The history of the Ashurbanipal project up to the publication of the RINAP 5/1 and RINAP 5/2 volumes has been outlined in the prefaces to those books. The authors are once again extremely grateful to the individuals and institutions named in those prefaces for their past contributions and continuing support which has gone into the preparation of RINAP 5/3.
The present volume contains: (1) Ashurbanipal's inscriptions from Babylonia (Babylon, Agade?, Borsippa, Dūr-Kurigalzu, Mê-Turān, Nippur, Sippar, and Uruk), the East Tigris Region (Dēr), and Iran (Persepolis); (2) texts (chiefly written on clay tablets found at Nineveh) attributed to Ashurbanipal, but whose assignments to him are not firmly established; (3) inscriptions written by some members of the royal family (especially his queen Libbāli-šarrat) and officials (namely Sîn-balāssu-iqbi, governor of Ur); and (4) the official inscriptions of his sons and successors Aššur-etel-ilāni and Sîn-šarra-iškun. Note, however, that the official texts of Ashurbanipal's older brother Šamaš-šuma-ukīn, the king of Babylon, are not edited in RINAP 5/3; for editions of those inscriptions, see Frame, RIMB 2 pp. 248–259 B.6.33.1–2001.
With regard to the Babylonian inscriptions of Ashurbanipal and Aššur-etel-ilāni included in the present volume, they were published by Frame in 1995, in RIMB 2 (pp. 194–247 B.6.32.1–2016 and pp. 261–268 B.6.35.1–5). This material was converted and (moderately) adapted by Novotny in 2014–15 into the Oracc format and lemmatized (linguistically tagged) by Alexa Bartelmus in 2015–16, in connection with the "Babylon 6" sub-project of open-access Royal Inscriptions of Babylonia online (RIBo) Project, which is part of the LMU-Munich-based Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative (MOCCI). In 2022, Frame updated and modified the introductions, catalogues, commentaries, bibliographies, and editions of the RIMB 2 texts, while Novotny also made additional changes to the text introductions, catalogues, and commentaries.
As for the other inscriptions included in RINAP 5/3, Novotny carried out the initial work on the 1000- and 2000-number texts, as well as on the inscriptions of Ashurbanipal from Persepolis, between 1997 and 2003. From 2009 to 2018, Novotny prepared the introductions, catalogues, bibliographies, and editions of the brick inscription of Aššur-etel-ilāni from Kalḫu and Sîn-šarra-iškun's inscriptions; this material was lemmatized by him in 2018, after the completion of RINAP 5/1. Starting in 2018, in connection with the preparation of RINAP 5/2, Jeffers began updating Novotny's work, including collating some texts that had not been examined from originals in the British Museum (London) and Vorderasiatisches Museum (Berlin) or from (Aššur excavation) photographs. In 2022, Jeffers completed the work on the 1000-number texts inscribed on clay tablets and produced their text introductions (incorporating earlier comments of Novotny for a number of texts), wrote the commentary of Aššur-etel-ilāni's one Assyrian inscription and six of the eight commentaries of Sîn-šarra-iškun's inscriptions (Ssi 3 and 21 were written by Novotny), updated and expanded the bibliographies, and prepared the minor variants and comments of those texts; he also lemmatized the 1000-number texts, standardized Novotny's translations, and completed the score transliterations. In 2021–22, Novotny prepared most of the front and back material, wrote the book's introduction, organized the arrangement of the texts, prepared the editions of the Ashurbanipal clay cylinder from Dēr and the rock relief from Shakaft-i Gulgul, created/edited/annotated the figures, and provided additional input on the texts edited by Frame and Jeffers. Lastly, he undertook the time-consuming task of generating and formatting the text catalogues.
