Horizontal Stone Prisms Stone Tablets Stone Bull and Lion Colossi Wall and Threshold Slabs Stone Blocks (Including Horse Troughs) and Paving Stones
Given the numerous building activities that Sennacherib sponsored at his administrative capital Nineveh, Assyria's principal cult center Aššur, and other major Assyrian cities (including Kilīzu and Tarbiṣu), it is no surprise that nearly two hundred inscribed/stamped bricks of his are now found in museum collections around the world, especially in the British Museum (London) and Vorderasiatiches Museum (Berlin), or were copied or photographed by archaeologists shortly after their discovery in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At present, fourteen different brick inscriptions are known from Nineveh (with duplicates found at other sites), thirteen from Aššur, three from Tarbiṣu, and one from Kilīzu. Bricks of his are also reported to have been discovered at Šibaniba (modern Tell Billa) and Tulul al-Lak (or Lak-teppeh), but nothing about their contents is known. The bricks vary in size and shape (usually square or rectangular, but occasionally well-head). Many of the bricks are inscribed by hand, either on the face or the edge; only a few bricks have inscriptions stamped on them.[18] As one expects, the texts are short, ranging from two to six lines in length. The contents of the various different types are as follows: (1) only the Akkadian word ekal ("Palace") followed by the king's name and titles (text nos. 88–90); (2) Sennacherib's name and titles, and a brief statement about the structure that he built anew or renovated (text nos. 91–100, 200–201, 215, and 219); (3) the king's name and titles, the first person independent pronoun anāku ("I"), and a short statement about the building project (text nos. 196–199, 202, and 205); (4) a dedication to a deity, the king's name and titles, and a brief statement about the building project (text nos. 195 and 216); and (5) the name of the structure for which the brick was intended and Sennacherib's name and titles (text nos. 203–204). The texts are written in both the first and third persons; sometimes it is uncertain in which person the inscription is written owing to morphological ambiguity. At Nineveh, the bricks attest to Sennacherib's work on his palace Egalzagdinutukua (text nos. 91–93), the inner and outer walls (text nos. 94–97) and a house for his son Aššur-šumu-ušabši (text nos. 98–100).[19] At Aššur, the bricks attest to work on various sections of the Aššur temple Ešarra (text nos. 195–198), the Step Gate of the Old Palace (text nos. 199–202), sections of a royal mausoleum (text nos. 203–204), and a house for his son Aššur-nādin-šumi (text no. 205). The bricks from Tarbiṣu record that Sennacherib rebuilt the Nergal temple Egallammes there (text no. 216) and those from Kilīzu state that he constructed the walls of that city (text no. 219).
In Assyria, horizontal stone prisms with royal inscriptions are not common.[20] However, Sennacherib had at least one inscription (text no. 166) written on this type of object, which is a blend of the prism and cylinder formats: Each line of text is written along the long horizontal axis of the object and each of the eight horizontal faces is inscribed with five lines. In many regards, this object type has more in common with (barrel) cylinders than with prisms. With regard to content, the one known text written on this medium contains (1) Sennacherib's titles and epithets, (2) an account of work on Ešarra, the Aššur temple at Aššur (in particular, work on the cella Eḫursaggalkurkurra, its šuḫūru-house, and its new courtyard and gates), (3) an appeal to the building's foundation to speak favorably to the god Aššur, and (4) advice to future rulers (concluding formulae). The format of the inscription is identical to that of four texts written on solid clay cylinders from Nineveh (text nos. 10–13).
In addition to smaller clay foundation deposits and inscribed bricks built into the superstructure of buildings and walls, Sennacherib's scribes and craftsmen engraved texts on a variety of large stone objects, including foundation tablets. Only a handful of stone tablets are known for Sennacherib. In addition to five tablets from Nineveh (text nos. 34–37), four other stone tablets of this king are known: One from Aššur (text no. 168), two from Sūr-marrati (text no. 230), and one discovered at Takrit (text no. 231). Each tablet was inscribed with a single column of text on both the front and back. Like the Nineveh tablets intended for the armory, the texts written on the tablets intended for Sūr-marrati (probably modern Samarra) and the tablet discovered at Takrit contain both military and building narratives, whereas the stone tablet from Aššur includes only an account of construction (although the destruction of Babylon is mentioned in passing).
