¹ The content of this paper was presented to the XXII Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Göttingen, June 1975. The numbers 6, 77 and 40 were interpreted as here, and DIM₄ was understood of filiation, but no suggestion was made about the number 24. J. A. Brinkman considered the problems later in the same year and made a suggestion about the number 24 which is adopted here with his kind permission.

² Weidner, E., in AfO 16 (1952–1953), 197 ff.Google Scholar, has described these criteria, and has also argued that a library of Middle Assyrian literary texts was collected by Tiglath-pileser I at Aššur. The evidence on this latter point, though widely accepted, is deficient. The facts are that a big collection of tablets was found in the south-west court of the Aššur temple at Aššur (MDOG 26 (1905), pp. 24, 41, 56, 58–60Google Scholar; Andrae, W., Das wiedererstandene Assur, p. 861Google Scholar; Weidner, E., AfO 12 (1937–1939), 49Google Scholar and loc. cit.). They had apparently fallen from a room or rooms above ground level. They included Middle Assyrian literary tablets and various administrative documents, the latter including some as late as Adad-nirari III (Weidner, E., Bi Or 9 (1952), 159²⁰Google Scholar). A question needing answer at once is whether only Middle Assyrian tablets of literary content were found, or literary tablets of later date also. The records and photographs in Berlin would have to be investigated to answer this question, but it may be noted that according to the excavator the tablets generally were in terrible condition (MDOG 26 pp. 41 and 58), save for some well baked examples in beautiful script. Middle Assyrian literary tablets were normally baked in antiquity and often have a fine appearance, while literary texts from Aššur of first-millennium date were not similarly baked. In any case the administrative texts show that the tablet collection from this spot included some first-millennium material. Weidner quotes a passage of Tukulti-Ninurta II to show that this king put tablets at this point of the Aššur temple, though the interpretation depends on a restoration not accepted by W. Schramm in his more recent edition of these annals (Bi Or 27 (1970), 149 26Google Scholar). Thus the find spot proves only that this archive existed at the destruction of Aššur and provides no evidence about the time it was put there. The connection with Tiglath-pileser I comes from colophons found on some of these tablets, which are dated by līmus to the reign of Aššur-reš-iši I or Tiglath-pileser I. But this evidence is double-edged. The colophons record the scribes, who are often royal scribes, but are silent about the owners. No doubt they belonged to the scribes who wrote them, since ancient scribes often owned collections of texts. Had the tablets been written at Tiglath-pileser's orders for his own library, the colophons would certainly have given some indication of the fact. That no single tablet so far found has a colophon recording that it was written for or belonged to this king is evidence against the idea that he personally collected a library. The facts, then, prove that the best Assyrian scribes were copying out literary and library texts during the reigns of Aššur-reš-iši and Tiglath-pileser, and that in due course a collection of this material was deposited in the Aššur temple, but we do not know who made the deposition or when. It is a particularly gratuitous assumption that every Middle Assyrian library tablet wherever found once belonged to Tiglath-pileser's library.

³ These seal inscriptions have been collected by H. Limet, Les légendes des sceaux cassites, and comments on their Sumerian have been made by the writer in his review of this work in Bi Or 32 (1975), 219 ffGoogle Scholar.

⁴ The Tukulti-Ninurta Epic in describing the spoils taken by the king from Babylon lists various kinds of texts (AfO 18 (1957–1958), 44 2–11)Google Scholar, but the lines are incomplete and it is impossible to know if they indicated that scribes as well as tablets were taken. A previous line refers to the carrying off of people generally (Archaeologia 79 (1929)Google Scholar, Pl. xlvii 23).

⁵ The adornment of this temple with spoils from Babylon is mentioned in the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic (AfO 18 (1957–1958), 44 19)Google Scholar, but no details are given.

⁶ The edition of the AKL by Gelb in JNES 13 (1954), 209 ffGoogle Scholar. is the only one, but note the article by Brinkman, J. A. in Or 42 (1973), 306 ffGoogle Scholar. where the duplicates and related problems are discussed.

⁷ Tadmor, H.JCS 12 (1958), 26³⁴Google Scholar quotes only line 12 of the Aššur Charter of Sargon II (see now the new edition by Saggs, H. W. F. in Iraq 37 (1975), 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar) for an Assyrian example of palû used for “dynasty”, but it is well known that a flood of Babylonian literary vocabulary suddenly appears in Sargon's royal inscriptions.

⁸ For a bibliography of these, see Grayson, A. K., apud AOAT I, 105 ffGoogle Scholar.

⁹ See Tadmor, H., Eretz Israel 5 (1958), 150 ffGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ See the article of Brinkman cited in note 6 above, p. 312. If one assumes, as the present writer is inclined to, that the historical portions of the AKL offers lengths of reign based on līmu-lists, and that the names and successions are based on the same source, then it is no surprise that the filiations are the least reliable part.