Tiglath-pileser III had annalistic texts inscribed on objects other than the sculpted orthostats that decorated the rooms and corridors of his palace at Kalḫu. At present, four texts apart from the Kalḫu Annals (text nos. 1–34) are certainly or possibly categorized as annalistic or annalistic-style texts.
At Mila Mergi, a site in the mountains northwest of Dohuk in Iraqi Kurdistan, Tiglath-pileser had a fifty-four-line inscription (text no. 37) written on a rock face. This text is the earliest known annalistic-style account of this king and it is unusual in that it narrates only the events of the 7th palû (739), the campaign against Ulluba. Thus, the Mila Mergi inscription is not a true annalistic text, but rather an inscription that records the details of a single campaign in the same style as the Annals. The Iran Stele (text no. 35) is the next earliest annalistic account of his. This text, which was inscribed and erected in celebration of his achievements during a Median campaign (737), narrates events of Tiglath–pileser's first nine palûs (745–737), although it may omit some of the palû reports. A statue from Nimrud (text no. 36), although badly damaged, may represent a recension of the Annals composed late in Tiglath-pileser's reign; the extant text includes brief accounts of the campaigns of his 8th–11th palûs (738–735). A fragment of a clay object from Aššur (text no. 38) may also preserve part of an annalistic text, but it is too fragmentarily preserved to classify it with certainty.
Three fragments of a stone stele — with an image of the king and accompanying divine symbols carved in the typical rounded-top frame and originating from western Iran (possibly from Luristan or the region of Kermanshah) — are inscribed with an annalistic text of Tiglath-pileser III. Two of the fragments (frgms. 1–2) are now in the Israel Museum (Jerusalem) and the third fragment (frgm. 3) is in a private collection. Frgm. 1 is from the upper part of the stele, while frgms. 2 and 3, which physically join, comprise the lower part. The stele, which is in the form of a rectangular prism, is inscribed on three sides: the front (on which the image of the king is carved; = col. i), the left side (= col. ii), and the right side (= col. iii). The back, which is preserved only on frgm. 3, is uninscribed.
The inscription opens with an invocation to the gods (i 1–20) and the king's titles and epithets (i 21–35). This is followed by reports of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd palûs (i 36–43'); the text breaks off in the middle of the description of the 3rd palû. After a lacuna of considerable length (more than 40 lines), the inscription continues with a geographical summary of conquests in the east (ii 1'–3') and west (ii 4'–17'), a hymn in praise of Tiglath-pileser (ii 18'–24'), and an account of the 9th palû (737), against Media (ii 25'–44'), the event for which this stele was commissioned and erected. The report of the 9th palû, which bears little resemblance to the account included in the Kalḫu Annals (text no. 15 line 5–text no. 17 line 12), contains a short introduction, a statement about the erection of steles, and a list of the eastern dignitaries who delivered horses to the Assyrian king. After a short lacuna (probably fewer than ten lines) at the end of col. ii, the historical narrative ends with a list of tribute-bearing kings from the west (iii 1–23) and east (iii 24–30). This is followed by a description of the setting up of the stele (iii 31–36) and then, after a short lacuna (ca. fifteen lines), the text concludes with blessings and curses (iii 1'–10'). Although the inscription is not dated, the date of composition (737) is confirmed by the fact that the last campaign recorded in the text occurred in the king's 9th palû, an event that took place in 737 according to the Eponym Chronicle, and by the fact that the stele is reported to have come from western Iran. Tadmor edited this text as the Iran Stele in Tigl. III.
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Tadmor, in Tigl. III, edited the inscription in five sections: (1) i 1–38 (= his I A); (2) i 1'–43' (= his I B); (3) ii 1'–44' (= his II B); (4) iii 1–36 (= his III A); and (5) iii 1'–10' (= his III B). He designated text preserved on frgm. 1 (upper part of the stele) and on frgms. 2+3 (lower part of the stele), as "A" and "B" respectively. Following Tadmor, Tigl. III, the text is edited here in five parts, however, his sigla (I A, I B, etc.) are not used. Since the fragments of the stele have not been examined, the edition is based on the photographs and hand copies (by Chelsou Jo) published in Tadmor, Tigl. III pls. XXX–XLI. For a detailed study about the unique structure of this text, see Tadmor, Tigl. III pp. 260–264 (Supplementary Study C; in collaboration with L.D. Levine); see also N. Naʾaman, NABU 1998 pp. 16–17.
A text on a fragment of a royal statue discovered in the Ninurta temple at Kalḫu probably contains an annalistic account of Tiglath-pileser III's campaigns. The extant text contains accounts of the king's 8th (738), 9th (737), 10th (736), and 11th (735) palûs, respectively the campaigns to Syria (lines 1'–3'), the Zagros (lines 4'–7'), Mount Nal (lines 8'–10'), and Urarṭu (lines 11'–13'). The last three preserved lines (lines 14'–16') are too badly damaged to be certain of their contents. This inscription appears to be a unique, shorter version of Tiglath-pileser's Annals that was composed late in his reign, and thus the events of each year are described only briefly.
