Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2014
Among the discoveries made in the course of the excavations of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq at Nimrud in the spring of 1962 was a well-preserved hollow clay barrel-cylinder of Esarhaddon, ND. 11308 (Plate XXXV, opposite p. 117), found just outside the south wall of the ancient town near its south-east corner; it had presumably fallen from a building above in Fort Shalmaneser. It is now in the Iraq Museum.
The cylinder, virtually undamaged except by the pick-mark of unexpected discovery, is 17·7 cm. long; it has a maximum diameter of 10·4 cm., and a diameter at each end of 9 cm.; at the left end is a circular hole 1·8 cm. in diameter, at the right end a circular hole 1·5 cm. in diameter: it bears an inscription of 64 lines, each c. 15 cm. long, lines 1–62 of which are duplicated (except in minor points listed below) by lines 1–62 of the inscription on the cylinder ND. 1126 (BM 131129), whose measurements in the same dimensions are 19 cm., 10·2 cm., 9·7 cm., 1·7 cm., 1·8 cm., and c. 16 cm. respectively.
1 Wiseman, D. J., Iraq XIV (1952), Pt. 1, pp. 54–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Borger, R., Die Inschriften Asarhaddons Königs von Assyrien, Graz, 1956, § 21, pp. 32–35Google Scholar (“Klch. A”); it was found by a ploughman not far from the east bank of the Tigris, about two miles from Fort Shalmaneser, though, as Oates, D. suggests (Iraq XXIV, 1962, Pt. 1, p. 6, n. 6)Google Scholar, it may well have been carried thither from Fort Shalmaneser.
2. Gelb, J., B.O. XIX 3/4 (1962), pp. 159–162Google Scholar.
3 Nassouhi, E., M.A.O.G. III 1/2 (1927), pp. 22–32Google Scholar; Borger, op. cit. § 43, pp. 71–72 (“Trb. A”); this Ashur cylinder (lines 1–21) also duplicates lines 1–39 of the newly-found inscription.
4 Wiseman, D. J., Iraq XX (1958), Pt. 1, pp. 1–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Plates 1–53.
5 18 Aiaru on ND. 4354D, 18 [Aiaru] on ND. 4354F, Iraq XX (1958)Google Scholar, Pt. 1, Pl. 49; 16 Aiaru on ND. 4336C, ibid. Pl. 43.
6 The signs missing as a result of damage to ND. 11308 are: 1. 10, me, ku; 1. 11, ul; 1. 12, ilXV ša (second occurrence); 1. 17, KUR. Signs missing in ND. 1126 are assumed to have been as restored by its editor.
7 ND. 1126 has taq (as in the transliteration), not Zaq (as in the copy).