161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171
The so-called "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs is named as such given that this collection of material focuses on Ashurbanipal's battle with and decapitation of the Elamite king Teumman at Tīl-Tūba, which is situated on the Ulāya River, as well as the capture of his Gambulian ally Dunānu at the city Ša-pī-Bēl in 653. The study of these tablets as a corpus was first carried out by E. Weidner in AfO 8 (1932–33) pp. 175–191, although A. Leeper had already provided copies for the initial collection of epigraph tablets in CT 35 in 1920 and editions or translations of several of these tablets had appeared in Streck, Asb. in 1916 or Luckenbill, ARAB 2 in 1927. In his study, Weidner designated the seven primary tablets of this cycle as "Texts A–G" (text nos. 161–167), although his assignment of the designations to their respective tablets in AfO 8 (1932–33) p. 177 n. 9 was accidentally jumbled; the correct assignment is given in Reade, Design and Decoration p. 327. Weidner used the most complete epigraph tablet in the collection ("Text A") as his primary source to create a composite edition of the epigraphs, and he gave the epigraphs of that tablet consecutive numbers from 1 to 38. However, the consecutive numbering of the epigraphs of this tablet is a bit misleading since there is a lacuna of indeterminate length between the top and bottom fragments of the tablet that actually interrupts the sequence, meaning that despite the consecutive numbering, not all epigraphs directly follow one another on the tablet (see the commentary to text no. 161). Furthermore, Weidner left epigraphs that appeared on the other six tablets but did not appear in "Text A" unnumbered. An additional epigraph tablet (text no. 168) was later identified and published by Borger (AfO 23 [1970] p. 90), and this text was given the designation "Text H" following Weidner's designation practice. A table that provides the location of the numbered epigraphs in each of the tablets of this collection is included below. Weidner also discussed three other tablets (text nos. 169–171) that were included in the collection of epigraph texts copied by Leeper and that contain Teumman and Dunānu-related materials, but he noted that they do not have a direct relationship to the other tablets comprising the main cycle of these epigraphs.
Several epigraphs of the present collection appear in either Room I of Ashurbanipal's North Palace or Room XXXIII of Sennacherib's South-West Palace since the topic of the relief programs in these two rooms pertains to the king's conflict with Teumman. As for Room I, epigraph no. 16 is text no. 29. With regard to Room XXXIII, epigraph no. 7a is text no. 25, epigraph no. 9 is text no. 26, epigraph no. 15 is text no. 28, epigraph no. 17 is text no. 33, and epigraph no. 28 is text no. 36; for one of the unnumbered epigraphs in text no. 165 (rev. 9´–15´), compare text no. 35. Also, as for the epigraphs that come from either Room I or Room XXXIII, epigraph no. 31 is text no. 31 and epigraph no. 33 is text no. 32. Finally, with respect to the relationship between the content of the epigraphs and Ashurbanipal's prism inscriptions, J.M. Russell (Writing on the Wall pp. 157–166) has shown that the textual tradition of the epigraphs appears to be independent of the tradition preserved in Ashurbanipal's account of these events in text no. 3 (Prism B) iv 80–vi 85.
