Numerous bricks are inscribed with a short Akkadian inscription stating that Aššur-etel-ilāni had bricks made for rebuilding Ezida ("True House"), the temple of the god Nabû at Kalḫu. As one generally expects from brick inscriptions, no details about the project are recorded in the text.
Access the composite text [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap5/Q003856/] of Aššur-etel-ilāni 1.
All of the bricks that contain this inscription of Aššur-etel-ilāni are inscribed by hand rather than stamped. The master text is based on ex. 7. The inscription is written over seven lines in the majority of exemplars (with the lineation the same in each), but exs. 15 and 16 only contain six lines and ex. 18 is written over nine lines. The shorter lineation of exs. 15–16 has separate causes, however, since the scribe of the former wrote lines 5–6 of the master text on a single line, while the scribe of the latter erroneously omitted line 5 entirely.
Exs. 20 and 26 also have an impression from a brick stamp. On ex. 20, the lineation of the text follows the majority of the exemplars as it is written in seven lines, but there is a large blank space of about four lines separating lines 4 and 5 of the inscription, in between which a stamped image appears. The impression is of a mušḫuššu-dragon carrying the spade of the god Marduk and the wedge/stylus of the god Nabû on its back, with the seven circles of the Sebetti behind those; the image is rotated about eighty degrees clockwise in relation to the inscription, thus primarily facing to the left. Ex. 26 also contains a stamp impression of a mušḫuššu-dragon carrying those divine emblems in the middle of the brick, but this brick was not available for study to provide more specific information about the inscription or image on it. Interestingly, BM 132263 (1958-2-8,6; ND 6216) is a brick discovered in Ezida that apparently has the same stamped image as these two exemplars, although it is uninscribed. Despite the fact that it lacks an inscription, the shared stamp impression suggests that this brick was created for Aššur-etel-ilāni's work on that temple as well. The information for exs. 21–26 (and BM 132263) beyond the little that has been published was provided by C.B.F. Walker, and the authors would like to thank him for this contribution.
No score for this brick inscription is presented on Oracc, following RINAP editorial practices. The minor (orthographic) variants, however, are listed at the back of the book. Given that exs. 17 and 18 were not available for study, the variants contained on these objects are taken from Walker, CBI pp. 127–128 no. 190.
Jamie Novotny, Joshua Jeffers & Grant Frame
Jamie Novotny, Joshua Jeffers & Grant Frame, 'Assyrian Inscriptions (text no. 1)', 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/ashuretelilani/assyrianinscriptionstext1/]