Would you kidnap a god? This ancient Mesopotamian empire did – and for a genius reason

Historian Selena Wisnom, an expert on ancient Assyria, calls it “godnapping” – the theft of an enemy’s gods.

In practice, that meant seizing the statue of a city’s patron deity – the physical embodiment of the god’s presence – transporting it to the Assyrian capital and holding it under guard. It could be a devastating public statement of Assyrian supremacy and divine endorsement. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast Wisnom describes this as “an offensive on morale”.

“Every city has got its own patron god, and if that protector is taken away … that is a disaster because it’s seen as the god abandoning the people.”

The Assyrian Empire: masters of conquest

The Assyrians were one of the great powers of the ancient Near East. From their heartland in northern Mesopotamia (modern-day northern Iraq), they built an empire with its beginnings in the early second millennium BC, reaching its height in the 9th–7th centuries BC.

At its greatest extent, the Neo-Assyrian Empire (c911–609 BC) stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, and from Egypt’s borders to the mountains of western Iran.

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Their success was built on highly organised armies, formidable siege technology and an intelligence network that kept the king informed of events across thousands of miles.

But the Assyrians also understood the destructive value of psychological warfare, and “godnapping” was one of their most potent tools.

An ancient world ruled by many gods

The Assyrians, like their Mesopotamian neighbours, were polytheistic. They worshipped a large pantheon of deities, and each god had specific domains.

Every major city also had its own patron deity, represented in the temple by a cult statue. To its citizens, that statue was the physical embodiment of the god’s presence and protection.

Living under the Mesopotamian gods’ gaze

The Assyrians believed their gods were active participants in the human world. Deities rewarded loyal service, punished wrongdoing, and could intervene in events, from the outcome of a battle to the success of a harvest.

“Anything that goes wrong in your life is because the gods are angry with you. If you become really ill, it’s because you are estranged from the gods in some way,” Wisnom explains.

Offending a god might come through obvious crimes, like theft and murder, but also through acts that seem distant from modern morality.

“Some of the things seem really odd to us, like vomiting in a river is apparently a great offence to the gods,” Wisnom says. Worse still, guilt could be contagious: “If you sit in the same chair as somebody who’s committed an offence, you can pick up that guilt yourself.”

In this worldview, a god’s anger, or their absence, could spell disaster for an entire community. That’s what gave godnapping such power.

Why kidnap a god?

When the Assyrians captured an enemy city, taking the statue of its patron god was a cosmic coup. For the defeated, it meant their god had allowed themselves to be taken, perhaps as a divine punishment. For the Assyrians, it was proof that the deity had switched allegiance.

“It’s like saying, ‘We’ve got them here in our city now, and this shows who the god really favours’,” Wisnom explains.

The tactic was used even against gods the Assyrians themselves revered. In the 7th century BC, they seized the statue of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, a city that was both a rival and an occasional ally. Marduk was part of the Assyrian religious world too, but possession of his statue sent an unmistakable message: Assyria, not Babylon, was the place he had chosen to protect.
“Once you’ve taken a god you don’t then necessarily add that god to your own pantheon. They keep them captive just to humiliate them, really,” Wisnom says.

The point was not to expand the Assyrian religious system, but to demonstrate dominance, to force the conquered to see their god languishing in foreign captivity, powerless to protect them.

Gods with human personalities

Part of the power of godnapping lay in Mesopotamian ideas about divine nature. The gods weren’t abstract theological principles; they had real personalities, emotions and agency.

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“The gods behave much like human beings. They can be persuaded, they can be tricked,” Wisnom explains. “They do things, they care, they intervene, and people are really trying to get their attention and call them over to their side.”

Within that worldview, physically relocating a god’s statue meant physically relocating the god’s presence. To the people of the captured city, their divine protector was now literally living with the enemy.

Ancient Mesopotamian warfare on two fronts

For the Assyrians, war was able to be fought in two arenas: the battlefield and the realm of divine allegiance. Capturing a god was a symbol of victory over an enemy’s army, yes, but it was also a restructuring of the cosmic order, proof that the gods themselves had sided with Assyria.

It was propaganda, theological dominance and psychological warfare in one.

As Wisnom notes, “every city had its own patron god, and if that protector was taken away, it was a disaster”.

For the Assyrians, instigating that disaster was part of the plan, and a sign that Assyria ruled with divine backing.

Selena Wisnom was speaking to Dr David Musgrove on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.

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