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The Nimrud Letters, 1952—Part VIII

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

H. W. F. Saggs
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Extract

It is appropriate that the eleven letters here published, mostly concerned with imperial and military administration in the Assyrian Empire, should be dedicated to my teacher Professor Sidney Smith on the occasion of his seventy-seventh birthday, since to him I owe both the origin of my interest in this subject, and also invaluable assistance in my initial steps towards the interpretation of letters of this collection.

This publication, like that of previous sections of my ‘Nimrud Letters, 1952’, is to be taken as provisional only, since there still remain to be edited and published almost another hundred letters or fragments of letters, the contents of which may throw further light upon letters already published or necessitate some modifications of conclusions previously drawn from them. I am planning to publish all the Nimrud Letters in book form, with full grammatical and historical discussions, and to assist towards this project I have already collated all those Nimrud Letters previously published which are now in the Baghdad Museum; since these letters have been cleaned since I originally copied them, collation has in a number of instances produced improved readings.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1966 , pp. 177 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1966

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References

1 See Iraq XVII (1955), pp. 21–50, 126–154 and plates IV–IX, XXX–XXXV; XVIII (1956), pp. 40–56 and plates IX–XIIGoogle Scholar; XX (1958), pp. 182–212 and plates XXXVII–XLI; XXI (1959), pp. 158–179 and plates XLIII–XLIX; XXV (1963), pp. 70–80 and plates XI–XIV; XXVII (1965), pp. 17–32 and plates II–VII.

2 See Forrer, E., Die Provinzeinteilung des assyrischen Reiches (1920), p. 104Google Scholar.

3 See Iraq XVII, pp. 21–50Google Scholar.

4 All ideograms occurring in the texts, with the exception of those listed below, are transcribed into the assumed Akkadian value, with the Sumerian value following in Roman majuscules in brackets. The ideograms of relatively common occurrence listed below are normally rendered in the appropriate form of the assumed Akkadian value only, or, in the case of certain determinatives, in the form of the conventional abbreviation noted. Determinatives written as Sumerograms (MEŠ, KI, KÁM) are in Italic majuscules. In broken or obscure passages in which substantial doubt may exist as to the correct Akkadian (or more specifically Assyrian) form, an ideogram may be represented by a Sumerogram only. Where the plural determinative follows an ideogram of which the Sumerian value is given in addition to the Akkadian transcription, the determinative is represented only in association with the Sumerogram, the Akkadian word being given in the assumed plural form without separate representation of the determinative. Numerals are represented by Roman symbols, but placed in the Sumerian, not the Roman, order; e.g. GÍ*Š UŠ*Ù appears as LX XXX, not as XC, MIN LIM as II M, not MM.

ālu URU

amēlu LÚ

ardu ÈRI

muḫḫu UGU

niš*ū KALAM

pānu IGI

arḫu ITU

bēlu EN

bītu É

(d) determinative DINGIR

ekallu É.GAL

ina AŠ

issu TA (in form )

libbu ŠÀ

(m) determinative DIŠ

mār šipri A.KIN (but see below, note on LXXXVI, line 8)

pīḫātu NAM

sinništu SAL

ṣābu ERÍN

šamšu UTU

šarru LUGAL

šulmu SILIM

ūmu UD

The following symbols are used in transliteration:

x unrecognized sign wholly or partially extant

[x] one lost sign

x(?) possibility that the traces include part of one further unrecognized sign

[x](?) possibility of one lost sign

… loss of more than two signs, up to one-quarter of a line of text

…… loss of between one-quarter and one-half of a line of text

……… loss of between one-half and three-quarters of a line of text

………… loss of more than three-quarters of a line of text

: the word-divider

(!) the reading is certain, but the sign is in an unusual form

(!?) the reading is that of the proposed transcription if it may be assumed that the sign is in an unusual form

[PN] a lost personal name