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K 891 (= L[ondon]3) is a nearly complete clay tablet written in contemporary Babylonian script. Out of all of Ashurbanipal's tablets bearing royal inscriptions, this text is highly unusual since it does not mention Ashurbanipal by name or provide his titulary, but especially since the contents of the obverse and reverse of the tablet differ so significantly. The contents of the obverse report specifically on the king's deeds, namely the building of the inner and outer walls of the city Arbela and the renovation of Ištar's temple (Egašankalama) in that city; the building of the akītu-house in the city Milqī'a and the general restoration of that city; the setting up of divine emblems in Nergal's temple (Egalmeslam) at Tarbiṣu; the installation of Šamaš-šuma-ukīn as king of Babylonia; and the consecration of his two brothers, Aššur-mukīn-palēʾa and Aššur-etel-šamê-erṣeti-muballissu, as šešgallu-priests of the gods Aššur? and Sîn, respectively. The contents of the reverse, on the other hand, record a complaint of Ashurbanipal to an unnamed god concerning the ill health and emotional suffering that the king is facing in spite of all the good deeds that he has performed for both the gods and his people. The king bemoans his poor physical condition and overall unhappiness, while questioning why he must suffer as if he were someone who does not revere the gods. This material is much more like what one would find in a composition such as Ludlul bēl nēmeqi rather than a royal inscription.
Although the text does not bear a date, it appears to have been composed very early in Ashurbanipal's reign. The report of Ashurbanipal's installation of Šamaš-šuma-ukīn as king of Babylonia establishes a terminus post quem of Ayyāru (II) 668.
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K 891 is a nearly complete single-column clay tablet with only slight damage to its top right-hand corner and to a portion of its right edge. The tablet is neatly written in Babylonian script — although there are several erasures — with part of the last line of the obverse appearing on the tablet's bottom edge. Seven lines of the inscription were too long to fit onto a single line of the tablet, so the scribe continued them on the next line. But instead of starting these continued portions at the left edge of the following line, the scribe began them well into the line so that they would conclude at the tablet's right edge, thus leaving a significant amount of uninscribed blank space at the beginning of the lines. Obv. 8–11, 13, and rev. 1 and 3, which are each edited as a single line here, actually comprise two lines on the tablet. The scribe began the continued portions of obv. 8, 13, and rev. 1 about halfway into the subsequent line, the continued portions of obv. 9–11 about three-quarters into the next line, and for rev. 3, the final two signs KI-ía appear alone at the end of the following line. In the edition, a "/" is placed in the transliteration of these lines to indicate which signs were continued onto a second line of the tablet. The tablet also contains some kind of scribal notation in its left margin between obv. 5–6 (see the on-page note).
The so-called "Large Hunting Inscription" ("die grosse Jagdinschrift") is known from four tablet copies, all of which come from Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh. The text is unique in the corpus of this king's inscriptions. It opens with a short list of Ashurbanipal's titles (lines 1–3), followed by a passage that names all of the gods who had selected Ashurbanipal for kingship and details how they raised and trained him in the ways of that office from his childhood (lines 4–14). The next section contains historical material (lines 15–23) that reports on the king's war with and subsequent defeat of the Elamite king Urtaku, concluding with an account of the latter's three sons and other members of the Elamite royal family fleeing to Assyria in order to escape Teumman's aggression after he seized the throne. At this point, the text turns to a description of a royal lion hunt (lines 24–36). Here, it narrates how overgrown vegetation in the forests and reed swamps led to a proliferation of lions and how these unchecked lions began to terrorize nearby settlements as they devoured all types of animals in the region, including even people. In response, the king went on a hunting expedition to enter their dens, disperse their packs, and restore order to the land. With the hunt concluded, the inscription then recounts an episode (lines 37–54) in which some of the aforementioned princes of Elam demonstrate to Ashurbanipal their skills with the bow, but ultimately their abilities paled in comparison to the those of the Assyrian king. Unfortunately, the conclusion of the inscription is not preserved.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007594/] or the score [/rinap/scores/Q007594/] of Ashurbanipal 186.