Work on the present corpus of texts necessitated extensive travel for collation of previously published inscriptions and for examination of unpublished material. The authors wish to thank the various museums and museum authorities that have cooperated in the preparation of this book. They would like to thank the directors, keepers, curators, and assistants of the British Museum (London), the Louvre (Paris), Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (Chicago), the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Vorderasiatisches Museum (Berlin). Specifically, the authors express their gratitude to Katherine Blanchard, John Brinkman, John Curtis, Irving Finkel, Joachim Marzahn, Jonathan Taylor, Ariane Thomas, and Christopher Walker. These colleagues, and their staff, have been extremely helpful and have extended every courtesy and assistance.
As usual with a volume in this series, numerous individuals aided in the production of the volume in some way. Since the preparation of this book has spanned more than two decades, it is impossible to name everyone who has contributed to RINAP 5/3 and thus any omissions are unintentional. While the authors have collated most of the texts themselves, other scholars have kindly collated some texts, provided information on pieces, or aided in some way. These include Veysel Donbaz, Zsombor Földi, Pamela Gerardi, A. Kirk Grayson, Enrique Jiménez, Tonio Mitto, Olof Pedersén, Karen Radner, Julian Reade, Michael Roaf, Daniel Schwemer, Laurence Shiff, Aaron Schmitt, Ira Spar, Ronald Sweet, Jonathan Taylor, Greta Van Buylaere, Klaus Wagensonner, Christopher Walker, and Cornelia Wunsch. Updated information about and transliterations of some of Ashurbanipal's inscriptions from Babylon now in Istanbul was kindly made accessible through the publication project led by Andreas Schachner (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Istanbul), in particular from Greta Van Buylaere, who is presently preparing new editions of this material within the framework of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft-funded project The Cuneiform Documents in the Babylon Collection of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums (Eski Şark Eserleri Müzesi) (project number 438042051), directed by Nils Heeßel (Marburg University) and Daniel Schwemer (Würzburg University). The authors would like to express their thanks for being permitted to incorporate this new information from Babylon (B) collection in this volume. In Toronto, during the RIM years, and later in Philadelphia and Munich, several individuals contributed to the technical preparation of the volume and they deserve credit for performing tedious and time-consuming tasks. For the Toronto stage of production (1997–2004), the authors offer their gratitude to Hope Grau and Jill Ruby for performing various tasks in connection with the Ashurbanipal manuscripts. For the Munich and Philadelphia stages of production (2014–22), the authors would like to thank Michael Chapin, Niclas Dannehl, Louisa Grill, and Jona Volohonsky, student assistants who checked the bibliographies, museum numbers, excavation numbers, and index of names in order to help ensure their accuracy. Special thanks must be given to Steve Tinney for undertaking the arduous task of helping generate the final camera-ready copy and converting and preparing the texts for the online version.
The penultimate manuscript of the 5/3 volume was read by Andreas Fuchs, Nicholas Postgate, and Martin Worthington. These reviewers made numerous astute comments, welcome criticisms, and suggestions for improvement, particularly on the transliterations and translations, for which the authors are grateful. Members of the RINAP editorial board (especially Karen Radner) and the project consultants offered helpful suggestions at various times near the completion of the volume. Their time, care, and generosity are greatly appreciated.
The authors' appreciation goes out to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Historisches Seminar - Alte Geschichte), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Toronto, and several private individuals, in particular Laurence Shiff and Malcolm Horsnell, whose financial support allowed for travel to the numerous museums cited above and provided the funding necessary for them to conduct research on Ashurbanipal's inscriptions and to publish this volume.
Last, but by no means least, the authors wish to record their gratitude for the ongoing support and encouragement of their families: Denise Bolton, Robert and Diana Novotny, and Jennifer Novotny; and Jordan Wesolowski, Dave and Kathy Jeffers, and Heather Zeigler.
Philadelphia and Munich, January 2023
Jamie Novotny
Joshua Jeffers
Grant Frame
Jamie Novotny, Joshua Jeffers & Grant Frame
Jamie Novotny, Joshua Jeffers & Grant Frame, 'Preface', RINAP 5: The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal, Aššur-etel-ilāni, and Sîn-šarra-iškun, The RINAP/RINAP 5 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2023 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap5/RINAP53FrontMatter/Preface/]