Seven fragmentarily-preserved, multi-faceted clay prisms of Sîn-šarra-iškun survive today.[32] They all come from Aššur and are inscribed with texts recording Sîn-šarra-iškun's construction of the Nabû temple at Aššur. One text (Ssi 7) duplicates verbatim an inscription that is also written on clay cylinders (Ssi 10; see the previous section) and one text (Ssi 9) is an earlier version of that inscription (Ssi 7 and 10).[33] Interestingly, Sîn-šarra-iškun's scribes first wrote out building inscriptions for Nabû's temple at Aššur on clay prisms before changing the medium of those texts to clay cylinders. This is the opposite of what Esarhaddon did for inscriptions of his recording his rebuilding of Ešarra ("House of the Universe"), the Aššur temple at Aššur.[34]
[32] Ssi 7–9. All of Ashurbanipal's inscriptions written on clay prisms are discussed and edited in Novotny and Jeffers, RINAP 5/1 pp. 2–4 and 37–290 Asb. 1–20.
[33] Ssi 8 is not sufficiently preserved to be able to determine whether it is earlier or later than Ssi 7, 9, and 10. VA 7506 (+) VA 7518 (Ssi 9) was inscribed in the eponymy of Aššur-mātu-taqqin, governor of (U)pummu, and VA 5060 (+) LB 1323 (Ssi 10 ex. 1) was inscribed in the eponymate of the palace overseer Bēl-aḫu-uṣur. On the sequence of these two limmu-officials, see the Eponym Dates section below (p. 41).
[34] Esarhaddon 59 (Aššur B) was written before Esarhaddon 57 (Aššur A) and, presumably, Esarhaddon 58 (Aššur B). For editions of these texts, see Leichty, RINAP 4 pp. 119–134.
Jamie Novotny
Jamie Novotny, 'Clay Prisms', 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/RINAP53Introduction/SurveyofInscribedObjects/ClayPrisms/]