The Takrit tablet (text no. 231), of which only the first eleven and last six lines survive, is not sufficiently preserved for us to be certain of its contents and the date that it was inscribed. Because its prologue (the king's titles, epithets, and commission by the god Aššur) and the beginning of the military narration are similar to text no. 34 (the so-called Nebi Yunus Inscription) and the end of the building report and the concluding formulae are similar to the text written on the tablets from Sūr-marrati (see below), it is possible that this tablet was also inscribed ca. 690–689 (Sennacherib's 15th–16th regnal years).
One damaged stone tablet and one small fragment of a stone tablet from Sūr-marrati (text no. 230 ex. 1 = the Baltimore Inscription; text no. 230 ex. 2 = the Washington Inscription) appear to be inscribed with the same text. When compared to the other known texts on stone tablets, the inscription is a little unusual; this is perhaps due to the fact that it's contents may have been more or less copied verbatim from a victory stele that was set up in the plain of Ḫalulê after the battle there (691).[21] In the style of texts written on steles and rock reliefs (see below), the inscription begins with an invocation of gods, the king's name and epithets, and a statement about the god Aššur supporting Sennacherib as his earthly representative, in particular during his campaigns to Chaldea and Elam. The military narration itself is unusual, not only in the manner in which the campaigns are recorded, but also in the number of campaigns it records. To conform with the numbering of the campaigns in the king's annalistic narration on clay prisms, Sennacherib boasts of eight successful campaigns, with the centerpiece of the narrative (the battle of Ḫalulê) being the eighth. In the text, however, the king refers to only five events (his first, fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth campaigns) and describes just three of them (his sixth, seventh, and eighth campaigns) in any detail. Before describing the battle of Ḫalulê, Sennacherib states that he campaigned against Chaldea four times and against Elam three times; no details are given about the individual campaigns. The inscription then goes on to narrate the events leading up to the battle of Ḫalulê, the battle itself and its aftermath, and the erecting of an inscribed victory stele on the field of battle. To provide some background information about why Sennacherib marched south against Mušēzib-Marduk, the king of Babylon, reports of the sixth and seventh campaigns are included, probably to elucidate why Sennacherib regarded the Elamite king Umman-menanu (Ḫumban-menanu) "a rash fellow who does not have sense or insight"; those events are introduced by the formulae "on the first occasion" and "on the second occasion" respectively, and recorded in subordinate clauses, with the verbs marked by the subordinate marker -u. The building report, which follows the statement about setting up a victory stele, records that Sennacherib enlarged the city Sūr-marrati and built its wall. Unlike the other known stone tablets of Sennacherib, one tablet is dated. That exemplar was inscribed in the eponymy of Nabû-kēnu-uṣur (690), which is wrongly called in that text the "fourteenth year of Sennacherib"; this eponymy is actually the king's 15th regnal year.[22]
The inscription on the stone tablet from Aššur (text no. 168) differs significantly in content from the two texts described above since it includes no military narration. This seventy-two line text contains (1) Sennacherib's titles and epithets, (2) a detailed account of Sennacherib's construction of the akītu-house at Aššur, which was located just outside the western wall of that city, (3) an appeal to the building's foundation to speak favorably to the god Aššur, and (4) advice to future rulers (concluding formulae). The building report is unusual since it mentions that people from Dilmun came and, under Sennacherib's instructions, helped destroy Babylon; they removed earth from the city to pile up in the akītu-house. A foreign ruler (Karib-il of Saba) is said to have provided an audience gift of (precious) stones and aromatics that were deposited in the foundation of the temple. The tablet is not dated, but since the sack and destruction of Babylon are explicitly mentioned, the inscription must date no earlier than 689.
From 1847 to 1851, A.H. Layard uncovered by means of tunneling a portion (generally thought to be less than half) of Sennacherib's large palace at Nineveh, exposing the walls and entrance ways of seventy rooms.[23] Layard uncovered ca. 9,880 feet (= 3,011 m) of wall reliefs, the best preserved of which were transported back to the British Museum in London, as well as numerous pairs of stone bull (aladlammu) and lion (apsasû) colossi, objects inscribed with texts of the ruler whom he called the "Kouyunjik-king"; most of the colossi and sculpted slabs were badly cracked and scarred by heat when the palace was burnt during the sack of Nineveh in 612. After copying some of the better-preserved texts and removing some inscribed objects to be taken back to England, many sculptures were reburied.
