 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2015) |
 First edition | |
| Author | Anne Rice |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical, Horror novel |
| Published | July 29, 1996 |
| Publisher | Knopf |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 387 |
| ISBN | 978-0676970036 |
| OCLC | 438534804 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3568.I265 S47 1996 |
Servant of the Bones (1996) is a historical horror novel by Anne Rice.
Servant of the Bones is an account of the creation and subsequent existence of a genie, Azriel. It is a story told as a fireside chat and includes historical accounts of Azriel's life as a displaced Jewish merchant's son in Babylon at the time of its conquest by Cyrus the Persian. There are also glimpses of life in ancient Miletus, in Strasbourg during a pogrom, and New York City of the 1990s.
Throughout the novel, Azriel is struggling to understand whether he is a ghost, a demon, or an angel. He is trying to understand why God has denied him the Stairway to Heaven by allowing him to be made into an immortal spirit who is bound to the gold-encased bones of his mortal body. As a genie, he must obey the Master of those bones (whoever has them at the moment) and become the Master's Servant, whether for good or evil. Thus the title, Servant of the Bones.
Azriel is telling the story of his transformation into and subsequent existence as an immortal genii who is forced to obey the Master who calls him. Over centuries, Azriel becomes less obedient to the Masters and a warning is placed on the casket of his bones that he is not to be summoned lest his evil be loosed upon the undeserving world.
After many centuries of rest, Azriel finds himself awake and in New York City, a dazed witness to the murder of a young woman, Esther Belkin. He becomes inexplicably obsessed with the desire to avenge her death and to find out who called him into the physical world in time to see Esther die but not in time to save her. This quest leads him to the girl's stepfather, Gregory Belkin, who would pay any price to fulfill his messianic dream via his immense worldwide religious organization, the Temple of the Mind of God.
As his quest approaches its climax, he risks his supernatural powers to forestall an attempt to destroy the world thus redeeming what was denied him for so long: his own eternal human soul.
As a work of historical fiction, this novel has several characters who were real or from ancient mythologies: Alexander the Great, Cyrus, Marduk, Nabonidus, Pharaoh.
From 2011 to 2012, Servant of the Bones was adapted as a six-issue comic book miniseries by IDW Publishing, entitled Anne Rice's Servant of the Bones. [1] The novel was adapted by writer Mariah McCourt. [1] [2]
Babylonia was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia. It emerged as an Akkadian populated but Amorite-ruled state c. 1894 BC. During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was retrospectively called "the country of Akkad", a deliberate archaism in reference to the previous glory of the Akkadian Empire. It was often involved in rivalry with the older ethno-linguistically related state of Assyria in the north of Mesopotamia and Elam to the east in Ancient Iran. Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi created a short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire. The Babylonian Empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi and reverted to a small kingdom centered around the city of Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar II, also spelled Nebuchadrezzar II, was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Historically known as Nebuchadnezzar the Great, he is typically regarded as the empire's greatest king. Nebuchadnezzar remains famous for his military campaigns in the Levant, for his construction projects in his capital, Babylon, including the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and for the role he plays in Jewish history. Ruling for 43 years, Nebuchadnezzar was the longest-reigning king of the Babylonian dynasty. By the time of his death, he was among the most powerful rulers in the world.
Neriglissar was the fourth king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from his usurpation of the throne in 560 BC to his death in 556 BC. Though unrelated to previous Babylonian kings, possibly being of Aramean ancestry, Neriglissar was a prominent official and general in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II and became even more influential through marrying one of Nebuchadnezzar's daughters, possibly Kashshaya.
Marduk is a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon who eventually rose to power in the First Millennium BC. In the city of Babylon, Marduk was worshipped in the temple Esagila. His symbol is the spade and he is associated with the Mušḫuššu.
Belshazzar was the son and crown prince of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Through his mother, he might have been a grandson of Nebuchadnezzar II, though this is not certain and the claims to kinship with Nebuchadnezzar may have originated from royal propaganda.
Nabonidus was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 556 BC to the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenian Empire under Cyrus the Great in 539 BC. Nabonidus was the last native ruler of ancient Mesopotamia, the end of his reign marking the end of thousands of years of Sumero-Akkadian states, kingdoms and empires. He was also the last independent king of Babylon. Regarded as one of the most vibrant and individualistic rulers of his time, Nabonidus is characterised by some scholars as an unorthodox religious reformer and as the first archaeologist.
Cyrus the Great was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire and king of Persia from 559 to 530 BC. He is venerated in the Tanakh as Cyrus the Messiah for conquering Babylon and liberating the Jews from captivity.
