Stone Vessels Small Stone Objects, including Stone Beads and Cylinders Steles and Rock Reliefs Metal Objects
A few inscribed door sockets from Nineveh and Aššur are known. Three are certainly from the South-West Palace at Nineveh (text no. 86 exs. 1–3) and three from the Aššur temple at Aššur (text no. 190 and text no. 191 exs. 1–2), while the provenances of another three are unknown (text no. 87 exs. 1–3). The door sockets from Sennacherib's palace record the king's name and titles, and state that Sennacherib had had kašurû-stone (a type of basalt) brought back to Nineveh and made into door sockets. The door sockets from the Aššur temple at Aššur (text no. 190 and text no. 191 exs. 1–2) begin with a short dedication to Aššur, which includes the god's name and epithets, and then continues with the king's name and titles and a statement about constructing gateways and making door sockets from kašurû-stone. These inscribed door sockets were presumably intended for the gates that Sennacherib claims to have had built while working on Ešarra (see below for details) and, therefore, were probably commissioned sometime after 689; text no. 191 ex. 2 certainly came from the "Gate of the Wagon Star" and text no. 191 ex. 1 may have come from the "Gate of the Firmament." The inscriptions on the remaining three door sockets (text no. 87 exs. 1–3), those objects whose provenance is not known, include only the king's name and titles. It is assumed that these door sockets come from one of the many cities in which Sennacherib commissioned large-scale building projects, such as Nineveh and Aššur.
Fragments of a large and elaborately carved stone water basin found at Aššur preserve part of one or two inscriptions of Sennacherib (text no. 192). Two of the four sides were inscribed, but since only a small portion of the inscribed surface on each of those sides is preserved, it is not possible to determine if this basin was inscribed twice with the same text or if it had two different inscriptions on it. Apart from the king's name, his titles "king of the world" and "king of Assyria," and his epithet claiming to have fashioned the images of deities (ēpiš ṣalam ... "the one who fashioned the image(s) of ..."), nothing else is certain about the inscription(s).
Two stone vessels — a naḫbuṣu-vessel (text no. 133) and a kappu-vessel (text no. 134) — are inscribed with three-line texts recording that Sennacherib had given them as gifts to his son Aššur-ilī-muballissu. The inscriptions, written in Assyrian, contain the king's name and the title "king of Assyria," a statement that the objects were given to his son, and a curse upon anyone who removed them from his possession.
Thirty-two cylinder-shaped beads are inscribed with short proprietary inscriptions of Sennacherib; the beads vary in size, shape, and stone.[38] Some of these were given to him by foreign rulers as part of their audience gifts, while others were taken as booty.[39] On a few occasions, the king states that he had the beads inscribed in his presence. The contents of the inscriptions themselves fall into six groups: (1) the Akkadian word ekal ("Palace of") followed by the king's name, titles, and curses (text nos. 120–124); (2) ekal followed by the king's name, titles, and a statement that the object was given as a gift, with the name of the foreign ruler who gave the gift recorded (text nos. 102); (3) ekal followed by the king's name, titles, a statement that the object was given as a gift, with the name of the ruler who gave the bead recorded, and curses (text nos. 103–110); (4) ekal followed by the king's name, titles, curses, and a statement that the object was taken as booty (text nos. 111–112); (5) ekal followed by the king's name, titles, a statement that the object was taken as booty, and curses (text nos. 113–116); and (6) ekal followed by the king's name, titles, the name of the stone (and its place of origin), and curses (text nos. 117–119, 127?, 210).[40] The gods named in the curse formulae vary from bead to bead, but Aššur is always named; the gods are called upon to make the name and seed of anyone who alters the bead disappear from the land.[41] The function and purpose of these beads are not immediately obvious, but they may have formed part of a foundation deposit, as suggested by an inscription written on a stone tablet describing the rebuilding of the akītu-house at Aššur (text no. 168). The relevant passage (lines 48b–55a) reads:
These beads may have been regarded as having magical power that drove away evil and were thus deposited in the foundations to protect the building. Some of these beads may well have been intended for the foundations of Aššur's akītu-house. If this proves correct, then they would have been inscribed sometime after 689.