In inscriptions written during the years 697–695 (the king's 8th–10th regnal years), Sennacherib records that he had two alabaster bull colossi and seventy-two white limestone bull and lion colossi made and stationed in his palace's gateways; this is in addition to numerous other stone and cast metal colossi that functioned as column bases.[24] Although Layard mentions finding "twenty-seven portals, formed by colossal winged bulls and lion-sphinxes," the details of only twenty-four pairs of colossi are recorded in Layard's descriptions of his excavations of the South-West Palace.[25] Nineteen pairs of these colossi are human-headed bull colossi, four pairs are lion colossi, and one pair is not described. In addition, L.W. King discovered remains of a few bull colossi during his 1903–4 excavations of the northeastern end of the palace (Sennacherib's so-called Eastern Building); these were re-excavated by J.M. Russell in 1989–90 as part of D. Stronach's Nineveh Project. Presumably, all of Sennacherib's colossi were intended to be inscribed, but inscriptions on only twenty-three (or possibly twenty-five) bulls and four lions are known. Most are attested from Layard's field copies (MS A, MS C, and MS D), but others were once attested by casts in the British Museum (objects that S. Smith had destroyed on the grounds that they had outlived their usefulness) or by originals (pieces that are either now in museum collections or whose in situ remains have been photographed).
The inscriptions on the known bull and lion colossi fall into three categories: (1) the first type (text nos. 39–40, 43, and 49–50) contains a short prologue, a building report describing the construction of Egalzagdinutukua (as well as the creation of a botanical garden, canals for irrigation, and a marsh), and a brief concluding statement; (2) the second type (text nos. 42 and 44–45, and possibly text nos. 41 and 47) has a short prologue, a summary of military campaigns, a building report describing the construction of Sennacherib's new palace (as well as the creation of a botanical garden, canals for irrigation, and a marsh), and a brief concluding statement;[26] and (3) the third type (text no. 46) contains a short prologue, annalistic narration of the king's victories on the battlefield, a building report describing the construction of Sennacherib's new palace (as well as the creation of a botanical garden, canals for irrigation, and a marsh), and a brief concluding statement. The division of the text falls into four types: (1) in the first (text no. 39), the inscription begins between one pair of legs of the colossus (the front or back), continues beneath the belly, and concludes between the other set of legs (the back or front);[27] (2) in the second (text nos. 44 exs. 1 and 2, and possibly 45), the inscription begins between the hind legs and concludes under the belly; (3) in the third (text nos. 44 exs. 3 and 4, and possibly 41), the inscription begins under the belly and concludes between the hind legs; and (4) in the fourth (text nos. 40–43, 46, and probably 49–50), the inscription begins under the belly of the first colossus, continues between the hind legs of the that same colossus and then the hind legs of the second colossus, and concludes under the belly of the second colossus.
The dates that these bull and lion colossi were inscribed is less certain than one would hope. Based on comparisons with the contents of inscriptions written on octagonal clay prisms (text nos. 15–17) and the military narration included in some of those prism inscriptions, most of the bulls and lions, with the exception of the Eastern Building colossi, appear to have been inscribed from ca. 695 to late 694 or early 693, that is, at the time texts nos. 16–17 and 19–21, were being inscribed on prisms.[28] Although the terminus post quem for text no. 42, which is on the bulls in Room I (the throne room), Door d and Door e, is the fifth campaign (697; Sennacherib's 8th regnal year), the same as text no. 16, the contents and wording of the building report and its placement in the palace suggest that that inscription was composed sometime between text nos. 16 and 17, in late 695 or at the very beginning of 694. Text no. 43 (which is on the bulls in Court H, Door c and Court VI, Door a and which does not contain any military narration) was written mid- to late 694 since its building report is identical (apart from two minor textual variants and orthographic variants) to that of text no. 42.[29] A close look at the building reports of text no. 39 (which may have been written on the bulls in Court VI, Door k) and text no. 40 (which is inscribed on the lions in Court LXIV, Door a, an entrance that was part of Tašmētu-šarrat's, Sennacherib's queen's, living quarters) indicates that those two texts were composed earlier than text nos. 42 and 43, and later than text no. 16.