Tablets from the Sippar library III. Two Royal Counterfeits

Abstract

This article continues the publication of tablets from the library of the temple of Samas at Sippar begun in volume 52 of this journal. Presented here are the library's copies of two texts which have in common the fact that they are not what they purport to be: Manistūsu's cruciform monument, and a literary letter of Samsu-iluna. Both texts are clearly fictitious compositions which postdate their supposed royal authors by a long time. Their purpose was apparently to supply evidence of historical precedent. The invented evidence which these documents present as fact would be intended to substantiate or advance the claims of those who wrote them. While both tablets are duplicates of known texts, each adds to a greater or lesser degree to our knowledge of these texts, not least by filling lacunae and by confirming or rebutting the restorations of previous editors.The identification of a tablet from niche 8 B as a duplicate of the last column of a large Neo-Babylonian exercise tablet from Ur allows this text to be properly identified for the first time. It is one of several royal letters in Akkadian, some apparently genuine, others certainly bogus, which entered the scribal tradition and survive in late copies. This example purports to be from Samsu-iluna, the son and successor of Hammurapi of Babylon, to Enlil-nādin-sumi, a man whose several titles identify him as a very senior figure, and apparently a royal prince. As is the case with the Cruciform Inscription of Manistūsu, anachronisms in the text mark the composition out as later than it purports to be. Following the formulae which name the letter's addressee and sender the text itself opens with the phrase umma ana nare, an expression that also appears in a probably genuine letter of Nebuchadnezzar I.

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