Of the four exemplars that bear this inscription, ex. 1 is by far the most complete and is thus used as the basis for the master text. Ex. 1 preserves the bottom half of a large clay tablet; the join between K 2867+ and K 4501 was identified by R. Borger (BIWA p. 330). However, the tablet has a slightly unusual format compared to the other exemplars in that it appears to contain three different written elements on it. In his study, E. Weissert (in Parpola and Whiting, Assyria 1995 pp. 341–342 n. 9) designated these different elements as Texts A, B, and C. Weissert gave the Large Hunting Inscription itself the designation "Text B," but the tablet does not actually start with this material. Instead, the first half of the obverse appears to have contained an inscription that was subsequently erased by the scribe (see Figure 16). This material is designated as "Text A" by Weissert, although only traces of some of the signs from this text on the obverse can be discerned on the tablet. Since it has been almost completely erased, it is unknown what this text was. It could have been an entirely different inscription, but it could also have been a draft or shorter version of the Large Hunting Inscription that was no longer needed and thus erased once the scribe had completed writing the version of the Hunting Inscription after the horizontal ruling. The only material that is likely a part of this now erased inscription that is still legible is found on left edge 1 of the exemplar (see the on-page note).
The Large Hunting Inscription (Weissert's "Text B") begins in the second half of the obverse after the horizontal ruling that separates it from the erased inscription. Although the tablet does not begin with this inscription, the present edition begins the numbering of this text with line 1 following Weissert's practice. The inscription then continues over the bottom edge and on the entire reverse of the tablet, as much as there is preserved. However, starting with line 39 on the reverse, the scribe began to write the lines of text at just over half of the height of the previous lines in order to fit more of them onto the tablet. Presumably the scribe felt that he would otherwise have run out of space before completing the inscription, but this writing makes it difficult to identify many of the signs.
The final element on the tablet, Weissert's "Text C," appears as five lines (lines 2´–6´) that have been inscribed in the space created by the erasure of the inscription before the horizontal ruling (Weissert's "Text A") on the obverse. Weissert (ibid.) noted that the first of these lines (line 2´) ends with the same words that end line 36 of the Large Hunting Inscription, but then the following four lines (lines 3´–6´) contain material that is not found in the latter. Thus, Weissert argued that these five lines are to be understood as an editorial addition to the hunting narrative that expands the content of line 36 of that inscription.
Following Weissert, the lines of the Large Hunting Inscription are numbered consecutively in the edition: lines 1–16 are the final sixteen lines of the obverse after the horizontal ruling, lines 17–22 are on the bottom edge, lines 23–27 are the first five lines of the reverse, line 28 appears as left edge 2–3 of ex. 1 (see the on-page note to line 28), and lines 29–61 are the subsequent lines of the reverse after line 27.
As for the other exemplars, all three of them only contain a small portion of the Large Hunting Inscription, namely the ends of its first seventeen lines. Exs. 2–4 each preserve part of the top right corner of a tablet. Exs. 2 and 3 preserve both faces of the tablet while ex. 4 only preserves the obverse, but the extant portion of the reverse on the former two tablets is uninscribed. Unlike ex. 1, exs. 2–4 begin with the Hunting Inscription and do not contain any other text before that inscription. A score is presented on Oracc for only lines 1–17 given that this is all of the inscription that is duplicated among the exemplars. Besides the few orthographic variants presented at the back of the book, ex. 4 alone preserves content that differs from the master text (see the on-page notes to lines 9 and 10).
The terminus post quem for the composition of this inscription is 664 given that the historical content of lines 15–23 concern Ashurbanipal's defeat of Urtaku and the flight of his three sons along with two sons of Ummanaldašu and the Elamite royal family to Assyria (compare, for example, text no. 3 [Prism B] iv 30–79). Based on the historical allusions and the style of the prologue of the inscription, Weissert (ibid. p. 341 n. 9) more specifically estimated the date of composition to be ca. 660.
A clay tablet fragment contains an Ashurbanipal inscription whose contents are similar to the "Large Hunting Inscription" (text no. 186) since it reports on some of the king's hunting activities, mainly the slaughter of lions. The latter part of the inscription deals with the presentation of offerings to the goddess Mullissu at Nineveh in the field where Ashurbanipal had killed some of the lions. Based on this and the fact that the same number of lions (eighteen) are killed in the narrative of K 6085 as are depicted on the Ashurbanipal relief panels BM 124863–124865 from Room C of his North Palace at Nineveh, E. Weissert (in Parpola and Whiting, Assyria 1995 pp. 351 and 354–355 figs. 3–4) has suggested that K 6085 is an archival copy or draft of the inscription that was engraved on the stele pictured on the adjacent relief panel BM 124862 that is on the top of a hill overlooking the Nineveh hunting arena.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007595/] of Ashurbanipal 187.
