Understanding how the numerous temples in the Neo-Assyrian Empire situated themselves within the imperial network is challenging, largely because of a bias in the official sources towards a few temples, especially that of Aššur. Revealing the relationships between the less-attested temples necessitates not only moving beyond the top of the hierarchy but also doing away with hierarchies almost entirely, as they both limit the possible connections and are impossible to build for the majority of known temples. Because there are myriad ways of organizing temples relative to one another, this paper proposes heterarchies as a more effective framework for understanding the changing dynamics of cultic landscapes. This study uses royal patronage (or its absence) as its barometer, establishing a typology that ranges from temples operating entirely independently of imperial support to those that actively seek it, and demonstrating how heterarchies can expose different perspectives of power, status, and affinities amongst institutions. Ultimately, a heterarchical approach shows that the relationships established by royal patronage were not straightforward, homogenous, or stable, and that the ways in which temple and state interacted with one another affected both “vertical” and “horizontal” positioning of temples within the cultic landscape of the empire.

了解新亚述帝国的众多寺庙如何将自己置于帝国网络中具有挑战性，这主要是因为官方资料偏向于少数寺庙，尤其是 Aššur 的寺庙。揭示未经证实的寺庙之间的关系不仅需要超越层次结构的顶端，而且还需要几乎完全取消层次结构，因为它们都限制了可能的联系，并且不可能为大多数已知的寺庙建立。由于相对于彼此而言，组织寺庙的方式多种多样，因此本文提出将异质性作为一种更有效的框架来理解文化景观的动态变化。本研究使用皇室赞助（或缺席）作为晴雨表，建立一种类型学，范围从完全独立于帝国支持的寺庙到积极寻求它的寺庙，并展示等级制度如何暴露机构之间权力、地位和亲和力的不同观点。最终，一种分层的方法表明，由皇室赞助建立的关系并不直接、同质或稳定，寺庙和国家相互影响的方式影响了寺庙在邪教中的“纵向”和“横向”定位。帝国的风景。