[30] Although text no. 40 has several lacunae, it appears that it was composed slightly later than text no. 39. Thus, text nos. 39 and 40 were probably composed ca. 696–695. It is possible that text no. 41 was also composed ca. 695, likely between text nos. 39–40 and 42–43, but too little of the inscription is preserved to be absolutely certain that this is the case.[31] With regard to the dates of text no. 44 (which is written on the bulls lining the lower walls of the façade of Court H) and text no. 46 (which is on the bulls in Court H, Door a), the terminus post quem is the first part of the sixth campaign (late 694–early 693), the raid against the Bīt-Yakīn exiles living in Elam and, therefore, those inscriptions were composed shortly after that time. There is some evidence that text no. 44 was composed earlier than text no. 46.[32] Too little of text nos. 45 and 47 is preserved to be able to propose a certain date of composition. Furthermore, nothing about the "nearly illegible" text no. 48, which is on the lions in Court XIX, Door a, is known, so no date can be suggested. Although text nos. 49–50, which are written on bulls stationed in gateways of the northeastern end of the palace (Sennacherib's Eastern Building), are very fragmentarily preserved, it is certain that these two inscriptions are the latest known bull inscriptions from the South-West Palace. These likely were composed between 693 and 691; the latter date is based on Sennacherib's boast in text no. 22 (vi 36b–37), a copy of which is dated to 20-XII-691, that that palace had been completed.[33]
Some of the bulls are inscribed with short texts on the unsculpted surface that abutted the wall (the "back").[34] One of the bulls in Room I, Door e (text no. 42 ex. 1*), has the so-called Palace Inscription (text no. 80) on its wall-facing side. That text reads "Palace of Sennacherib, great king, king of the world, king of Assyria, the almighty sovereign of all rulers." The back of at least one lion in Room XXXIII, Door p, is inscribed with a short text (text no. 51) recording the discovery of pendû-stone, a valuable and beautiful stone, at the foot of Mount Nipur (modern Judi Dagh), its sculpting into sphinxes (apsasû), and its transport to Nineveh.
Sennacherib's craftsmen changed the format for wall reliefs with accompanying texts that had been used by his predecessors. Bands of text that divided slabs into two registers were abandoned, thereby allowing images to be carved over the entire surface of the slabs; new spatial conventions, including a sense of depth, were adopted to accommodate the expanded pictorial area; and the only inscriptions visible were short epigraphs placed next to the image of the king, the king's camp, or a city under siege. The additional space available on the sculpted slabs resulted in there being more space for accompanying text, thus allowing for epigraphs to be considerably longer than those of previous kings; the majority not only record the setting of the scene and action depicted, but also the identity of the king. Twenty-eight epigraphs are known from fifteen different rooms of Sennacherib's Palace Without A Rival (text nos. 53–77); there must have been many more but, as A.H. Layard observed while clearing out the rooms, the upper portion of most of Sennacherib's reliefs is now destroyed and that part of the slab was the usual location for this type of text. Most of the surviving epigraphs record events that took place during his first three campaigns, while only one records an event that took place in his fifth campaign. Several epigraphs record the procurement and transport of building materials and bull colossi. Several of the reliefs and accompanying texts describe events not recorded in other contemporary inscriptions; for example, the siege and capture of the Judean city of Lachish (text no. 66) and the siege of the city Alammu (text no. 59).
Numerous sculpted and unsculpted wall slabs from Sennacherib's palace (including the so-called Eastern Building) and armory have inscribed on their wall-facing ("back") surfaces a short proprietary text, the so-called Palace Inscription (text no. 80). It has been suggested this text was inscribed on most of the wall slabs (and colossi) decorating Sennacherib's palace.[35] Note that Sennacherib's standard Palace Inscription is shorter than those written on the backs of slabs lining the rooms of the palaces of Ashurnasirpal II and Sargon II. Those inscriptions provide information about the king, his deeds, and the appearance of their magnificent royal residences, while this text of Sennacherib is a mere label that names the palace's builder and owner.
Plain, unsculpted wall slabs inscribed with short texts of Sennacherib (text nos. 81–85) have been discovered in other parts of Nineveh, including the Šamaš Gate and the Ḫalzi Gate. These short inscriptions include Sennacherib's name and titles, and a statement that he built anew the inner and outer walls of Nineveh and had them raised as high as mountains.