K 6085 preserves part of one face of a single-column tablet, including a portion of its left edge. T. Bauer (Asb. p. 88) suggested that K 6085 belonged to the same tablet as the Large Hunting Inscription (text no. 186) and thus edited the fragment as the conclusion of that inscription. However, both R. Borger (BIWA p. 334) and E. Weissert (in Parpola and Whiting, Assyria 1995 p. 341 n. 8) disagreed with this join. As pointed out by Weissert, the script of K 6085 is much more spaced out than that in the lower portion of the reverse of K 2867, which is inscribed in a smaller, more densely written script. In addition, the estimated width of the present tablet is much narrower than that of the Large Hunting Inscription.
With respect to a possible date for the composition of the inscription, Weissert (ibid.) suggested it should probably be associated with other inscriptions that commemorate building projects on structures belonging to Ištar/Mullissu of Nineveh, such as text no. 10 (Prism T) v 33–vi 11 that describes work on her akītu-house and dates to 645, and text no. 23 (IIT) lines 162–166a that describes work on her temple Emašmaš and likely dates to ca. 638.
The right half of a small, horizontal clay tablet preserves part of an inscription that described two military expeditions against Elam. The first possibly concerns Ashurbanipal's dealings with Tammarītu, while the second likely pertains to the Assyrian king's second campaign against Ummanaldašu (Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III).
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K 2623 preserves the right edge and portions of the top and bottom edges of a horizontal tablet; obv. 13–14 are written on its bottom edge. The exact nature of the text on this tablet is uncertain. A. Leeper published the fragment in CT 35 as part of Ashurbanipal's epigraph tablets. However, as pointed out by both E. Weidner (AfO 8 pp. 202–203) and T. Bauer (Asb. p. 100 n. 2), the text does not belong with that group since it does not record actual epigraphs. It instead appears to contain two short episodes that were extracted from the prism accounts, particularly from that of text no. 11 (Prism A). Although Bauer suggested that these extracts were the initial materials that would be needed to create the epigraphs, the ultimate use for such extracts is not really known.
The tablet contains two short entries (obv. 1–6 and obv. 7–rev. 2) separated by a blank space. The first episode seems to mention Tammarītu in obv. 1, which is then followed by the removal of plunder in obv. 2–6, although no context is preserved. In the latter entry, no name has survived in obv. 7, but this line is also followed by the removal of plunder in obv. 8–13, after which the account adds a general statement about Elam's defeat in obv. 14 and the removal of dirt from conquered cities in rev. 1–2. Bauer (ibid. pp. 100–101) suggested that this second episode concerns Ashurbanipal's conflict with Ummanaldašu. His supposition is supported by the fact that the list of plunder in obv. 8–13 duplicates text no. 11 (Prism A) vi 81–95 and the collection of earth to be taken to Assyria in rev. 1–2 duplicates text no. 11 (Prism A) vi 96–98, both of which are included in the account of Ashurbanipal's second campaign against Ummanaldašu in that prism inscription. Interestingly, the list of plunder in obv. 2–6 of the first episode duplicates several elements of the list of plunder from the second entry, but it appears that there is not enough space to restore that entire list in the first episode, particularly in obv. 3 and 5.
A short, twenty-line inscription of Ashurbanipal is inscribed on a single-column clay tablet, of which only the right side is preserved. What little of the text is extant concerns Ashurbanipal's campaigns against Elam, but the names of the individuals who were the specific targets of these military expeditions are not preserved. It is unclear what purpose this tablet served, but it appears to have been either a short draft or excerpt of an inscription recording his Elamite campaigns.
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K 4460 is a fragment that preserves the right side of what appears to be a horizontal tablet, including its right edge and a small part of its top and bottom edges. Obv. 16–18 are written on the bottom edge of the tablet.