Cyrus II of Persia, commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Median Empire and embracing all of the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanding vastly and eventually conquering most of West Asia and much of Central Asia to create what would soon become the largest polity in human history at the time. The Achaemenid Empire's largest territorial extent was achieved under Darius the Great, whose rule stretched from the Balkans and the rest of Southeast Europe in the west to the Indus Valley in the east.
Labashi-Marduk was the fifth and penultimate king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling in 556 BC. He was the son and successor of Neriglissar. Though classical authors such as Berossus wrote that Labashi-Marduk was just a child when he became king, Babylonian documents indicate that he had been in charge of his own affairs before his rise to the throne, suggesting he was an adult, though possibly still relatively young.
The Cyrus Cylinder is an ancient clay cylinder, now broken into several pieces, on which is written an Achaemenid royal inscription in Akkadian cuneiform script in the name of the Persian king Cyrus the Great. It dates from the 6th century BC and was discovered in the ruins of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon in 1879. It is currently in the possession of the British Museum. It was created and used as a foundation deposit following the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire was invaded by Cyrus and incorporated into his Persian Empire.
The Nabonidus Chronicle is an ancient Babylonian text, part of a larger series of Babylonian Chronicles inscribed in cuneiform script on clay tablets. It deals primarily with the reign of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, covers the conquest of Babylon by the Persian king Cyrus the Great, and ends with the start of the reign of Cyrus's son Cambyses II, spanning a period from 556 BC to some time after 539 BC. It provides a rare contemporary account of Cyrus's rise to power and is the main source of information on this period; Amélie Kuhrt describes it as "the most reliable and sober [ancient] account of the fall of Babylon."
The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC and being firmly established through the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 539 BC, marking the collapse of the Chaldean dynasty less than a century after its founding.
The Chaldean dynasty, also known as the Neo-Babylonian dynasty and enumerated as Dynasty X of Babylon, was the ruling dynasty of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling as kings of Babylon from the ascent of Nabopolassar in 626 BC to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. The dynasty, as connected to Nabopolassar through descent, was deposed in 560 BC by the Aramean official Neriglissar, though he was connected to the Chaldean kings through marriage and his son and successor, Labashi-Marduk, might have reintroduced the bloodline to the throne. The final Neo-Babylonian king, Nabonidus, was genealogically unconnected to the previous kings, but might, like Neriglissar, also have been connected to the dynasty through marriage.
The Cylinders of Nabonidus refers to cuneiform inscriptions of king Nabonidus of Babylonia. These inscriptions were made on clay cylinders. They include the Nabonidus Cylinder from Sippar, and the Nabonidus Cylinders from Ur, four in number.
The Battle of Opis was the last major military engagement between the Achaemenid Persian Empire and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which took place in September 539 BC, during the Persian invasion of Mesopotamia. At the time, Babylonia was the last major power in Western Asia that was not yet under Persian control. The battle was fought in or near the strategic riverside city of Opis, located north of the capital city of Babylon in modern-day Iraq, and resulted in a decisive victory for Persia. Shortly afterwards, the Babylonian city of Sippar surrendered to Persian forces, who then supposedly entered Babylon without facing any further resistance. The Persian king Cyrus the Great was subsequently proclaimed as the king of Babylonia and its subject territories, thus ending its independence and incorporating the entirety of the fallen Neo-Babylonian Empire into the greater Achaemenid Empire.
The Medo-Persian conflict was a military campaign led by the Median king Astyages against Persis in the mid 6th-century BCE. Classical sources claim that Persis had been a vassal of the Median kingdom that revolted against Median rule, but this is not confirmed by contemporary evidence. After some battles the Persians led by Cyrus the Great emerged victorious, subsequently conquering Median territories and establishing the Achaemenid Empire.
The fall of Babylon was the decisive event that marked the total defeat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire to the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 539 BCE.
Adad-guppi, also known as Addagoppe, was a devotee of the moon god Sîn in the northern Assyrian city of Harran, and the mother of King Nabonidus of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
Akkadian or Mesopotamian royal titulary refers to the royal titles and epithets assumed by monarchs in Ancient Mesopotamia from the Akkadian period to the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, with some scant usage in the later Achaemenid and Seleucid periods. The titles and the order they were presented in varied from king to king, with similarities between kings usually being because of a king's explicit choice to align himself with a predecessor. Some titles, like the Akkadian šar kibrāt erbetti and šar kiššatim and the Neo-Sumerian šar māt Šumeri u Akkadi would remain in use for more than a thousand years through several different empires and others were only used by a single king.
The Harran Stela was discovered in 1956 in the ruins of Harran, in what is now southeast Turkey. It consists of two parts, both of which show, at the top, Nabonidus worshipping symbols of the Sun, Ishtar, and the moon-god Sin. The Stela was likely composed between 542–540 BC.