Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III and Related Texts, Part 2

Kalḫu Annals (Text Nos. 1–34)

At present there are five known annalistic texts of Tiglath-pileser III: text nos. 1–34 together represent a single text, the so-called "Kalḫu Annals," and text nos. 35–38 each represent a different inscription. The main recension of the king's Annals, the Kalḫu Annals — which is edited here as thirty-four texts, or more precisely thirty-four units of text — requires some explanation about its complex reconstruction. The inscription, which was composed towards the end of the king's eighteen-year reign, was written on sculpted orthostats that decorated the rooms and corridors of his palace at Nimrud. This text represents the last and longest version of the king's Annals. Unfortunately, barely one third, if not less, of the whole text has survived. In the mid-nineteenth century, A.H. Layard discovered many of these slabs in the ruins of two monumental buildings at Kalḫu. Some slabs were found in the unfinished "South-West Palace," the palace being constructed by Esarhaddon in the southwest corner of the citadel mound, while other orthostats were unearthed in the "Central Palace," the unfinished palace of Tiglath-pileser situated in the center of the citadel mound; the latter palace was later almost completely destroyed. From the find spots and the positions of the excavated slabs recorded by Layard, it can be deduced that all of the slabs were originally part of the Central Palace and that Esarhaddon had dismantled Tiglath-pileser's unfinished royal residence and transported some of its sculpted slabs to the southwest corner of the citadel, where they were reused in his own palace; for further details, see Tadmor, Tigl. III pp. 10–11 and the bibliography cited there.

Tiglath-pileser III was the first Assyrian king since Ashurnasirpal II — the king who had transformed Kalḫu into the chief administrative center of the kingdom — to decorate his palace with colossal sculpted and inscribed orthostats. Ashurnasirpal II's army of scribes composed for his palace walls a single, non-annalistic "standard inscription," a text that was copied on hundreds of slabs in the North-West Palace at Nimrud, with only minor variation in its contents. The final version of his Annals was inscribed on pavement slabs of the temple of the city's patron deity, Ninurta, but not in his royal residence. In some regards, Tiglath-pileser followed Ashurnasirpal's tradition of decorative reliefs and accompanying texts, but he also deviated from it. He had versions of his Annals written across several series of sculpted orthostats and had non-annalistic texts (see Summary Inscriptions below) inscribed on threshold and pavement slabs of his palace. Most of these inscribed and sculpted slabs do not survive today, with many being lost or destroyed in antiquity, by his fourth successor Esarhaddon (and possibly other Assyrian kings), or in modern times, by their excavators or local inhabitants. Sadly, we will never know with certainty how well decorated Tiglath-pileser's palace was at the time of his death.

The wall slabs containing the Kalḫu Annals are of two types. The first type divides the surface of the orthostat into three registers, with the top and bottom registers sculpted (mostly with scenes of battle) and with a blank or inscribed middle register (Layard, Nineveh 2 p. 24). The second type utilizes the entire surface of the slab to depict images of "gigantic figures of the King and his attendant eunuchs and of the winged priests or divinities" (ibid. p. 21) and has the inscription written over the reliefs, except over "a naked limb" (Layard, Nineveh 1 p. 62).

Given the current state of preservation of the text and the fact that many of the slabs were destroyed or removed from their original positions in antiquity, it is impossible to determine which rooms in Tiglath-pileser's palace had inscriptions and how much of the original composition survives today. Certain practices, however, can be inferred from the palace of Sargon II at Dūr-Šarrukīn (Weissbach, ZDMG 72 [1918] pp. 161–185; see also Güterbock, AJA 61 [1957] p. 68 and pl. 24). In that palace, each room contained an entire text, a complete version of his Annals, from beginning to end. Inscriptions in neighboring rooms often varied, sometimes in very minor ways. Moreover, the number of lines of text inscribed on the slabs differed from room to room. For example, the slabs in Room II were inscribed with thirteen lines of text, those in Room V with seventeen lines, and those in Room XIII with fifteen lines.^[3] Based on Sargon's Annals, E. Schrader (KAT pp. 134–137; and Kritik, p. 20) tentatively proposed that the Kalḫu Annals were arranged in a similar manner. Thus, some rooms in the Central Palace contained a complete recension of Tiglath-pileser's Annals and the number of lines of text written on the slabs in those rooms varied from room to room. Therefore, slabs with different numbers of lines should not have stood side by side in the same room of the palace and should have come from different rooms in that building.

