In addition to the various recensions of the Annals (text nos. 1–38), Tiglath-pileser III had his scribes compose numerous texts summarizing his many military achievements in a set geographical pattern (text nos. 39–52). The majority of these summary inscriptions were written towards the end of his reign on large stone pavement slabs and on carved orthostats that lined the walls of his palace at Kalḫu. Like the Kalḫu Annals, many of these texts were inscribed over the surface of several slabs (text nos. 39–45). Unfortunately, due to the palace's poor state of preservation when excavated and the exploratory nature of those excavations, we generally only have one slab, or are able to securely identify only one slab, of each of those inscriptions. We therefore have only a portion of each inscription.
Text nos. 39–40 each preserve the beginning of a text and thus the slabs upon which they are carved are the first slab in a longer series of slabs. Both inscriptions open with the traditional Mesopotamian way of indicating ownership: ekal RN "palace of RN." The slabs inscribed with text nos. 41 and 45 were each probably also the first slab in a longer series, although the first preserved line of both of these inscriptions begins mid-narrative, with Tiglath-pileser's accomplishments in Babylonia. Text no. 42 probably represents part of the second inscribed slab in a longer series of pavement slabs and text no. 44 likely originates from a middle slab in a series of slabs decorating the walls of Tiglath-pileser's palace. The first preserved line of both of these texts also begins mid-narrative, but with summaries of the king's conquests in the west. Lastly, text no. 43, although treated here as a summary inscription, belongs to a separate category of text; its genre cannot be determined with certainty since only a small portion of the inscription is preserved. Since that inscription contains only a list of cities and since each slab in the series was divided into two columns of text, this slab may represent one of the middle slabs of a much longer series.
Because these summary inscriptions were written on several slabs, like the Kalḫu Annals (text nos. 1–34), references to lacunae in the editions are used slightly differently than in most of the RINAP volumes. For text nos. 39–45, "Lacuna" is used only if lines are missing at the beginning and/or end of the slab upon which that inscription is inscribed. Moreover, additional information is generally provided before and after the first and last lines of each edition; these comprise statements such as "Continued from the previous slab (not preserved)" or "Continued on the next slab (not preserved)."
Several wide, single-column tablets inscribed with Tiglath-pileser's summary inscriptions (text nos. 46–52) are also known. Although some of these were discovered in the early days of Assyriology and bear misleading "K(uyunjik)" British Museum sigla, the tablets must actually originate from the Nabû temple at Kalḫu. These tablet copies may have served as a draft (or an archival copy) for texts inscribed on stone slabs. None of the inscriptions are complete, but the best preserved are text nos. 47 and 49. Based on text no. 47, all of the summary inscriptions may have included a building report that described the construction of Tiglath-pileser's palace, with the exception of an earlier and shorter version represented by text no. 46. For details on the contents and the arrangement of the narrative, see the discussion of summary inscriptions in the introduction.
Hayim Tadmor & Shigeo Yamada
Hayim Tadmor & Shigeo Yamada, 'Summary Inscriptions: General', 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/SummaryInscriptions/]