Esarhaddon 114
| Obverse | ||
| Column i | ||
| i 1i 1 | (i 1) Esarhaddon, king of the world, king of Assyria, governor of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, pious prince, who reveres the gods Nabû and Marduk — | |
| i 22 | ||
| i 33 | ||
| i 44 | ||
| i 55 | ||
| i 66 | ||
| i 77 | (i 7) Before my time, in the reign of a previous king, bad omens occurred in Sumer and Akkad. The people living there were answering each other yes (for) no (and) were telling lies. They put the[ir] hands on the possessions of Esagil, the palace of the gods, and they sold the gold, sil[ver], (and) precious stones at market value to the land Elam. | |
| i 88 | ||
| i 99 | ||
| i 1010 | ||
| i 1111 | ||
| i 1212 | ||
| i 1313 | ||
| i 1414 | ||
| i 1515 | ||
| i 1616 | ||
| i 1717 | ||
| i 1818 | ||
| i 1919 | (i 19) The Enlil of the gods, the god Marduk, became angry and plotted evilly to level the land (and) to destroy [its] people. The river Araḫ[tu, (normally) a river of abun]dance, [turned into] a hu[ge] flood like the deluge, (and) [swept (its) waters] destructively across the city, its dwellings, [(...)], (and) its shrines, and turned (them) into ruins. The gods and goddesses dwelling in it went up to the heavens; the people living in it were distributed among the (foreign) riffraff (and) became slaves. | |
| i 2020 | ||
| i 2121 | ||
| i 2222 | ||
| i 2323 | ||
| Column ii | ||
| ii 1ii 1 | ||
| ii 22 | ||
| ii 33 | ||
| ii 44 | ||
| ii 55 | ||
| ii 66 | ||
| ii 77 | ||
| ii 88 | ||
| ii 99 | ||
| ii 1010 | ||
| ii 1111 | ||
| ii 1212 | ⸢70⸣ MU.AN.NA.MEŠ mi-nu-ut7 | (ii 12) The merciful god Marduk wrote that the calculated time of its abandonment (should last) 70 years, (but) his heart was quickly soothed, and he reversed the numbers and (thus) ordered its (re)occupation to be (after) 11 years. |
| ii 1313 | ||
| ii 1414 | ||
| ii 1515 | ||
| ii 1616 | ||
| ii 1717 | ||
| ii 1818 | ||
| ii 1919 | (ii 19) You [truly] selected me, Esarhaddon, in the assembly of my older brothers, to put these matters right, and you (are the one) who placed your sweet [protec]tion over me, swept away all of my enemies like [a flood], killed all of my [foes] and [made] me attain my wish, (and), to appease the heart of your great divinity (and) to please your spirit, you entrusted (me) with shepherding Assyria. | |
| ii 2020 | ||
| ii 2121 | ||
| ii 2222 | ||
| ii 2323 | ||
| Column iii | ||
| iii 1iii 1 | ||
| iii 22 | ||
| iii 33 | ||
| iii 44 | ||
| iii 55 | ||
| iii 66 | ||
| iii 77 | ||
| iii 88 | ||
| iii 99 | (iii 9) At the beginning of my kingship, in my first year, when I sat in greatness on (my) royal throne, [good] signs were [est]ablished for me; in heaven (and) on earth, [he (the god Marduk) constantly se]nt me his omen(s). | |
| iii 1010 | ||
| iii 1111 | ||
| iii 1212 | ||
| iii 1313 | ||
| iii 1414 | ||
| iii 1515 | (iii 15) [I was afraid] (and) worried [to] preform that work (and) I knelt before the gods Šamaš, [Adad], (and) Marduk, the great judge(s), the god[s], my lords. In the diviner’s bowl, trustworthy oracles were established for me, and they had (their response) concerning the (re)building of Babylon (and) the renovation of Esagil written on a liver. | |
| iii 1616 | ||
| iii 1717 | ||
| iii 1818 | ||
| iii 1919 | ||
| iii 2020 | ||
| iii 2121 | ||
| iii 2222 | ||
| iii 2323 | ||
| iii 2424 | ||
| Column iv | ||
| iv 1iv 1 | (iv 1) I trusted in their fi[rm] ‘yes’ and I mustered all of my craftsmen and the people of Karduniaš (Babylonia) to its full extent. I had them wield hoes and I imposed baskets (on them). I mixed (the mud for) its revetment with fine oil, honey, ghee, kurunnu-wine, (and) pure mountain beer. I raised a basket onto my head and carried (it) myself. I had its bricks made for one year in brickmolds of ivory, ebony, boxwood, (and) musukkannu-wood. | |
| iv 22 | ||
| iv 33 | ||
| iv 44 | ||
| iv 55 | ||
| iv 66 | ||
| iv 77 | ||
| iv 88 | ||
| iv 99 | ||
| iv 1010 | ||
| iv 1111 | ||
| iv 1212 | ||
| iv 1313 | ||
| iv 1414 | ||
| iv 1515 | ||
| iv 1616 | (iv 16) I had Esagil, the palace of the gods, and its shrines, Babylon, the privileged city, Imgur-Enlil, its wall, (and) Nēmetti-Enlil, its outer wall, built anew from their foundations to their parapets. I made (them) greater (than before), raised (them) up, (and) glorified (them). | |