According A.H. Layard, "The pavement slabs were not inscribed as at Nimroud; but those between the winged bulls at some of the entrances [of Sennacherib's palace], were carved with an elaborate and very elegant pattern."[36] Layard's assessment, however, is not entirely correct. In fact, the stone floral threshold slabs of Room I, Doors a and e of the South-West Palace at Nineveh (text nos. 78–79) are inscribed with two-line texts stating that Sennacherib had had the "Palace Without a Rival" built at Nineveh. In addition to these two slabs, there may have been other decorated floral slabs in Sennacherib's palace that were inscribed. Moreover, an inscribed threshold slab belonging to Sennacherib was discovered at Kilīzu (modern Qaṣr Šemāmok). That slab has written on it a six-line text (text no. 218) that contains Sennacherib's name, titles, and a statement that he built anew the inner and outer walls of that city and had them raised as high as mountains.
At Aššur, Sennacherib used large stone blocks (text nos. 169–189) not only for the foundation of the Zababa temple (text no. 177), the Step Gate of the Old Palace (text no. 178), a house for his son Aššur-ilī-muballissu (formerly read Aššur-ilī-bulliṭsu; text nos. 179–185), and sections of the Aššur temple (text nos. 169–170), but also for the structure of the akītu-house and as paving stones for its processional way (text nos. 171–176).[37] As on bricks, the texts on stone blocks are relatively short, with their inscriptions ranging from three to ten lines in length. The style of the texts' contents is all the same: They begin with the king's name, titles, and epithets, and conclude with a brief statement about the work, including a reference to the use of stone in the project. Unlike the known brick inscriptions of Sennacherib, which can be written in either the first or third person, all of his known block inscriptions appear to be written in the first person. The first person independent pronoun anāku ("I"), when included, appears either at the beginning of the inscription or after the king's titles and epithets. An individual text can be written on a single block of stone (text nos. 169–173 and 177–189) or carved across a series of six to nine blocks (text nos. 174–176).
Inscribed stone blocks were also used to line the walls and floors of canals that were intended to convey a regular and abundant supply of water towards important Assyrian cities, especially Nineveh. Numerous such blocks were discovered at Jerwan by T. Jacobsen and S. Lloyd in 1932–33. The inscriptions on these blocks (text nos. 224–228) range from short, two-line labels (text nos. 224–225) — comprising the Akkadian word ekal ("Palace") followed by the king's name and titles — written on a single block and medium length texts written on a series of blocks recording that Sennacherib had canals dug and lined with stone blocks (text nos. 226–227), to lengthy texts (text no. 228) that are written on numerous stone blocks and that include military narration. Unfortunately, with regard to the longest text from Jerwan, little can be said with certainty about its contents since the 202 stone blocks inscribed with it were discovered in secondary usage, with the original arrangement of the blocks being completely abandoned. The inscribed blocks were found scattered haphazardly among uninscribed blocks; in some cases the inscription had been turned sideways, in others upside down, and in numerous cases the blocks were re-cut, further damaging the top and bottom lines of those blocks. Based on what can be gleaned from the fragmentary remains of the jigsaw puzzle of an inscription, the text apparently included a prologue, reports of at least two campaigns (Sennacherib's first and second campaigns), and a building report. The inscription, when complete, may have been written in at least three columns, with a minimum height of nine courses of blocks per column (with two to three lines per block) and approximately sixteen to twenty-one signs per line (each line stretching over seven blocks). Therefore, each column contained at least twenty-six lines of text, making the inscription at least seventy-eight lines long. A precise date for the inscription cannot be determined, but it is generally thought that Sennacherib's work in the Jerwan area was undertaken between 694 and 689 and, thus, the inscriptions were probably composed during that time. Moreover, several blocks forming the entrance to a tunnel near Arbela, a major cult center of the goddess Ištar, are inscribed with a short eight-line inscription (text no. 229) stating that Sennacherib had three canals dug to bring water to Arbela; the style of the text is similar to text nos. 226–227.