| Epigraph No. | Text 161 (Text A) | Text 162 (Text B) | Text 163 (Text C) | Text 164 (Text D) | Text 165 (Text E) | Text 166 (Text F) | Text 167 (Text G) | Text 168 (Text H) |
| 1 | i 1–3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2 | i 4–5 | obv. 8´–9´ | obv. 1´–3´ | — | — | — | — | — |
| 3 | i 6–11 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 4 | i 12–13 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 5 | i 14–15 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 6 | i 16–18 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 7 | i 19–21 | — | — | obv. 2´–4´ | — | — | — | obv. 1´–2´ |
| 7a | — | — | — | obv. 5´ | — | — | — | obv. 3´ |
| 8 | i 22–23 | — | — | obv. 6´–7´ | — | — | — | obv. 4´ |
| 9 | — | — | — | obv. 8´–12´ | — | — | — | obv. 5´–6´ |
| 10 | i 1´ | — | — | — | obv. 4–9 | — | — | — |
| 11 | i 2´–3´ | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 12 | i 4´–10´ | — | — | — | obv. 10–13 | — | — | — |
| 13 | i 11´–13´ | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 14 | i 14´–ii 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 15 | ii 4–7 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 16 | ii 8–10 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 17 | ii 11–14 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 18 | ii 15–18 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 19 | ii 19–21 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 20 | ii 22–25 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 21 | ii 26–28 | — | — | — | — | — | 1´–2´ | — |
| 22 | ii 29–32 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 23 | ii 1´–4´ | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 24 | ii 5´–6´ | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 25 | ii 7´–9´ | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 26 | ii 10´–12´ | — | — | — | rev. 4´–6´ | — | — | — |
| 27 | ii 13´–16´ | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 28 | iii 2´–4´ | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 29 | iii 5´–8´ | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 30 | iii 9´–11´ | l.e. 1–3 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 31 | iii 12´–13´ | — | — | — | obv. 1 | — | — | — |
| 32 | iii 14´ | — | — | — | obv. 2 | — | — | — |
| 33 | iii 15´–17´ | — | — | — | — | — | — | obv. 7´–8´ |
| 34 | iii 18´–23´ | — | — | — | rev. 1´–3´ | — | 7´–13´ | — |
| 35 | iii 24´–27´ | — | — | — | — | 3´–4´ | — | — |
| 36 | iii 28´–iv 6 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 37 | iv 7–9 | — | rev. 6–8 | — | — | — | 3´–6´ | — |
| 38 | iv 10–16 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
This clay tablet is one of eight tablets that preserve a collection of epigraphs belonging to the so-called "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171). In his edition, E. Weidner designated this tablet as "Text A" of that collection.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007569/] of Ashurbanipal 161.
K 2674+ is the best-preserved tablet fragment pertaining to the "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs. It contains two columns of text on the obverse as well as on the reverse. The pieces comprising K 2674+ preserve the upper portion of the tablet including parts of the left, right, and most of its upper edges, while the fragment 80-7-19,102 preserves the lower portion of the tablet including the bottom edge and the lower part of the tablet's left edge. However, these two sections of the tablet do not join and the extent of the lacuna between them cannot be determined with any certainty. Due to its overall well-preserved state, this text was the basis for the numbering assigned to the epigraphs in E. Weidner's edition (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171 and the table of epigraph correspondences presented there). The text contains all or portions of epigraph nos. 1–8 (not including 7a) and 10–38. Restorations to the damaged epigraphs are generally based on the parallel accounts of text nos. 164–165 and 167–168 (see the aforementioned table of epigraph correspondences).
Although Weidner assigned consecutive numbers to the epigraphs contained on the tablet, such a convention can be misleading as it gives the impression that all of the epigraphs on the tablet immediately follow one other, but this is not the case. The difficulty stems from the fact that the exact length of the gap separating the pieces comprising the top half of the tablet (K 2674+) and the fragment containing the bottom half of the tablet (80-7-19,102) is not known, and so the lacuna between these two halves would have contained an unknown number of epigraphs. Without question, there is a fairly large lacuna of a minimum of sixteen lines (the portion of col. iii that is completely broken away on 80-7-19,102) plus the length of the aforementioned lacuna between epigraph no. 27 at the end of col. ii and epigraph no. 28 that appears in the middle of col. iii; Weidner estimated that this total gap was about twenty-five lines. Thus, there are certainly several additional epigraphs that would have originally appeared on the tablet between these two consecutively labeled epigraphs.
