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Four two-column clay cylinders and a baked brick bear an Akkadian inscription of Nabopolassar stating that he had a canal redug from the Euphrates River to Sippar; the script is archaizing Neo-Babylonian. The objects bearing this text were all sent to the British Museum (London) by H. Rassam from Sippar in 1882. Despite the absence of historical references, the inscription may have been composed after the defeat of Assyria in 612 or 609, either after the destruction of Nineveh or after the disappearance of Assyria's last ruler Aššur-uballiṭ II. Several lines in the building report are reminiscent of a passage in an inscription of the Old Babylonian king Ḫammu-rāpi recording an identical accomplishment; compare ii 12–14 to Frayne, RIME 4 p. 348 E4.3.6.12 Akkadian Version lines 20–24. The text is sometimes referred to as "Nabopolassar Cylinder II, 1" or "[Nabopolassar] Euphrates Inscription (C21/B7)."
Access the composite text [/ribo/babylon7/Q005373/] or the score [/ribo/bab7scores/Q005373/score] of Nabopolassar 14
Sources
| (1) BM 91104 (AH 82-7-14,978) | (2) BM 91105 (AH 82-7-14,979) |
| (3) BM 90910 (AH 82-7-14,—) | (4) BM 50842 (AH 82-3-23,1836) |
| (5) BM 90825 (AH 82-7-14,4461) |
Commentary
Exs. 1–4 are two-column clay cylinders, while ex. 5 is a brick. All of the exemplars are written in archaizing Neo-Babylonian script, with horizontal rulings separating each line of text. The distribution of this short, seventy-three-word inscription is identical in exs. 2 (BM 91105) and 3 (BM 90910), and nearly the same in ex. 1 (BM 91104); ex. 1 has seventeen, instead of sixteen, lines in col. i and fourteen, rather than fifteen, lines in col. ii. Ex. 4 (BM 50842) is not sufficiently preserved to determine if its distribution of text followed ex. 1 or exs. 2 and 3. The contents of each and every line, however, is almost exactly the same in all five exemplars, including the exemplar written on the edge of a brick (ex. 5; BM 90825); in ex. 5, ii 8–9 are written in a single line.
The master text and lineation of the edition presented in this volume follow ex. 2 (BM 91105). A score is presented on Oracc and the minor (orthographic) variants are given in the critical apparatus at the back of the book. Exs. 1–5 were all collated from high-resolution photographs.
Bibliography
A two-column clay cylinder discovered at Sippar by H. Rassam in 1881 is inscribed with a text of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabopolassar. This Akkadian inscription is written in archaizing script and it records the renovation of the temple Eʾedina, the residence of the goddess Ištar as the "Divine Lady of Sippar." Since the defeat of Assyria is specifically mentioned, this text's date of composition is certainly after 612 or 609; Nabopolassar states that he killed the "Subarean" (= the Assyrian king Sîn-šarra-iškun) and turned his land (= Assyria) into a mound of ruins. The inscription is referred to as "Nabopolassar Cylinder II, 2" or "[Nabopolassar] Eʾedina Inscription (C22)."
Access Nabopolassar 15 [ /ribo/babylon7/Q005374/].
Source
| BM 91108 (AH 82-7-17,1001) |
Commentary
This 105-word Akkadian inscription is distributed over forty-four lines of text, with twenty-two lines of text in each column. The script is archaizing Neo-Babylonian and horizontal rulings separate each line of text. The inscription was collated from high-resolution photographs of BM 91108. The restorations in ii 1–3 are based on Npl. 6 (C31) i 25–27.
Bibliography
Jamie Novotny & Frauke Weiershäuser
Jamie Novotny & Frauke Weiershäuser, 'nscriptions of Nabopolassar from Sippar', RIBo, Babylon 7: The Inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, The RIBo Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2024 [/ribo/babylon7/Rulers/Nabopolassar/Texts14-15Sippar/]