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The Tell al Rimah Tablets, 1966

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

D. J. Wiseman
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Extract

At the beginning of the 1966 season of excavations at Tell al Rimah work was continued in Site A, Trench Ab of the Temple courtyard (Level Ib). It was from this same provenance that a number of tablets had been cleared at the end of the previous season, but of the forty tablets and fragments found only a few appear to relate to the Abu-ṭāb archive discovered in that year. Some tablets were sufficiently legible to be treated, read and copied immediately; others, despite laboratory treatment, are unlikely to yield much further information that can be given in the brief notes in the Register (Appendix D) or in the copies presented in Plates LVII-LXVI.

Date. Twenty-one of the texts are dated by eponyms which, compared with Middle Assyrian tablets previously known, indicate a period of at least twenty-five years predominantly to the end of the reign of Shalmaneser I (1274–1245 B.C.), with some to the early years of Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1208) i.e. c. 1260–1230 B.C. Limmu-officials otherwise unattested and now to be placed within this period are Ištu-dAuma (TR. 3001, 3002), Ṣiili-Adad (3007), Adad-šum-lišir (3016) and some broken names. The month names follow the accepted M. Assyrian practice as at Aššur and Bilia. Three texts are written in a skilled hand on a fine reddish clay, reminiscent of the Neo-Assyrian libraries and are to be dated somewhat later. These are a census of storerooms, stables and other large buildings round the temple controlled by individuals (3017); a list of tenants or owners of plots of land between 33–60 iku (3020); TR. 3024 lists names of persons.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1968 , pp. 175 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1968

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References

page 175 note 1 Oates, D., Iraq 29 (1967), 90–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 175 note 2 TR. 3009, 3010, 3018, 3023, 3025 may relate directly to the Abu-ṭāb archive, see pp. 154ff.

page 175 note 3 Thanks are due to Dr. R. D. Barnett of the British Museum for arranging to have the more broken tablets (loaned by kind permission of the Director General of Antiquities, Iraq, for the purpose) fired and cleaned by Mr. C. A. Bateman. Leave of absence to take part in the expedition was granted me by the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London.

page 175 note 4 In these copies it is to be noted that the seal superscriptions, having been inscribed in a shallow script after the compilation of the main text in spaces left for the purpose, are distinguished by blocked characters and are not counted in the numeration of the lines.

page 175 note 5 Perhaps the same as the father of Abattu, an eponym of the reign of Shalmaneser I (KAJ 89).

page 175 note 6 dAššur-x x-ṣabatte?, 3029, 15; [x x-ibaš[ši ?-ili, 3030, 22; see also x-bêl-lišīr, 111, 32; x-x-mušēzib, 109, 27.

page 175 note 7 Finkelstein, J. J., JCS 7 (1953), 121.Google Scholar

page 175 note 8 The provenance and similarity of personal names to the main group of texts make it unlikely, however, that these three texts should be dated to any much later period.

page 175 note 9 The subdivision KU= kumanu (= ¼ ikū), if rightly interpreted, is a land measure already known from the somewhat earlier Alalaḫ texts (AT. 209).

page 176 note 10 Or possibly 30 mana (½ talent, 3006, 3016). Other amounts are 1 talent (3030, 3031), 1 talent 10 mana (3021), 3 talents (3002) and 3 talents 30 mana (3012, cf. 2017).

page 176 note 11 Cf. TR. 2057 (12 talents).

page 176 note 12 The restricted number of persons trading in tin is reminiscent of the four officials, working on a palace rota system at Mari, who controlled imports there of oil and honey (ARM IX 267Google Scholar; XI 126; JSS 10 (1965), 125Google Scholar). Also only a few persons dominated imports at Aššur at this same period.

page 176 note 13 For similar cancelled contracts see e.g. CT 6, 5Google Scholar (Bu. 91–5–9, 270).

page 176 note 14 The association with Adad-x-bi derives from TR. 3018. The other descendants of Abu-ṭāb, from TR. 2055, 2906, 2028 respectively (cf. 2025, 2080), assume that the same Abu-ṭāb is referred to in each instance.

page 177 note 15 Nissen, N. J. in Heidelberger Študien Zum alten Orient (1967), 111–120.Google Scholar

page 177 note 16 In N. Mesopotamia according to Dossin, G., Symbolae … P. Koscbaker, 116Google Scholar; AfO 14 (1941–1944), 25Google Scholar; JCS 7 (1953), 61Google Scholar; Or. 1952, 407.Google Scholar

page 177 note 17 Finkelstein, J. J., JCS 7 (1953), 119Google Scholar but cf. my suggestion in Iraq 13 (1951), 116Google Scholar that it could refer to the citadel of any large city.

page 177 note 18 See p. 156.

page 178 note 19 RLA I, 130.Google Scholar

page 178 note 20 For references see Appendix B, sub dKUR.NA.

page 178 note 21 See BASOR 95 (1944), 23–35Google Scholar; Frankena, R., Tākultu, 100.Google Scholar Written Kur-ba-ni, 3022, 5.

page 178 note 22 Fine, H. A., Študies in Middle-Assyrian Chronology and Religion, 43.Google Scholar

page 186 note 1 Cf. Weidner, E. F., AfO 20 (1963), 121 ff.Google Scholar

page 186 note 2 Cf. KUR.NA-ia, with Šalaia and the discussion on p. 177f.