Regarding the numbering of the epigraphs on the obverse of the tablet, it is possible that there are a few more epigraphs that originally appeared in the lacuna between nos. 8 and 10 of col. i and between nos. 22 and 23 of col. ii since the length of the gap between K 2674+ and 80-7-19,102 is not known nor can these two consecutively numbered sequences be established by other texts. As for nos. 22 and 23, no other texts preserve these two epigraphs, and so a consecutive sequence cannot be established for them. Given the lacuna between K 2674+ and 80-7-19,102, there were probably additional epigraphs in this lacuna that likely spanned several lines in the middle of the column; Weidner estimated a gap of about eight lines. The situation is a bit more complicated for col. i. Weidner assumed that epigraph no. 9 followed no. 8 and thus he did not even indicate the presence of a lacuna here in his edition, but this is far from certain as epigraph no. 9 is not preserved on the tablet. Text nos. 164 and 168 present epigraph nos. 8 and 9 consecutively, but then the former text breaks off after no. 9, while the latter text goes from epigraph no. 9 to no. 33. On the other hand, text no. 165 preserves epigraph no. 10, but this tablet has three one-line epigraphs (nos. 31, 32, and an unnumbered epigraph) immediately preceding it instead of no. 9. Without any preserved examples of epigraph nos. 9 and 10 appearing together in a consecutive sequence, and without knowing if the tablet even contained epigraph no. 9 originally, it is unclear what may have been included in the middle of col. i of this text between no. 8 that appears before the break and no. 10 that appears after the break.
This clay tablet (Rm 2,364) is one of eight that preserve a collection of epigraphs belonging to the so-called "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171). In his edition, E. Weidner designated this tablet as "Text B" of that collection.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007570/] of Ashurbanipal 162.
Rm 2,364 is a small fragment that preserves part of the left edge and portions of both faces of a clay tablet. This text includes only nos. 2 and 30 of the epigraphs as numbered by E. Weidner (see the table of epigraph correspondences in the introduction to text nos. 161–171), with portions of six unnumbered epigraphs also preserved in obv. 1´–7´, 10´–11´, and rev. 1´–7´. Restorations to the numbered epigraphs are based on the parallel lines in text no. 161 (see the aforementioned table), and see the on-page notes for the unnumbered epigraphs. The order of the two epigraphs found in obv. 8´–11´ matches that of text no. 163 obv. 1´–8´, but since this is all the material that is preserved on the obverse of the latter, it cannot be determined if these two tablets duplicated each other further.
The left edge of Rm 2,364 contains a single epigraph as well as what is probably a subscript to the collection of epigraphs. The epigraph (no. 30) is written in three lines with the last line indented; the scribe has set these lines apart from the other writing on the edge by forming a box around them with a vertical line placed in front of them and with a horizontal line placed underneath the entirety of the last line. Unfortunately, the poor state of preservation of the tablet does not allow one to determine whether this was the last epigraph to be written on the tablet, or whether the scribe had accidentally omitted it from a sequence of epigraphs and so had to write it on the left edge as a correction that was intended to be inserted into the inscription at a specific place. The final line of text on the edge is written in much smaller cuneiform characters to the left of the first line of the epigraph. With all that is preserved of this damaged line being a reference to the "citadel of Nineveh," Weidner (AfO 8 [1932–33] p. 188) postulated that the line was the tablet's subscript that noted the palace to which the reliefs of these epigraphs belonged. Although this presumed subscript is located immediately to the left of the first line of the epigraph, the three lines of the latter are designated as l.e. 1–3 since they are part of the inscription itself, while the line of the subscript is designated as l.e. 4 since it would be the last line of the entire tablet.
K 1914 + K 13765 is one of eight clay tablets that preserve a collection of epigraphs belonging to the so-called "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171). This tablet is designated as "Text C" by E. Weidner in his edition of that collection.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007571/] of Ashurbanipal 163.
K 1914+ is a small fragment that preserves parts of the right and bottom edges of a clay tablet, as well as portions of both its faces. This text includes only nos. 2 and 37 of the epigraphs as numbered by E. Weidner (see the table of epigraph correspondences in the introduction to text nos. 161–171), with portions of two unnumbered epigraphs also preserved in obv. 4´–8´ and rev. 1–5. Restorations to the numbered epigraphs are based on the parallel lines in text nos. 161 and 167 (see the aforementioned table), and see the on-page notes for the unnumbered epigraphs. The order of the two epigraphs found in obv. 1´–8´ matches that of text no. 162 obv. 8´–11´, but since this is all the material that is preserved on the obverse of the former, it cannot be determined if these two tablets would have duplicated each other further.