Sennacherib's seal (text no. 212) is known only from impressions on several copies of Esarhaddon's Succession Treaty (often referred to as the Vassal Treaty of Esarhaddon) from Kalḫu and Tell Taʿyinat; the Aššur fragments of the Succession Treaty do not preserve the seal impression. The actual seal itself has been lost, is in a private collection, or remains buried in Iraq. The seal's sixteen-line text states that it was "The Seal of Destinies (kunuk šīmāti) [by which] (the god) Aššur, king of the gods, seals (the destinies of) the Igīgū and Anunnakū gods, the heavens, the netherworld, and man[kind]." The text then contains curses against altering the seal and removing the king's name from it. Sennacherib added his name to a second seal: A lapis-lazuli seal of the Babylonian king Šagarakti-Šuriaš. That seal is no longer extant (or is hidden away in some private collection), but the contents of the three inscriptions written on it are known from a copy (text no. 156) that was made during the reign of Sennacherib or one of his successors (Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal). The seal originally belonged to Šagarakti-Šuriaš, was taken as booty from Babylon during the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I, returned to Babylon as a gift (at an unspecified time), and again taken as booty by Sennacherib when he captured and destroyed Babylon in 689.[42] Tukultī-Ninurta added onto the seal a short curse against anyone who would remove his name. The texts of Tukultī-Ninurta and Sennacherib on this seal are both written in Assyrian.
Finally, a small lion finial is inscribed with a short text recording that Sennacherib gave it to his son Esarhaddon (text no. 233). The object, which is reported to have come from Sippar (but is more likely to have been found at Nineveh), was probably inscribed ca. 683–681 since Esarhaddon appears to be referred to as "senior-ranking son."
In addition to erecting round-topped steles (each with an image of the king and symbols of various gods and goddesses) on both sides of the royal road at Nineveh (text no. 38), Sennacherib boasts of having a victory stele erected outside the city Bīt-Kilamzaḫ after his second campaign (702), another outside the city Illubru (in Ḫilakku [Cilicia]) after one of his officials led a campaign there in the king's 9th regnal year (696), and a third near the city Ḫalulê after the battle there during his fourteenth regnal regal (691).[43] Although those steles are no longer extant, their shape and contents can be inferred from other Assyrian stele and rock reliefs, as well as from an inscription written on two stone tablets (text no. 230). Many extant Assyrian steles have a rounded top with an image of the king standing before symbols of his tutelary deities and these too may have had this shape and imagery. As to the contents of the inscriptions, the texts probably contained: (1) an invocation of gods; (2) the king's name, titles, and epithets; (3) a statement about the god Aššur providing support to the Assyrian king; (4) military narration, with a lengthy description of the event that the stele commemorates; (5) a short report stating that the king had a stele erected; and (6) concluding formulae (with curses against anyone who removes, alters, or damages the stele). Two stone tablets from the city Sūr-marrati (text no. 230) 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; for further details on the contents, see the discussion of text no. 230. If this assumption is correct, then the contents of at least one victory stele of Sennacherib is known, even though the original stele is now lost.
A fragment from the upper portion of a round-topped stele found at Aššur (text no. 167) preserves the beginning of an inscription of Sennacherib. The contents of the extant text duplicate (with some variation) text no. 168, which is written on a stone tablet and commemorates the construction of the akītu-house at Aššur. The rest of the stele text may have more or less duplicated the tablet inscription. Thus, the contents of the stele would have been similar to that of the steles that Sennacherib erected in Nineveh.
Like his grandfather Tiglath-pileser III and his father Sargon II, Sennacherib not only had victory steles set up outside the gates of conquered cities but also had round-topped, stele-like niches carved into the sides of rock cliffs. Like the steles they imitate in shape, the stele-like niches have carved in them an image of the king standing before symbols of several deities; the ruler, who faces either to the left or right, has one hand raised in a gesture of supplication and/or adoration while holding an object (frequently a mace) in the other hand. The space to the left and right of the king, and sometimes the clothing of the king, is inscribed. The content of the inscriptions on these "victory steles" carved into the sides of cliffs is generally similar to that of texts found on victory steles themselves. They contain: (1) an invocation of gods; (2) the king's name, titles, and epithets, with a brief statement of divine support; (3) military narration, with a lengthy description of the event that the monument commemorates; (4) a short report stating that the king had a monument or monuments made and inscribed; and (5) concluding formulae. During his fifth campaign (697), Sennacherib had several such inscribed reliefs carved at Judi Dagh in southern Turkey to commemorate his victories over the insubmissive inhabitants of cities located on and near Mount Nipur (text no. 222). Altogether, Sennacherib had at least eight sculpted panels carved at Judi Dagh; six are near the village Shakh and two are near the village Hasanah. Six of those panels were completed, while the other two were only prepared for engraving. Although the monuments are all badly weathered and difficult to decipher, the inscriptions themselves largely duplicate one another; there are variations in the military narration, but the extent of the deviation is not clear given their state of preservation.
