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Peter Hulin's hand copies of Shalmaneser III's inscriptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Shigeo Yamada
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Extract

The late Peter Hulin devoted much of his scholarly life to the study of the inscriptions of Shalmaneser III, king of Assyria (859–824 BC). He copied and studied a number of texts of this monarch excavated at Nimrud. Among them, the inscriptions on the throne base (ND 11000) were published in 1963. Unfortunately, however, his death in 1993 prevented him from publishing the further fruits of his effort.

After Hulin's death his file of Shalmaneser III texts was placed at the disposal of Professor A. K. Grayson for use in his third volume of the series Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Periods: Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC II (858–745 BC), Toronto, 1996 (RIMA 3). Thus Hulin's study of several new texts from Nimrud, as well as some others, was effectively utilized and incorporated in RIMA 3, with full respect being paid to his contribution.

The purpose of this paper is to supplement RIMA 3 by publishing Hulin's hand copies of Shalmaneser texts found among his papers in a publishable state, together with several photographs, and to add some philological notes on them. Among Hulin's copies, those of the lengthy texts on the large stone tablet ND 6237 (below, No. 1) and on the broken statue N D 5500 (below, No. 2) are of primary importance. These texts were originally assigned to Hulin by Professors M. E. L. Mallowan and D. J. Wiseman for publication in the journal Iraq. His copies were entrusted to Dr Jeremy Black of the Oriental Institute, Oxford University, by Mrs Mary Hulin and are gratefully used in this publication by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 62 , 2000 , pp. 65 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2000

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References

1 “The Inscriptions on the Carved Throne-Base of Shalmaneser III”, Iraq 25 (1963), pp. 48–69 and Pl. XCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 RIMA 3, pp. xi (general comment on Hulin's contribution), 7 (A.0.102.1: the use of Hulin's copy and draft transliteration of the stone tablet from Fort Shalmaneser ND 6237, IM 60636 [see below, No. 1]), 27 (A.0.102.5: the use of Hulin's copy and preliminary edition of the Balawat Gate inscriptions), 50 (A.0.102.10: the use of Hulin's copy of an Istanbul duplicate of the stone tablet from Assur IM 55644), 72 f. (A.0.102.16: the use of Hulin's copy and draft transliteration of the broken statue from Nimrud ND 5500, IM 60496 [see below, No. 2]), 105 (A.0.102.29: use of Hulin's draft transliteration of a stone slab from Fort Shalmaneser [first full publication]; no hand copy is available), 106–14 (A.0.102.30-37: use of Hulin's draft transliteration of the inscriptions on door-sills and door-sockets of Fort Shalmaneser [all first publication except for A.0.102.34]; no hand copy is available).

3 For the location of the finds at Fort Shalmaneser, see Oates, D., “Fort Shalmaneser — An Interim Report”, Iraq 21 (1959), p. 101 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and idem, “The Excavations at Nimrud (Kalḫu), 1960”, Iraq 23 (1961), p. 14. Cf. Grayson, RIMA 3, p. 7.

4 RIMA 3, p. 7.

5 R. Borger, Assyrisch-babylonische Zeichenliste (AOAT 33/33A), Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1981, p. 69; AHw, p. 1201a; CAD Š/II, p. 197. Cf. also the phrase i-na MU-ma ši-a-ti “in the same year”, attested in several versions of Shalmaneser's annals, which introduces the narrative of the campaign against Mazamua (alias Zamua), the second campaign conducted in the fourth regnal year (855 BC), immediately after the first one against Shitamrat (in North Syria) (RIMA 3, A.0.102.2 [Kurkh Monolith], ii 75; A.0.102.6 [Sixteen-Year Annals], ii 10; A.0.102.10 [Twenty-Year Annals], ii 6; A.0.102.14 [Black Obelisk], 1. 50; A.0.102.16 [Calah Statue], 1. 24).

6 Mahmud, M. and Black, J., “Recent Work in the Nabu Temple, Nimrud”, Sumer 44 (1985/1986), pp. 135–55Google Scholar (Text No. 1) = RIMA 3, A.0.102.3.