This clay tablet (K 4527 + K 12000A) is one of eight that preserve a collection of epigraphs belonging to the so-called "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171). In his edition, E. Weidner designated this tablet as "Text D" of that collection.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007572/] of Ashurbanipal 164.
K 4527+ is a small fragment that preserves parts of the left edge and obverse of a clay tablet. This text includes nos. 7, 7a, and 8–9 of the epigraphs as numbered by E. Weidner (see the table of epigraph correspondences in the introduction to text nos. 161–171); restorations to these epigraphs are based on the parallel lines in text nos. 161 and 168. Also, although obv. 1´ belongs to an epigraph that precedes epigraph no. 7 on the tablet, its limited contents do not appear to correspond to those of epigraph no. 6.
Sm 1350 is one of eight clay tablets that preserve a collection of epigraphs belonging to the so-called "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171). E. Weidner designated this tablet as "Text E" of that collection in his edition.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007573/] of Ashurbanipal 165.
Sm 1350 is a fragment from the upper portion of a small, single-column tablet that preserves the top and parts of the left and right edges, as well as the upper portions of both faces; rev. 13´–15´ of the tablet are written on its top edge. This text includes nos. 10, 12, 26, 31–32, and 34 of the epigraphs as numbered by E. Weidner (see the table of epigraph correspondences in the introduction to text nos. 161–171), with three unnumbered epigraphs also preserved in obv. 3 and rev. 7´–15´. Restorations to epigraph no. 12 in obv. 12–13 are based on the parallel lines in text no. 161 (see the aforementioned table).
An interesting element of the tablet is that the scribe has numbered some of the epigraphs he copied. The scribe wrote the number "1" on the left edge next to obv. 4 (the start of epigraph no. 10), then in the following epigraph he wrote the number "2" on the left edge next to obv. 10 (the start of epigraph no. 12), and finally he wrote the number "27" on the left edge next to rev. 4´ (the start of epigraph no. 26). It is unclear how these numbers should be interpreted, although it is possible that they represent some kind of numbering of individual scenes or slabs within a relief program (see Weidner, AfO 8 [1932–33] p. 189 and J.M. Russell, Writing on the Wall p. 196).
K 13741 is another one of the eight clay tablets that preserve a collection of epigraphs belonging to the so-called "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171). In his edition, E. Weidner designated this tablet as "Text F" of that collection.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007574/] of Ashurbanipal 166.
K 13741 is a small fragment that preserves only a handful of lines from one face of a clay tablet. Of the epigraphs as numbered by E. Weidner (see the table of epigraph correspondences in the introduction to text nos. 161–171), the only one the tablet contains for certain is no. 35, while lines 1´–2´ could be epigraph no. 16 and lines 5´–7´ are an unnumbered epigraph. Restorations to the numbered epigraph are based on the parallel lines in text no. 161 (see the aforementioned table), and see the on-page notes for the two other epigraphs. Given that epigraph no. 35 is here written over two lines instead of over four as in text no. 161, the present tablet is possibly a single-column tablet.
This clay tablet is one of eight that preserve a collection of epigraphs belonging to the so-called "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171). This tablet is designated as "Text G" by E. Weidner in his edition of that collection.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007575/] of Ashurbanipal 167.
K 2637 is a small fragment that preserves parts of one face and the right edge of a clay tablet. This text includes nos. 21, 34, and 37 of the epigraphs as numbered by E. Weidner (see the table of epigraph correspondences in the introduction to text nos. 161–171); restorations to these epigraphs are based on the parallel lines in text nos. 161 and 165.