| iv 1717 | ||
| iv 1818 | ||
| iv 1919 | ||
| iv 2020 | ||
| iv 2121 | ||
| iv 2222 | ||
| iv 2323 | ||
| iv 2424 | ||
| iv 2525 | (iv 25) I refurbished the statues of the great gods (and) I had (them) dwell on their daises as an eternal dwelling. I (re)confirmed their interrupted sattukku offerings. | |
| iv 2626 | ||
| iv 2727 | ||
| iv 2828 | ||
| iv 2929 | (iv 29) I gathered the citizens of Babylon who had become slaves (and) who had been distributed among the (foreign) riffraff and I counted (them once again) as Babylonians. I established anew their privileged status. | |
| iv 3030 | ||
| iv 3131 | ||
| iv 3232 | ||
| iv 3333 | ||
| iv 3434 | ||
| iv 3535 |
1pa-lìḫ dAG ù dAMAR.UTU “who reveres the gods Nabû and Marduk”: The reference to Nabû in this epithet may have been included in this inscription because Esarhaddon was rebuilding the Nabû of the ḫarû temple at Babylon. Work on that temple is recorded in text no. 113 lines 20–28a and referred to in text no. 105 (Babylon C) v 23b–26a and 36–37.
2Like text nos. 106 (Babylon E; i 10–26) and 113 (lines 8b–15a), this passage in this text begins with ul-la-nu-ú-a “before my time,” rather than with i-nu-šú “at that time,” as it does in text nos. 104 (Babylon A; i 18b–33) and 105 (Babylon C; i 20–37a).
3ŠU-⸢su⸣-[nu] “the[ir] hands”: The reading is based on collation and parallels in the other Babylon Inscriptions; see, for example, text no. 104 (Babylon A) i 30 and text no. 105 (Babylon C) i 33.
4⸢gap⸣-[šu] “hu[ge]”: The reading of the signs is based on collation and parallels in the other Babylon Inscriptions; see, for example, text no. 104 (Babylon A) i 30 and text no. 105 (Babylon C) i 33. Compare text no. 116 (Babylon B) obv. 13´, which has kaš-šu “huge”; the reading of the signs at the end of ii 1 in the print version of RINAP 4 was based on that text, rather than on text nos. 104 and 105, which are closer in date to this inscription than text no. 116. For a discussion of the chronological arrangement of Esarhaddon’s Babylon Inscriptions, see Novotny, JCS 67 (2015) pp. 145–168; this text was written towards the end of Esarhaddon’s reign (ca. late 673 BC to 672 BC) while text 116 (Babylon B) was written near the beginning of it (ca. late 678 BC to 677 BC [or 676 BC]).
5There is sufficient space to restore another word after šu-bat-su “its dwelling(s)”; see fig. 8 on p. 233. If this is the case, it is uncertain which word should be restored here. Compare text no. 104 (Babylon A) i 41–42, which has URU šu-bat-su “the city (and) its dwellings,” and text no. 105 (Babylon C) ii 4–5, which has a-lam eš-re-e-ti-šú “the city (and) its shrines.” This passage is damaged in text no. 116 (Babylon B; obv. 15´).
6a-na ṣi-in-di ⸢ù⸣ bir-te zu-uʾ-ú-zu ⸢il⸣-li-ku re-e-šu-tú “they were distributed among the (foreign) riffraff (and) became slaves”: The exact same wording appears in text no. 106 (Babylon E; i 32–ii 3). Compare, for example, text no. 104 (Babylon A) i 47b–ii 2a, which has a-šar šá-nam-ma [in]-⸢nar⸣-qu-ma ina KI-tim [la i-du-u] ⸢i⸣-ḫu-⸢zu mar-qí-ti⸣ “[they we]re hidden in another place and took refuge in an [unknown] land.”
7For a discussion on how Marduk altered the calculated time of Babylon’s and Esagil’s abandonment on the “Tablet of Destiny” from 70 years to 11 years, see the note to text no. 104 (Babylon A) ii 6–7.
8The verb iq-bi (“he ordered”) is found at the beginning of iii 19 on the object, but it is to be understood as the end of ii 18.
9[a-na]: Based on parallels, restore ana, and not ša, at the beginning of iii 15; see, for example, text no. 104 (Babylon A) iii 7 and text no. 105 (Babylon C) iii 38.
Created by Erle Leichty, Jamie Novotny, and the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) Project, 2011, 2015-16. Lemmatized by Jamie Novotny, 2010, and updated by him, 2015-16, for the Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative (MOCCI), a corpus-building initiative funded by LMU Munich and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (through the establishment of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair for Ancient History of the Near and Middle East) and based at the Historisches Seminar - Abteilung Alte Geschichte of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/ribo/Q003343/.