Just north of Nebi Yunus, several series of stone blocks with a channel running down the length of their tops were discovered; based on the inscription written on them (text no. 132) and the presence of the channel, these blocks were probably used as horse troughs. Each set comprised three blocks and was inscribed with the same short text stating that Sennacherib made these troughs and paved the area around them with pieces of different types of stone, unused material from other building projects at Nineveh.
At Babylon, several paving stones of breccia inscribed with "Sennacherib, king of Assyria" (text no. 232) were discovered by R. Koldewey in July 1900; the Neo-Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II reused and reinscribed them. Because these stones were used as paving stones by Nebuchadnezzar, it is assumed that Sennacherib also used them as paving stones for the processional way at Babylon. The objects were probably inscribed during his first reign over Babylonia (704–703) or when his vassal Bēl-ibni or his son Aššur-nādin-šumi sat on the throne of Babylon (702–694).
18 The inscription on HMA 9-1764 (text no. 92 ex. 11) is reported to have been stamped; see Foxvog, RA 72 (1978) p. 43. The authors have not been able to confirm that the brick's text is stamped rather than inscribed.
19 Note that bricks inscribed with duplicates of these inscriptions have been discovered at Aššur, Beisan, Kilīzu, and Tell Yarah.
20 The shape of these stone horizontal prisms is similar to that of the clay prismatic cylinders of Sargon II from Dūr-Šarrukīn, Kalḫu, Nineveh, Tell Haddad, and Tell Baradān; these prism-like cylinders have 8–10 faces. However, with regard to content, the two mediums are quite different. Sennacherib's stone horizontal prisms are inscribed with inscriptions describing only building activities, while Sargon's clay prismatic cylinders are inscribed with texts commemorating achievements both on and off the battlefield, much like most of Sennacherib's clay cylinders from Nineveh (with exemplars found at Aššur) and Tarbiṣu. For further information and a catalogue of Sargon's prism-like cylinders, see Frame, Studies Parpola pp. 80–82 (Addendum 2).
21 A.K. Grayson (AfO 20 [1963] p. 87) proposes that a letter to a god could have been a likely source for some of the contents of this text; this proposal, however, cannot be presently supported by the extant Sennacherib corpus. For further information about the unusual style of the inscription, see ibid. pp. 83–89.
22 According to this text, the year 703 would be Sennacherib's first regnal year. It has been suggested that this discrepancy arose because the Assyrians were not accustomed to dating texts by regnal year (that is, in a Babylonian fashion) or because Assyrian scribes did not always achieve precision when calculating dates according to varying calendrical systems. On "double datings," see Millard, SAAS 2 pp. 70–71.
23 H. Rassam (1852–54, 1878–82), W. Loftus (1854–55), G. Smith (1873–74), E.A.W. Budge (1889–91), L.W. King (1903–4), R.C. Thompson (1904–5), T.A. Madhloom (1965–71), and D. Stronach and J.M. Russell (1989–90) also carried out excavations on the South-West Palace, including its northeastern section (Sennacherib's Eastern Building, which is sometimes erroneously called the bīt nakkapti). In 1965–71, the Iraq Department of Antiquities and Heritage, under the direction of Madhloom, re-excavated Sennacherib's throne room suite (Rooms I–V, Court H, and Court VI), unearthing the fragmentary remains of numerous sculpted and inscribed orthostats and bull colossi; that area has now been converted into a site museum, with ca. 100 reliefs displayed in their original positions. For details about the throne room suite and a catalogue of its sculpture, see J.M. Russell, Final Sack.
24 Text no. 15 vi 61–vii 4 and text no. 16 vi 74–vii 11. In 702, Sennacherib boasts that he created for his palace eight bronze lion colossi and an unspecified number of bull colossi made of silver, bronze, and mountain stone. From 697 to early to mid-695, he records that the palace contained twelve copper lion colossi, ten sphinxes of urudû-copper, ten sphinxes of alabaster, twelve sphinxes of GU.AN.NA-metal, twelve bull colossi of urudû-copper, two bull colossi of alabaster, and seventy-two bull and lion colossi of white limestone. From mid- to late 695 to early 693, Sennacherib states that there were in his palace, as column bases and gateway guardians, an unspecified number of bull colossi of copper, alabaster, and white limestone, an unspecified number of sphinxes of alabaster, urudû-copper, and GU.AN.NA-metal, twelve lion colossi of copper, and twenty-two sphinxes of copper.