This clay tablet (81-7-27,246) is one of eight that preserve a collection of epigraphs belonging to the so-called "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171). The text was not included in E. Weidner's original publication of Ashurbanipal's epigraphs in AfO 8 (1932–33) and was only published later by R. Borger, but it is designated as "Text H" of that collection continuing the nomenclature established by Weidner.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007576/] of Ashurbanipal 168.
81-7-27,246 is a small fragment that preserves part of one face of a single-column clay tablet. This text includes nos. 7, 7a, 8–9, and 33 of the epigraphs as numbered by E. Weidner (see the table of epigraph correspondences in the introduction to text nos. 161–171); restorations to these epigraphs are based on the parallel lines in text nos. 161 and 164.
The clay tablet fragment K 4530 contains parts of four epigraphs of Ashurbanipal. The contents of these epigraphs show that they relate to the so-called "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs, although they are not a part of the main cycle of epigraphs that was edited by E. Weidner (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171).
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007577/] of Ashurbanipal 169.
K 4530 is a fragment from the middle of a tablet that preserves part of one face. For lines 11´–12´, compare text no. 3 (Prism B) vi 10–17 and 36–41 and text no. 11 (Prism A) iii 52b–54 and 68–69; and for lines 13´–17´, compare text no. 3 (Prism B) vi 61–85; text no. 7 (Prism Kh) vi 7´´–8´´, 28´´–vii 10, and 28–35; and text no. 11 (Prism A) iii 52b–67.
A fragment of a clay tablet, K 2651, contains parts of three damaged epigraphs of Ashurbanipal, although only two of these have any substantial contents. The two preserved sections pertain to the king's battle with the Elamite Teumman and the Gambulian Dunānu, which shows that they broadly relate to the "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs that was edited by E. Weidner (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171). However, Weidner (AfO 8 [1932–33] p. 191) rightly doubted whether this fragment contains epigraphs that were to be carved alongside palace reliefs, especially given the length of the first section and the difference in language between this tablet and that of the other epigraph texts. Rather, he suggested that the present text contains drafts of inscriptions that were intended for wall slabs without reliefs.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007578/] of Ashurbanipal 170.
K 2651 is a fragment from the left side of a single-column tablet that preserves part of its left edge and a portion of one face, while only preserving traces of a handful of signs on its opposite face. Restorations to the text are tentatively based upon the related accounts from Ashurbanipal's prism inscription, text no. 3 (Prism B). For obv.? 2´–5´, see text no. 3 (Prism B) iv 80b–87a and 76–77; for obv.? 6´–11´, compare text no. 3 (Prism B) v 79b–vi 9; and for obv.? 12´–15´, compare text no. 3 (Prism B) vi 10–29.
This tablet fragment (83-1-18,442) preserves parts of five epigraphs of Ashurbanipal. Despite being fairly damaged, the contents of the epigraphs — at least on the rev.? — show that they relate to the so-called "Teumman and Dunānu cycle" of epigraphs, although they are not a part of the main cycle of epigraphs that was edited by E. Weidner (see the introduction to text nos. 161–171).
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007579/] of Ashurbanipal 171.
83-1-18,442 preserves parts of both faces from the left side of a tablet, including a portion of its left edge. With so little of the tablet extant, it is not possible to determine definitively which face is the obverse and which is the reverse. A. Leeper's copy of this fragment (CT 35 p. 34) labels both faces in the opposite manner from the present edition, which tentatively follows T. Bauer's treatment of the faces based on a chronological ordering of the tablet's contents (Asb. p. 102 n. 4). Note that the gate "May the Vice-Regent of (the God) Aššur Endure" in rev.? 4´–6´ also appears in text no. 161 i 1´ and text no. 165 obv. 4–9.
Joshua Jeffers & Jamie Novotny
Joshua Jeffers & Jamie Novotny, 'Teumman-Dunānu Epigraphs (text nos. 161-171)', 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/RINAP52TextIntroductions/TabletsPart4texts161-184/Teumman-DunanuEpigraphstexts161-171/]