From 1861 to the 2022, copies of inscriptions of Ashurbanipal written on clay tablets, in the form of hand-drawn and typeset Neo-Assyrian facsimiles, have been published in numerous scholarly publications. In chronological order, these are: 1 R; 3 R; G. Smith, Assurbanipal; G. Smith, Senn.; Pinches, TBWW; Evans, Essay; S.A. Smith, Keilschrifttexte 2–3; Bezold, Cat. 1–4; Lehmann-Haupt, Šamaššumukîn; Strong, JA 9/1 (1983); Craig, ABRT 1–2; Winckler, Sammlung 3; Perry, Sin; Ungnad, VAS 1; Delitzsch, AL5; King, Cat.; Meek, JAOS 38 (1918); Leeper, CT 35; Langdon, OECT 6; Bauer, Asb.; Weidner, AfO 13 (1939–41); Thompson, Iraq 7 (1940); Millard, Iraq 26 (1964); Millard, Iraq 30 (1968); Schramm, WO 8 (1975); Frame and Grayson, SAAB 8/1 (1994); Onasch, ÄAT 27; Pongratz-Leisten, Studies Boehmer; Novotny, Studies Walker; Novotny, Eḫulḫul; Jiménez, Iraq 76 (2014); and Novotny, SAACT 10. Of particular note is Bauer, Asb. 1, which comprises 64 plates of hand-drawn facsimiles, including ninety-eight (mostly previously unpublished) clay tablets housed in the British Museum (London). In addition, several Ashurbanipal inscriptions edited in this volume, as well as a few texts edited in previously-published RINAP volumes, were copied by F.W Geers between 1924 and 1939. His provisional, carefully-prepared facsimiles of ca. 5000 tablets, chiefly those in the British Museum (London), were never published, but have been largely accessible from the originals in the Seminar für Sprachen und Kulturen des Vorderen Orients at the University of Heidelberg and photocopies at other institutions, including the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.[30] Although Geers' copies were never published, numerous scholars over the past seven decades, including people working on Assyrian historical texts, have profited immensely from them. Unlike previous RINAP volumes, references to Geers notebooks are included in the relevant bibliographies in the present volume.
Previous editions and (English and German) translations of (parts of) this rich corpus of texts can be found, for example, in Streck, Asb.; Luckenbill, ARAB 2; Bauer, Asb. 2; Weidner, AfO 8 (1932–33);[31] Onasch ÄAT 27; Borger, BIWA; and Novotny 2014. For further details about previous work on Ashurbanipal's inscriptions, see the overview of previous editions in Novotny and Jeffers, RINAP 5/1 pp. 7–12.
[30] Weidner, AfO 17 (1954–56) p. 489; Weidner, RLA 3/3 (1964) pp. 180–181; Oppenheim, JNES 33 (1974) pp. 179–181; and Borger, HKL 2 pp. VII–VIII. Scans of pages from Geers' notebooks are accessible online via the eBL Project (https://www.ebl.lmu.de/ [last accessed April 11, 2022]).
[31] That article was the first serious study of the "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" (text nos. 161–171) and the "Šamaš-šuma-ukīn and Tammarītu cycle" (text nos. 172–183) of epigraphs inscribed on seventeen (single- and double-column) clay tablets; copies of most these were published in Leeper, CT 35. For other studies on the relationship between the epigraphs accompanying wall reliefs in the Nineveh palaces and the epigraphs recorded on Ashurbanipal's clay tablets, see, for example, Reade, Design and Decoration pp. 326–334; Gerardi, Ashurbanipal's Elamite Campaigns pp. 96–99; Kaelin, Bildexperiment pp. 9–78 and 93–114; and J.M. Russell, Writing on the Wall pp. 156–209.
Jamie Novotny
Jamie Novotny, 'Overview of Previous Work on the Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal Written on Clay Tablets', RINAP 5: The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal, Aššur-etel-ilāni, and Sîn-šarra-iškun, The RINAP/RINAP 5 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2022 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap5/RINAP52Introduction/OverviewofPreviousWork/]