25 Layard, Discoveries p. 589. On his plan of the palace (ibid., between pp. 67 and 68), Layard records finding nineteen pairs of colossi, while one of his accounts of the excavation (ibid. p. 645) mentions five additional pairs in the west entrance; note that three of these five pairs appear to have been restored on the plan of the South-West Palace. Furthermore, six more pairs have also been restored on the plan. There is a discrepancy in the various totals stated by Layard.
26 Despite the very fragmentary nature of all four exemplars of text no. 44, the colossi lining the lower walls of the façade of Court H, these four bulls all preserve parts of one and the same inscription. See the commentary of that text and J.M. Russell, Writing on the Wall pp. 265–270.
27 A.H. Layard's numbering of the inscribed surfaces in MS D fols. 24–29 suggests that text no. 39 was inscribed on a pair of five-legged colossi, a sculpture type not recorded by the excavators of the South-West Palace. As pointed out by J.M. Russell (Writing on the Wall p. 279), this does not rule out the possibility that such colossi were erected in Sennacherib's royal residence at Nineveh. Four-legged bulls appear to have been the norm for colossi during Sennacherib's reign; five-legged bulls were used exclusively during the reigns of his predecessors (Ashurnasirpal II, Shalmaneser III, and Sargon II). In the case of text no. 39 ex. 1, the inscription began between the front legs, continued beneath the belly, and concluded between the back legs, whereas with ex. 2, the inscription began between the back legs, continued beneath the belly, and concluded between the front legs.
28 At present, there are no known prism inscriptions that were written between text no. 16 (latest dated exemplar copied on 3-V-695) and text no. 17 (both dated copies inscribed in V-694) and no complete prism inscriptions for the year 693 (Sennacherib's 12th regnal year); text no. 20 (and possibly text no. 21) was written on a prism in 693, but only a small portion of its military narration is preserved.
29 Text no. 43 line 16 records that Sennacherib converted a 554×289 cubit area into dry land before building a 190-layer brick terrace on top of it, while text no. 42 line 23 records that same area as being 360×289 cubits in size. The final dimensions of the palace in text no. 43 lines 19b–20a are 914×440 large cubits, while they are either 7[00×440] or 9[14×440] large cubits in text no. 42 line 27; Layard's copy in MS A has 7 [ME], but his copy in ICC has 9 [ME 14]. Because Layard's draft copies are usually more accurate than his published typeset ones and because the area of dry land converted to terrace in MS A is identical to that in earlier inscriptions written on bull colossi (text no. 39), the dimensions of the palace recorded in text no. 42 are probably 7[00×440] cubits. Thus, based on these two variants, text no. 42 appears to be earlier than text no. 43. E. Frahm (Sanherib p. 123) dates text no. 42 and text no. 43 ex. 1 to ca. 696.
30The provenance of text no. 39 is conjectural since there is no information on the colossi that were inscribed with this text. For the proposed provenance, which is based on A.H. Layard's statement that the inscription was "nearly entire" (Discoveries p. 71), see J.M. Russell, Writing on the Wall pp. 279–280.
31 For details on the proposed date, see the commentary to that text.
32 See the commentary and on-page notes to text no. 44.
33 Based on parallels between this text and text no. 34 (lines 72–74a) in their description of pendû-stone, E. Frahm (Sanherib p. 122) proposes that the inscriptions on the Eastern Building bulls were probably composed after 690.
34 It is not impossible that most, if not all, of Sennacherib's colossi bore short texts on their unsculpted, wall-facing surfaces. For this opinion, see also J.M. Russell, Writing on the Wall p. 127.
35 J.M. Russell, Writing on the Wall p. 127.
36 Layard, Discoveries p. 652. For a drawing of one of these floral threshold slabs, see J.M. Russell, Writing on the Wall p. 133 fig. 41.
37 Text nos. 186–189 are not sufficiently preserved to accurately determine what building activity their inscriptions commemorate.
A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny
A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny, 'Survey of the Inscribed Objects Included in Part 2, Part 2', RINAP 3: Sennacherib, The RINAP 3 sub-project of the RINAP Project, 2019 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap3/RINAP32Introduction/SurveyoftheInscribedObjectsIncludedinPart2/Part2/]