Taking these criteria into account, the authors have divided the Kalḫu Annals into three hypothetical series. Slabs with seven lines of text are classified as Series A and those with twelve lines of text are classified as Series B. Both of these series are only partially preserved. The text of both Series A and Series B is generally written in the middle register of orthostats that have reliefs in their upper and lower registers (see the description above). Entry and corner slabs, however, could differ as text could be inscribed in those instances over sculpture that covered the entire surface of the slab (for example, text nos. 2–4). These two series were probably duplicates of one and the same inscription, but were written on the walls of different rooms in Tiglath-pileser's palace. Series A and Series B were subdivided into units of text whose widths appear to have been uniform throughout. Narrow vertical bands of uninscribed space separated each unit of text. The individual units were not restricted to a single slab and thus a unit could run over parts of two adjacent slabs. It was not uncommon for a single slab to be inscribed with the end of one unit and the beginning of the next unit; for example, see Barnett and Falkner, Tigl. pl. LXXXI (text nos. 14–15) and pl. LXIX (text nos. 18–19). This arrangement of the seven-line and twelve-line series (Series A and B respectively) clearly indicates that the orthostats were inscribed in situ; this was also the case for the Kalḫu Annals written on "colossal" slabs (see Series C below). The width of the inscribed band of text (i.e., unit) varied from series to series: ca. 1.5 m for the seven-line series (Series A) and slightly more than 2 m for the twelve-line series (Series B). Twelve units of text are preserved for Series A and eight units are preserved for Series B.

Layard copied other units of the Kalḫu Annals that each contained more than twelve lines (up to twenty or thirty lines) and that were inscribed on "colossal" slabs, with the text running across images of "gigantic figures of the King and his attendant eunuchs and of the winged priests or divinities" (Layard, Nineveh 2 p. 21); the text and sculpture were both carved in a single register. These inscribed slabs are classified as Series C and they are now mostly known from Layard's field copies. One slab, however, is in the British Museum (text no. 30) and two other slabs were photographed after their rediscovery by Polish excavators in 1976 (text nos. 33–34). The width of the bands of text on these slabs appears to have been often considerably more than 2 m. The Series C slabs appear to have originated from at least two, or possibly three, rooms of the palace. ^[4] The fragmentary condition of the texts, the many lacunae, and the fact that most of the originals are no longer available for study, make such a distinction rather conjectural. Thus, for the sake of simplification, all of these are categorized as Series C. Fourteen units of this Annals series are preserved, including text no. 33 (C, Unit x) and text no. 34 (C, Unit y), both of whose details remain obscure.

As stated above, only a small percentage of the Kalḫu Annals is preserved today, with about twice as much text missing as is preserved. There are large gaps in the texts, some spanning several years of military narration. The reports describing events of Tiglath-pileser's 4th, 5th, and 6th palûs (742–740; the siege of Arpad and the conquest of northern Syria), 10th palû (736; the campaign to Mount Nal), 12th palû (734; the campaign to Philistia), and 14th palû (732, the second campaign against Damascus) are completely missing. It is often assumed that the Kalḫu Annals were composed at the same time that some non-annalistic texts (summary inscriptions; text nos. 39–45) were placed in the palace. Because Tiglath-pileser's summary inscriptions include the chronological notation "from the beginning of my reign to my seventeenth palû," the Kalḫu Annals should have included descriptions of events up to Tiglath-pileser's 17th palû (729). Thus, accounts of the 16th and 17th palûs (730–729) are probably missing as well. In addition to the gaps in which entire campaign reports are missing, there are numerous smaller lacunae in nearly all of the preserved narration, including the prologue and building report. With regard to the latter, only a few lines of this section are preserved. Moreover, the concluding formula (advice to a future ruler, with applicable benedictions and maledictions), if any, is entirely missing.

