Fragments of Historical Texts from Nineveh: Middle Assyrian and Later Kings

Abstract

A Number of the historical texts excavated by R. Campbell Thompson at Nineveh belong to the period of the Middle Assyrian kingdom, or to the first two centuries of the first millennium B.C. They attest the activity of successive Assyrian rulers in structural works on the mound of Kouyunjik, although the buildings themselves have been demolished, or remain undiscovered. Moreover, they add information on the history of that age, known mainly from texts unearthed at Ashur. All the pieces studied here are catalogued in the Second Supplement to the Catalogue of Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum (1968) where details of provenance and physical appearance are given. They are published by permission of the Trustees.The series of clay knobs (‘bosses’) recording the history of the Temple of Ishtar was edited by R. Campbell Thompson and he had a presentation of some other texts in hand at the time of his death, in 1941. His notes and copies were made available by courtesy of the Keeper of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities, but the tablets have been baked and cleaned recently, so new copies have been drawn. One of the texts, an important tablet of Tiglath-pileser I, has been edited by E. F. Weidner (see below, n.2), the remaining fragments of historical content are given now, and some related pieces added for the information they add in this respect. Although these are but scraps, and many are unidentified, they merit publication as records of a poorly documented era.

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