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An Assyrian Stela Fragment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Stephanie Dalley
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Extract

The fragment published here is of black stone, from Mosul Museum, registered IM 55640, where the writer saw it on display in 1967. It comes from a stela that was probably similar in shape to most other neo-Assyrian stelae, and it records not only a military event and the king's name, but also a royal grant of land.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1976 , pp. 107 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1976

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References

1 Thanks are due to the Iraq Museum director Dr. Isa Salman for permission to publish; to P. G. Dorrell for the photographs from which the stone was studied, and to J. N. Postgate, who supplied from the museum register the details that it comes from Qala'at Shergat, registered in 1950, measurements 110 × 60 × 80 mm, found by a shepherd.

2 I am grateful to Messrs. A. K. Grayson, W. G. Lambert, J. E. Reade, J. N. Postgate and J. D. Hawkins for helpful criticisms.

3 See Unger, E., Die Stele des Bel-harran-beli-ussur, Konstantinopel 1917Google Scholar.

4 See King, L., BBSt, 121 ff and plateGoogle Scholar.

5 See Brinkman, J. A., PKB, 148 fGoogle Scholar.

6 Goetze, A., JCS 19 (1965), 121 ffGoogle Scholar.

7 The writer at first sight thought that the fragment was a piece of black stone Kassite kudurru, for it was in a showcase with a black stone kudurru fragment. This misleading appearance may be the reason why it has lain unrecognized.

8 Weidner, E., AfO 8 (1932–1933), 17–27Google Scholar; and Millard, A., Iraq 32 (1970), 174CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Babylonian sign forms are found e.g. in the (Assyrian) stone inscriptions of Sennacherib; see Grayson, A. K., AfO 20 (1963), 88–89Google Scholar; so they are are not necessarily significant here.

10 Postgate, J. N., NRGD, 115Google Scholar.

11 E. Unger, op. cit.

12 Two forms of ú; two of ki; two of a; two of šur; possibly four of na.

13 See K. Tallqvist, APN, s.v.

14 Apparently governor of Kurba'il ([ša urukur-ba]-AN).

15 See Hrouda, B., Die Kulturgeschichte des assyrischen Flachbildes, 43Google Scholar.

16 A very rough estimate is that the preserved lengths are at most one-third of the original length. Lines 9′-10′ contain the freedom from tax clauses that take up 4⅓ lines in the stele of Bel-harran-beli-uṣur; in line 5′ at least one verb (i.e. “appointed,” plus probable NAM) is missing, followed by a plural subject for ippariku/šu at the very least.

17 The thickness measurement of the small stela of Sennacherib, B.M. 124800, is approximately the same.

18 Moortgat, A., Art of Ancient Mesopotamia, 100Google Scholar, suggests that the neo-Assyrian obelisk form alone is derived from the Kassite kudurru. Certainly from this small fragment alone one could not safely make deductions about the origins of the stela form, nor indeed is there clear evidence to link the obelisk with the kudurru.