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The inscribed stone fragment was discovered by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq in 1956 among a group of limestone fragments from a large royal statue. According to P. Hulin (Iraq 28 [1966] p. 84), the piece, which is constructed from two smaller inscribed fragments that were joined shortly after their discovery, has a convex surface; the back part of the statue is completely broken away. The inscribed surface measures 14.6×10.3 cm. Horizontal rulings separate each line of text. For the identification of this text as an inscription of Tiglath-pileser III, rather than as a text of Shalmaneser III or Sargon II, see Fuchs, Studies H. and M. Tadmor pp. 49*–54*. Since the original was not available for study, the present edition is based on Hulin's published copy and Fuchs' edition.
Tiglath-pileser III had a fifty-four-line text, with an accompanying royal image and divine symbols, carved in a rounded frame on a rock face at Mila Mergi, a site in the mountains northwest of Dohuk in Iraqi Kurdistan. This inscription is the earliest known annalistic-style account in the corpus of Tiglath-pileser's inscriptions. The text opens with an invocation of ten major gods (lines 1–11) and the king's name, titles, and epithets (lines 12–15). This is followed by a very detailed account of a campaign against Ulluba, an event that took place during his 7th palû (739, according to the Eponym Chronicle; lines 16–46a). The text concludes with curses and blessings (lines 46b–54). This inscription was composed during or immediately after the Ulluba campaign and it is the principal historical source for the 7th palû. This account of the campaign is of a different chronographic tradition than either the Kalḫu Annals or Tiglath-pileser's summary inscriptions. Only brief references to this military expedition appear in summary inscriptions (e.g., see text no. 39 line 25 and text no. 41 line 27'), and these bear no resemblance to the military report of this inscription. The account for the year 739 in the Kalḫu Annals has survived in only one very small fragment (text no. 10). This text was edited as the Mila Mergi Rock Relief Inscription in Tadmor, Tigl. III.
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The relief, which is carved in a rounded-top frame, is 135 cm high, 82 cm wide at the base, and 88 cm wide at the waist of the king. The image of the king is ca. 123 cm high. Within the frame, the inscription is carved in characters some 8 to 10 mm high. Text is not written over the image of the king. Since the inscription could not be collated from the original, the present edition is based on J.N. Postgate's published copy, which he prepared from the original, photographs, and squeezes. The edition is only moderately updated from Tadmor's edition in Tigl. III. An additional examination of the original may clarify some of the remaining uncertain readings.
The Iran Stele (text no. 35) duplicates the beginning and end of this inscription (the invocation of gods and the curses and blessings). That text has been utilized in the restoration of damaged text in those passages.
A clay fragment from Aššur, of which only a small piece of one side is preserved, contains part of a text mentioning several lands and cities known from other inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III from Kalḫu. It is assumed that this fragmentarily preserved text contains part of a report of his Median campaign, an event that took place in his 9th palû (737). This campaign is recorded in two versions of the king's Annals (text no. 15 line 5–text no. 17 line 12, and text no. 35 ii 25'–44'), as well as in six summary inscriptions (text no. 39 lines 17–20, text no. 40 lines 18–19, text no. 41 lines 4'–15', text no. 46 lines 12–16, text no. 47 obv. 29-42, and text no. 51 line 20). The extant text appears to roughly follow the itinerary of that campaign, since it first mentions the land Namri (situated at the entrance of the Khorasan road not far from Assyria proper), then the land Ṣibur or Ṣibar (one of the farthest points reached during that military expedition), and finally the city Niqqu of the land Tupliaš or Tubliaš (a site close to Namri and visited during Tiglath-pileser's return march, as implied by the Kalḫu Annals). The inscription appears to follow the style of an annalistic account, but it is not sufficiently preserved to be certain that it is not a summary inscription listing these place names in the same order. A ruling line separates the description of the Median campaign and the following campaign; ruling lines appear in both the annalistic texts and summary inscriptions of this king and the use of a section divider cannot be used as evidence to determine with more certainty this text's classification.
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This small clay fragment, which was discovered during the German excavation at Aššur (1903–1914), comes from the middle part of a clay tablet, prism, or some other type object. VAT 12938 is the first example of an inscription of Tiglath-pileser III from Aššur written on such an object. The piece is not sufficiently preserved to determine with certainty the type of object from which it originates. The other known inscriptions of his from Aššur are on a large stone block (text no. 54), bricks (text nos. 58–60), a weight (text no. 61), and possibly enameled tiles (text nos. 1002–1003)
.Regarding the GN in line 5', E. Frahm notes that the land called Tugliaš by early Neo-Assyrian rulers, Shalmaneser III in particular, is referred to as Tupliaš (or Tubliaš) by Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon II (see Parpola, Toponyms p. 358). The identification of the passage in lines 1'–5' as the campaign to Media, undertaken in the king's 9th palû, was proposed by A. Fuchs (apud Frahm, KAL 3 p. 71).
Hayim Tadmor & Shigeo Yamada
Hayim Tadmor & Shigeo Yamada, 'Other Annalistic Accounts', RINAP 1: Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser V, The RINAP 1 sub-project of the RINAP Project, 2019 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap1/Tiglath-pileserIII:TextIntroductions/OtherAnnalisticAccounts/]