and the road leading to the palace was made from over a million stones. The king paid us for our efforts with animal skin for warmth and wine from his farmland grapes. We built a great temple in our city-state which was used daily by all for worship.

Many nights my brothers and I melted metals and constructed our own tools and weapons. The King’s slaves would mine for tin within the mountains and bring it to our army. We would smelt it down then add it to molten copper to make bronze alloy. We would flatten and shape our tools and weapons by pounding on it with rocks while red-hot. This process has become known as part of the Bronze Age in today’s history books. Yes, the spears we once manufactured sitting by the fire were not only used in battle to kill our enemy, but were the same one’s our slave masters would puncture in our feet for punishment.

My brothers and I are very hard working; before and after our slavery days. I will admit life was more adventurous and enjoyable prior to being captured. However, we are men and men are supposed to work. I stay optimistic in hopes we will one day be free from Hammurabi’s ruling.

My idol

As a child, I remember my father as a powerful man!  He had arms of iron and a mind sharp as a sword.  He was a great Assyrian warrior!  He would tell us great stories of battle, the good and bad.  When my father was gone, my mother took care of me and the household.  She would bake bread for him and his brothers when they set off for battle.  After a successful defeat, our family would be showered with wine, cheese and fruit from the King's men.  He may have killed many, but that is what he was made to do.  One day my father set off on yet another battle to the east.  The Assyrian warriors were due back in three days.  Upon their return, my mother and I were awakened by my father's warrior brother.  He told us the most devastating news...my courageous father has lost his life.  The realization was there and we knew this could happen, but we could do nothing but cry in disbelief.  My father was my idol and I would grow to make him proud!  This was the day I decided I would become a great warrior...just like him!