7 RIMA 3, A.0.102.2.

8 Nabu Temple Stone Tablet, obv. 18; Kurkh Monolith, i 14. In both these texts the account of the accession year begins with this formula, but the account of the first regnal year does not start with a formula indicating a specific year but with the date of Shalmaneser's departure for the campaign, recorded by the month and the day (ina ITI GUD UD.13.KAM/KÁM). The formula ina šurrât šarrūtīya ina mahrê palêya and similar chronological expressions in various Assyrian royal inscriptions were discussed by Tadmor, H. (“The Campaigns of Sargon II of Assur: A Chronological-Historical Study”, JCS 12 [1958], pp. 27–9Google Scholar). A question is whether the two concepts šurrât šarrūtīya and mahrê palêya are enumerated asyndetically and mean the accession year and the first regnal year, respectively, in a strictly chronological sense, or whether both of them, standing in apposition, form a looser designation for the entire period composed of the accession year and the first regnal year together. In the later versions of Shalmaneser's annals dated consistently by the term palû “turnus” (RIMA 3, A.0.102.6, 10, 14, 15, 16), šurrât šarrūtiya may be differentiated from 1 palêya and refer specifically to the accession year. On the other hand, in the résumé of the battle with Ahuni in the Kurkh Monolith (ii 66b–9b), the expression šurrât šarrūtiya is placed in apposition to ina līme zikir šumiya “in the eponym year of my (the king's) name”, i.e. the second regnal year, as known from chronographic sources (cf. Yamada, S., “The Conquest of Til-barsip by Shalmaneser III: History and Historiography”, ASJ 20 [1998], pp.221 f.Google Scholar). As noted by Brinkman, J. A. (“Merodach-Baladan II”, in Biggs, R. D. and Brinkman, J. A. (eds.), Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim, Chicago, 1964, p. 23, n. 126)Google Scholar, this indicates that in this context the expression must have the loose chronological meaning of “the beginning of my reign” rather than “accession year”. In any case, the set phrase ina šurrât šarrūtiya ina mahrê palêya is used in the early versions of Shalmaneser's annals to refer to the accession year and the first regnal year as a single unit.

9 The photograph of this line inscribed on the lower edge of the tablet was apparently not available to Grayson for preparing his edition in RIMA 3. See RIMA 3, p. 7 (commentary).

10 RIMA 3, p. 7.

11 Cf. Fuchs, A., Review of RIMA 3, BiOr 55 (1998), col. 190Google Scholar.

12 RIMA 3, p. 24 (A.0.102.3, introduction).

13 The other examples are the Kurkh Monolith, the Balawat Gate Inscription, the Bull Inscription and the Black Obelisk (RIMA 3, A.0.102.2, 5, 8 and 14, respectively).

14 So already Schneider, T. J., “A New Analysis of the Royal Annals of Shalmaneser III” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania), 1991, pp. 171 fGoogle Scholar.

15 RIMA 3, p. 24; cf. also RIMA 2, p. 194.

16 Another text of Shalmaneser III, however, raises a similar but perhaps more complicated question. It is the inscription on a stone tablet from Ashur, Assur 2912 + (RIMA 3, A.0.102.15 with microfilm, pp. 90–4). This text duplicates the beginning of the Black Obelisk, one of the last versions of the annals, edited towards the end of Shalmaneser's reign, but ends abruptly in the middle of the account of the fourth year. Grayson considers that this tablet is the first of a series. This is indeed a reasonable consideration, since the text, including only brief account for each year, seems to be late. It remains, however, unclear whether a series of stone tablets was indeed inscribed, or whether this could have been an independent monument despite the abrupt ending.

17 Contra RIMA 3, p. 7: “the present text (= Fort Shalmaneser Stone Tablet) has more epithets and more details about the campaigns.”

18 Although the Nabu Temple Stone Tablet and the Kurkh Monolith duplicate each other at the beginning of the texts the former is certainly more explicit in its distinct part (rev. 33–47 [= RIMA 3, A.0.102.3, ll. 85b–99]) than the counter-part in the latter (ii 5b–13a); ca 130 words as opposed to ca 100. Therefore it is hard to entertain the possibility that the Nabu Temple Stone Tablet was an extraction from the Kurkh Monolith.

19 See Grayson's restoration in RIMA 3, pp. 9 f. In the Fort Shalmaneser Stone Tablet, ll. 53–72 are almost the duplicate of both the Nabu Temple Stone Tablet, rev. 9b–33a, and the Kurkh Monolith, i 41b–ii 5a. In the subsequent part preserved signs in the fragmentary lines (ll. 73′–81′) of the Fort Shalmaneser Stone Tablet apparently correspond to the Kurkh Monolith, ii 5–12, but ⌈aq-ṭi⌉-rib in 1. 78′, if the reading is correct, is not found in the latter.

20 Læssøe, , “A Statue of Shalmaneser III, from Nimrud”, Iraq 21 (1959), p. 147 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Grayson, RIMA 3, p. 72.

21 Iraq 21, pp. 147–57 and Pls. XL–XLII.

22 As already expected by Læssøe, (Iraq 21, p. 157)Google Scholar; cf. also Schramm, W., Einleitung in die assyrischen Königsinschriften II: 934–722 v. Chr., Leiden, 1973, p. 81 Google Scholar.

23 Cf. RIMA 3, p. 73.

24 Grayson could still read some of these signs in his score (RIMA 3, microfilm, pp. 63–7).