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An Ancient Scribal Error and its Modern Consequences: the date of the Nimrud Slab Inscription No. 1*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Hayim Tadmor
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Extract

Any attempt to reconstruct the proper chronological sequence of the military achievements of Tiglath-pileser III is greatly hampered by the fragmentary state of his annals uncovered during the century of excavations at Nimrud. Only portions of the text incised on sculptured stone slabs and designed to decorate the monarch's newly built palace have survived. Naturally, this deficiency has greatly enhanced the value of the non-annalistic records of Tiglath-pileser, namely the “summary” (or “display”) inscriptions written on stone slabs and clay tablets. Composed – like the annals – towards the very close of his reign, the texts of this genre relate the military exploits according to a geographical rather than strictly chronological sequence. The enumeration of the conquered lands usually adheres to a set order: it begins with the South (=Babylonia), proceeds to the East (=Namri and Media), then to the North (=Urartu and Ulluba), and concludes with the West (=from North Syria to the border of Egypt).

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 33 , December 1983 , pp. 199 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1983

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References

1 As it appears now the palace remained unfinished. See R. D. Barnett's appendix to my Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III: King of Assyria, in press (hereafter: ITP).

2 Tadmor, H., “Introductory Remarks to a New Edition of the Annals of Tiglath-Pileser III”, Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 2 (1968), 168–184Google Scholar. Since then several additional fragments have been uncovered at Nimrud by the Polish Archaeological Mission, see the preliminary reports of Sobolewski, R., Etudes et Travaux II (1978), 253 ffGoogle Scholar. and ZA 71 (1981), 263–4Google Scholar.

3 See Wiseman, D. J., Iraq 18 (1956), 118CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grayson, A. K., Orientalia 48 (1979), 152–5Google Scholar.

4 “Nimrud Slab No. 2” 11. 3–9; K.3751. obv. 11. 59; D.T.3 11. 5–8; = Rost, P., Die Keilschrifttexte Tiglat-Pilesers III, Pt. I, Leipzig 1893 (hereafter: Rost, TP III) pp. 47; 54Google Scholar and Pt. II, Pl. XXXIV (= ITP, Summ. 2; Summ. 7 and Summ. 11); Luckenbill, D. D.: Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia (hereafter: ARAB) I (Chicago, 1926)Google Scholar, § §809, 787, 805.

5 Wiseman, , Iraq 18, p. 118, n. 3Google Scholar. Cf. also Barnett, R. D. and Falkner, M., The Sculptures of Tiglath Pileser III (London, 1962Google Scholar; hereafter: STP), 26 no. 18. The inscription was published by Layard, in Inscriptions in Cuneiform Character from Assyrian Monuments (London 1851Google Scholar; hereafter: ICC) pls. 17–18 and edited by Rost, , TP III, pp. 42–7Google Scholar as “Platteninschrift von Nimrud No. 1” (ARAB I §§780–785Google Scholar = ITP, Summ. 1). According to the card-file of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities (information courtesy of Mr. C. B. F. Walker), the measurements of the slab are: height 90 or 91 inches, width 109 inches.

6 Rost, , TP III, 42Google Scholar (ARAB I §782).

7 Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (Giessen, 1872), 128Google Scholar; “Zur Kritik der Inschriften Tiglath-Pileser's II”, Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin 1879 (Berlin, 1880), 30Google Scholar; Sammlung von assyrischen und babylonischen Texten (Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek II/1; Berlin, 1890), 2–3Google Scholar note 2.

8 Assyrian Historiography (Columbia, Missouri, 1916), 34Google Scholar; cf. however R. Borger's recent comment: Borger, and Tadmor, , ZAW 94 (1982), 247–8Google Scholar. D. D. Luckenbill, adopted the view that this is “probably the earliest extant of Tiglath-pileser's inscriptions … which is to be dated in, or soon after, 734 B.C.” (ARAB 1 § 780Google Scholar). Could it be that Luckenbill's “734” is a printer's error for “743”? (Borger [op, cit.], however, suggests that it was rather Olmstead's “743” that might result from a printing error).

9 A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia (Analecta Orientalia 43; Roma, 1968), 229Google Scholar, notes 1442, 1460.

10 An eloquent argument that a campaign to Ulluba was conducted already in 743 so that the Nimrud Slab No. 1 must be dated to that year has been mustered by E. R. Thiele in his detailed discussion of the Biblical chronology of that period: JNES 3 (1944), 155–63Google Scholar; The Mysterious Numbers of Hebrew Kings (Chicago, 1951), 82–98Google Scholar; 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1965), 97–115.

11 Ungnad, A., “Eponymen”, Reallexikon der Assyriologie II (1938), 430–1Google Scholar. Note, however, that the entry 743: ina uruArpadda dīktu ša kurUrarti dīkat should not be translated: “In the city of Arpad. A massacre took place in the land of Urartu” (so ARAB II p. 436 and Thiele, op. cit.Google Scholar) but rather: “In Arpad Urartu suffered a defeat” (so Diakonoff, I. M., Vestnik Drevnei Istorii, 1951, No. 2, p. 307Google Scholar; CAD ‘D’, 139b; Tadmor, , Scripta Hierosolymitana 8 [1961], 254Google Scholar.).

12 Layard, ICC pls. 71–72b;Rost, , TP III, 12–13 11. 59–73Google Scholar.

13 St. I B, 21′–27′, to appear in ITP in collaboration with L. D. Levine.

14 For these localities and the route of Sarduri's retreat see now Astour, M., “The Arena of Tiglath-Pileser III's Campaign Against Sarduri II (743 B.C.)”, Assur 2, issue 3 (1979), 7–17Google Scholar.

15 Postgate, J. N., “The Inscription of Tiglath-Pileser III at Mila Mergi”, Sumer 29 (1974), 47–59Google Scholar.

16 BM 118908, published as III R 10, 1;Rost, , TP III, 30–2, 11, 177–90Google Scholar; STP, Pl. LXIX.

17 Rost, , TP III, 4 11. 12–15Google Scholar (ARAB I § 764).

18 My colleague Aaron Shaffer, who was kind enough to examine the photographs of the squeeze after this paper had been submitted for publication, suggested that the scribe had indeed written a-di, but for some unknown reason decided to erase it and instead to write ul-tu. Thus, ul was incised on top of a and di was made into a tu. As there was not space to write a proper Assyrian lapidary tu he wrote the narrower Babylonian form, using the original Winkelhaken and adding three additional small wedges on top of it.

19 Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens (Berlin, 1884–1888), 651 ffGoogle Scholar.

20 TP III, Introduction, pp. III; XVII–XX; XXVII–XXVIIIGoogle Scholar.

21 Another inference from this dating of the Nimrud Slab Inscription is that our reconstruction of Tiglath-pileser's campaigns to Babylonia accords more with that of Rost rather than with that of Brinkman (above, n. 9), which is based on the assumption that this inscription was “written in or shortly after 743” (ibid.). Accordingly, we assign to the later encounters in Babylonia – the years 731–729 – the conquest of Bit-Shilani with Sarrabanu its capital: the plunder of Bit-Amukani and imposition of tribute upon the “skeikhs” (ra'sāni) of Chaldaea (11. 8–15). Whereas the subjugation of the East Aramaean tribes along the Tigris and the Kerkha rivers (11. 4–7) are assigned to the earlier encounter of 745.