A fragment of a clay tablet preserves a text the appears to be a draft of a report of Ashurbanipal's building activities in the city of Ḫarrān. This report of the king's deeds — which includes a description of the circumstances in which the Assyrian king was divinely appointed for the task of rebuilding Eḫulḫul, the temple of Sîn in that city, and then an account of that temple's rebuilding, enlargement, and decoration, and the construction of Emelamana, the temple of Nusku — was included in the prologues of inscriptions written on prisms that were deposited or displayed in buildings in Nineveh and Kalḫu between 648 and 645.
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K 3065 is a fragment from the upper left corner of most likely a two-column tablet that preserves parts of both the obverse and reverse, as well as portions of its top and left edges. The extant text of col. i duplicates text no. 5 (Prism I) ii 2´–17´, text no. 6 (Prism C) i 65´–78´, text no. 7 (Prism Kh) i 39´–52´, and text no. 10 (Prism T) ii 29–46. Not enough of col. ii is preserved for one to ascertain its contents, and the reverse, as far as it is extant, is uninscribed.
Although the fragment does not contain a date, the inscription was probably written prior to the composition of text no. 5 (Prism I), the earliest known prism inscription whose prologue includes this account of Ashurbanipal's building program at Ḫarrān (sometimes referred to as the so-called "canonical first summary report"; for details, see Novotny, Eḫulḫul pp. 13–25). The tablet's inscription likely predates that of the prism since the former appears to be a draft or model of this material. The notion that the tablet contains a model text is suggested by a few factors. First, the inscription begins immediately with the "canonical first summary report" and does not include any of the other contents that come before this report in the prologues of the prism inscriptions, text nos. 5–8 and 10. Moreover, the scribe has crudely erased i 9b–12, the section mentioning Shalmaneser III as a previous builder of Eḫulḫul, although it is unclear why he did this. Despite this, the traces of the erased signs in these lines are sufficient to read what was originally inscribed there, and so these lines are included in italics in the translation. Finally, while very little of col. ii is extant, much of the clay that remains is blank, suggesting that that column was not fully inscribed, which would be unusual if the tablet were supposed to contain a complete inscription.
A fragment from the right half of a clay tablet bears an inscription of Ashurbanipal. The obverse? of the tablet reports on Ashurbanipal's training as a child, his selection by the gods to rule, and his work on the temple Egašanḫilikuga ("House of the Lady of Pure Luxuriance"). The reverse? details the return of the gods to the city of Babylon, as well as (apparently) the creation of a wooden canopy. The contents of much of this tablet are similar to those of text no. 220 (L4).
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K 2624 preserves parts of both faces, as well as portions of the top, right, and bottom edges of the right side of a horizontal tablet. R. Borger (BIWA LoBl p. 8) raised the possibility that this fragment originally belonged to a fairly broad tablet with long lines. In his transliteration, Borger designated the obv.? as Side A and the rev.? as Side B.
For obv.? 1, compare text no. 9 (Prism F) i 31 and text no. 186 line 13; for obv.? 3–7, compare text no. 220 (L4) ii 8´–11´ and i 28´; for obv.? 9, compare text no. 220 (L4) ii 26´; and for obv.? 12–15, see text no. 72 i 1´–3´. For rev.? 12, see text no. 220 (L4) iii 22´; for rev.? 14, see text no. 3 (Prism B) i 24–25; and for rev.? 15, see text no. 6 (Prism C) i 27´–28´, text no. 10 (Prism T) i 31–32, and text no. 15 ii 14–15.
Restorations to the translation of this text are taken from the parallel passages of the other inscriptions, but they should be considered highly tentative.
A small flake from one face of a clay tablet preserves parts of four lines of text from an inscription of Ashurbanipal. The fragment only contains the king's name and a broken reference to one or more of the gods desiring him to be king.
Access the composite text [/rinap/rinap5/Q007600/] of Ashurbanipal 192.
A small fragment from one face of a clay tablet preserves parts of nine lines of a royally-commissioned text, possibly a royal inscription. The text likely dates to the reign of Ashurbanipal since it mentions him and since he is probably called "the creation" of the god(s), which is a common designation used for this king in his corpus of inscriptions.
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Joshua Jeffers & Jamie Novotny
Joshua Jeffers & Jamie Novotny, 'Inscriptions on Tablets, Part 5 (text nos. 185-193)', 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/tabletspart5texts185193/]