At Bavian, near the village of Khinnis, Sennacherib also had numerous round-topped, stele-like niches carved into the sides of rock cliffs. Eleven small panels with images of the king standing before symbols of his divine patrons are known, but only three are inscribed. All three have the same inscription (text no. 223), but the contents are slightly different to those of the inscriptions at Judi Dagh (text no. 222). This is not surprising as the former monuments were carved in Assyria proper and were primarily intended to commemorate the creation of an extensive canal system that brought water to Nineveh and its vicinity. The Bavian inscriptions contain: (1) an invocation of gods; (2) the king's name, titles, epithets, and a brief statement of divine support; (3) a statement about the lack of water in the vicinity of Nineveh during the reigns of his predecessors; (4) a detailed account of the creation of a complex canal system, comprising eighteen canals, including the Patti-Sennacherib and Nār-Sennacherib canals; (5) military narration, which comprises only descriptions of the battle of Ḫalulê (691) and the conquest and destruction of Babylon (689); (6) a short report stating that the king had six monuments made; and (7) concluding formulae. The terminus post quem is the conquest of Babylon in late 689 and, therefore, the inscription was likely written ca. 688.
Very few metal objects from the reigns of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal survive today. A small bronze weight (0.241 kg) in the shape of a crouching lion is inscribed with Sennacherib's name and a note in Akkadian and Aramaic that the object weighed one half mina (text no. 211). The lion was one of sixteen bronze weights that A.H. Layard discovered in 1846 under one of the colossal winged bulls flanking Entrance b of the throne room (Chamber B) of the North-West Palace at Kalḫu (Nimrud). Thirteen are inscribed with Akkadian (and Aramaic) inscriptions and one of these belongs to Sennacherib; the other weights date to the reigns of Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser V, and Sargon II.
Two fragments of bronze plating with texts of Sennacherib are also known (text nos. 193–194). Based on their contents, both pieces are presumably from Aššur. The first inscription (text no. 193) appears to be part of the bronze plating of an object dedicated to the god Aššur. The damaged fifteen-line text comprises a short dedication to Aššur that includes: The god's name and epithets; Sennacherib's name, titles, and epithets; and a building report that commemorates the fashioning of the bronze plating, which was cast through the craft of the deity Ninagal. The association of the piece with the Aššur temple at Aššur is based on the fact that the "Dais of Destinies" and the "path of the god Aššur" are mentioned in the text. Very little is preserved of the second inscription (text no. 194). What is extant duplicates with some deviation the text written on horizontal stone prisms (text no. 166); how much of the rest of the inscription duplicated text no. 166 is not known. Both objects were probably commissioned around the time that he was working on the Aššur temple (after 689).
38 Two inscriptions that were to be written on cylinder-shaped beads are known from a tablet containing drafts of those texts (text no. 157). These texts, which are similar in style to text nos. 117–119 and 211, state that beads came from the otherwise unattested city Gala... (name damaged). For a more detailed study of these beads and those of other Assyrian rulers, see Frahm, CRRA 42 pp. 79–99; and Galter, ARRIM 5 (1987) pp. 11–30.
39 The following rulers are known to have given Sennacherib cylinder-shaped beads as part of their audience gifts: Abī-Baʾal of Samsimuruna (text no. 102), Karib-il of Saba (text nos. 103–108), and Nabû-zēr-kitti-līšir (text no. 109). The name of the ruler in text no. 110 is not preserved. Karib-il's contributions are also recorded on a stone tablet commemorating the construction of the akītu-house at Aššur; see text no. 168 lines 48b–55a. Beads were taken as booty from Dumetu (text nos. 111–114) and Duma (text no. 115), both of which are probably identical with the Arabian city Adummatu, which Sennacherib captured ca. 690.
40 The bead inscribed with text no. 117 is reported to have been made of ḫulālu-stone, the one with text no. 119 of papparmīnu- or pappardilû-stone, and the cylinder-shaped bead with text no. 210 of papparmīnu-stone.
41 Adad, Anu, Aššur, Bēl, Ištar, Nabû, Nergal, Sîn, Šamaš, and Uraš are invoked in the curse formulae on these beads.
42 On one side of K 2673 (text no. 156), the scribe copied the inscriptions of Šagarakti-Šuriaš and Tukultī-Ninurta I, while on the other face he copied the inscriptions of both of those kings along with Sennacherib's own.
43 See, for example, text no. 3 line 26, text no. 17 iv 90–91, and text no. 230 lines 113–114. For a study of Neo-Assyrian steles, in particular those of Sargon II, see Frame, Subartu 18 (2006) pp. 49–68.
A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny
A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny, 'Survey of the Inscribed Objects Included in Part 2, Part 3', RINAP 3: Sennacherib, The RINAP 3 sub-project of the RINAP Project, 2019 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap3/RINAP32Introduction/SurveyoftheInscribedObjectsIncludedinPart2/Part3/]