Four clay cylinders bear an Akkadian inscription that records that Ashurbanipal restored Eanna ("House of Heaven"), the temple of the goddess Ištar at Uruk. The text dates to the first half of Ashurbanipal's reign (668–652).
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q008352/] or the score [/rinap/scores/Q003813/] of Ashurbanipal 263.
K. Wagensonner kindly provided additional collations to ex. 1. H.F. Lutz purchased ex. 2 for the University of California at Berkeley in 1930. Regrettably, the copy of the piece published by Lutz is inaccurate in a number of places. In addition to numerous errors by the modern copyist (for example, ša for kin, su for šu, and ta for ṭa in line 10 [lines 10–11 of the exemplar]; omission of -šú after ŠÈG.MEŠ in line 11; omission of si in line 22 [line 23]; gu for kám in line 23 [line 24]; and addition of an u after UZU in line 26 [27]), the copy has iš-tu for ⸢e-li⸣ in line 9; for the start of line 28 (line 29 of the exemplar) the copy has ina aḫ-rat u₄-me um-ma, while the piece simply has ⸢a-a⸣-um-ma. As is the normal procedure in the RINAP volumes, a transliteration of the piece is found in the score but such errors of the modern copyist are not specifically noted. Some additional collations for this exemplar were kindly provided by D.A. Foxvog. With regard to ex. 3, it is uncertain if W 4444 joins NBC 2507 or not, but the two are tentatively kept together here. NBC 2507 has been collated from the original and W 4444 from a photo (on which line 24 is not legible owing to the curvature of the piece). Ex. 4 was found during the 21st season of excavations at Uruk (1962–63).
The script of all four exemplars is contemporary Babylonian. The line arrangement follows ex. 1; ex. 2 has the inscription on 33 lines. The master line follows ex. 1, with help from ex. 2 for lines 1–5. A score of the text is presented on Oracc and the minor (orthographic) variants are listed at the back of the book.
According to R. Koldewey (WEB4 p. 164), a piece of a cylinder describing Ashurbanipal's work on Eanna was found at Babylon. Its inscription may be this one, but this cannot be determined since neither the excavation number nor the present location of the fragment mentioned by Koldewey is known. With regard to this object, see also Unger, AfK 2 (1924–25) p. 24; and Unger, Babylon p. 225 no. 15.
Since the text mentions Ashurbanipal's appointment of his brother Šamaš-šuma-ukīn to the kingship of Babylon in a positive manner (lines 18–19) and includes his brother in the invocation to the goddess (line 27), the inscription must date before the commencement of the latter's rebellion in 652.
A tablet fragment in the Iraq Museum has an Akkadian inscription which refers to the dedication of a ceremonial wagon (attaru). The inscription appears to belong to the reign of Ashurbanipal, who is mentioned on the obverse of the tablet. Furthermore, the 2fs pronominal suffixes in obv. 3´–4´ and the 2fs verbal forms in obv. 4´ and rev. 3–5 suggest that the dedication was possibly for a goddess whose name is no longer preserved.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q008353/] of Ashurbanipal 264.
The script of the text is Babylonian. The original is probably in the Iraq Museum, but its museum number is not known. Given the tablet's provenance among the late Babylonian texts unearthed at Uruk, the inscription is likely a later copy. The edition is based on the published hand copy.
Grant Frame, Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers
Grant Frame, Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers, 'Inscriptions from Uruk (text nos. 263-264)', 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/RINAP53TextIntroductions/Ashurbanipal/Uruktexts263-264/]