The presentation of the Kalḫu Annals in this volume requires some comment. One may be inclined to edit Series A, Series B, and Series C (of which there are two, or possibly three, copies) as separate texts, but this would present an already poorly preserved inscription as being even more fragmentary than it is. Such a presentation would also obscure the original contents of that text and break its chronological narrative flow. Following the arrangement of Tadmor's Tigl. III, Tiglath-pileser's Annals are edited unit by unit, with each unit being placed in its proper place within the larger composition. Thus, an attempt is made to reconstruct the Kalḫu Annals from all of the known series. The chronological order of the badly damaged and mostly missing military narration can be reconstructed from information included in the Eponym Chronicle (see below). The order of the units essentially follows that of Tadmor, Tigl. III, but with a few additional pieces that were not available to Tadmor (text no. 1 ex. 1c and text nos. 2–4). These additions are the fruits of the 1974–1976 Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology excavations at Nimrud, work carried out under the direction of J. Meuszyński. Numerous slabs of Tiglath-pileser III were unearthed at that time, including inscribed orthostats that were discovered at the very end of the 1976 season. Meuszyński's unexpected, tragic death in the spring of 1976 hindered the full publication of these inscribed slabs, and thus they were not included in Tadmor's Tigl. III (see his notes on p. 37). Some unpublished photos, hand-drawn facsimiles, and the unpublished inventory of the slabs held at the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology in Warsaw were made available by Polish colleagues and other researchers (see the preface). For further details about the sources accessible to the authors, see the introductions and commentaries of text nos. 1–4 and 33–34. Further unpublished information about these texts, in particular text nos. 33–34, still might be found at the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology in Warsaw.

As stressed already, text nos. 1–34 together represent a single inscription. In this edition, like that of Tadmor, each unit, which comprises a "column" of text (seven, twelve, twenty, or thirty lines long), is treated as a separate "text" and numbered accordingly; for example, unit 1 or "column" 1 = text no. 1. The units are numbered sequentially from 1 to 25 (see below for text nos. 26–34). Information on the series and unit number within each of the three series is provided in the chart below and at the end of the introduction to each "text." For example, text no. 1 is Series A, Unit 1; text no. 5 is Series B, Unit 1; and text no. 9 is Series C, Unit 1. This numbering deviation from that of Tadmor's Tigl. III not only follows RINAP editorial procedures, but also aims to make Tadmor's arrangement of the Annals easier to follow; for example, "Annals 1" immediately followed by "Annals 9" and "Annals 13*" continuing the narrative of "Annals 19*" in Tadmor's Tigl. III are extremely difficult to follow or understand. (This numbering was the result of repeated renumbering of the Annals units over the long process of Tadmor's research on the Kalḫu Annals; see Tadmor, Tigl. III pp. 23–25.) The numbering of a single unit is maintained, even when two or more consecutive units are preserved, whether they are on one single slab or on two or more slabs; this editorial aspect follows Tadmor, Tigl. III. For example, units 1–2 (Series A) are edited as text nos. 1–2 (each with seven lines), and not as text no. 1 (with fourteen lines of text). See the chart below and the Concordances of Selected Publications at the back of the book for a concordance of this volume and Tadmor, Tigl. III.

Text nos. 1–25 represent the master text of the Kalḫu Annals and text nos. 26–32 represent duplicates, which are sometimes used in the restoration of the main inscription. For the sake of continuity, the duplicates (text nos. 26–32) are edited after the master text. Two slabs whose contents still remain unknown (see above) and which are probably to be assigned to Series C (text nos. 33–34) are tentatively placed at the end of the series. With regard to the duplication of text, this occurs mostly between Series A and Series B; Series C overlaps only one line of Series B (text no. 13 line 20 = text no. 14 line 1). Moreover, since Series C is actually not a homogeneous recension of the Annals originating from a single room in Tiglath-pileser's palace, there is duplicate text in that hypothetical series. For example, text nos. 30–31 basically duplicate text no. 13, although the former is a shorter version of the latter, and text no. 11 line 10' duplicates text no. 12 line 1'.

The distribution of extant Annals units is shown in the following table. The major texts used to reconstruct a single hypothetical running account in the present edition, i.e., text nos. 1–25, are given in bold type:

Concordance between the Kalḫu Annals in this volume and in Tadmor, Tigl. III:

Notes

³ Note, however, that the slabs in Rooms I, IV, VII, VIII, and X were inscribed with a long text summary (or display) inscription, rather than a recension of Sargon's annals. See Fuchs, Khorsabad pp. 189–248 and 343–355.

⁴ Tadmor, PIASH 2/9 (1967) pp. 179–180 and 185; see also Tadmor, Tigl. III p. 24.

Hayim Tadmor & Shigeo Yamada

Hayim Tadmor & Shigeo Yamada, 'Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III and Related Texts, Part 2', RINAP 1: Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser V, The RINAP 1 sub-project of the RINAP Project, 2019 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap1/RINAP1Introduction/InscriptionsofTiglath-pileserIII/Part2/]