Assyrian Historiography: A Source Study

by A. T. Olmstead

Opposed to the Annals proper are the Display inscriptions in which chronological considerations and details as to the campaigns are subordinated to the desire to give a general view of the monarch's might. Two have been found in foreign lands, one at the source of the Tigris, [Footnote: Discovery, J. Taylor, cf. H. Rawlinson, Athenaeum, 1862, II. 811; 1863, I. 229. III R. 4, 6; Schrader, Abh. K. Preuss. Akad., 1885, I. Winckler, Sammlung, I. 30: Budge-King, 127 n. 1. Meissner, Chrestomathie, 6; Abel-Winckler, 5; Menant, 49. Winckler, KB. I. 48 f. Dated after the Arvad expedition as shown by reference to Great Sea of Amurru, and of same date as Melazgerd inscription, Belck, Verh. Berl.] the other near Melazgerd in Armenia. [Footnote: From Gonjalu, near Melazgerd, Belck-Lehmann, Verh. Berl. Anthr. Ges. 1898, 574. Photograph, Lehmann, Sitzungsber. Berl. Akad., 1900, 627. Is this one of the "cuneiform inscriptions near Moosh" reported to Taylor, Athenaeum, 1863, I. 229?] Drafts for similar inscriptions have been found on clay tablets, written for the use of the workmen who were to incise them on stone. Of these, one, which is virtually complete as regards number of lines, seems to date from year four as it has no reference to later events. [Footnote: S. 1874; K. 2805, Tabl. I of Budge-King, 109 ff. III R. 5; Winckler, Sammlung, I. 26 ff.; cf. Lotz, op. cit., 193; Tiele, Gesch., 159 n. 2; Meissner, ZA. IX. 101 ff. Meissner's restoration of these as parts of one tablet in chronological order will not stand in view of the fact that I is complete in itself while there are variations in the order of Nairi and totally different endings.] It would then be our earliest extant source. It is also of value in dating the erection of the palace whose mention shows that the tablet is complete. That the compiler had before him the document used by the Annals in its account of the Nairi campaign [Footnote: Ann. IV. 71 ff.] is proved by his writing "from Tumme to Daiene" for these are the first and last names in the well known list of Nairi states. The order of the tablet is neither chronological nor geographical. Another tablet dates from year five to which most of its data belong. In the first half, it follows the order of Tablet I, and in the remainder follows closely the words of its source in the Annals, merely abbreviating. [Footnote: K. 2806 with K. 2804, Tabl. II of Budge-King, 116 ff.] Possibly in its present form, it may be later than year five [Footnote: The badly damaged reverse of K. 2806 has one reference to the Euphrates which may be connected with Obl. III. 24, probably of year IX.] for a third tablet of year ten duplicates this first part. [Footnote: K. 2804, Tabl. V of Budge-King, 125 f.] Unfortunately, this latter gives next to no historical data, but its reference to the "Lower Zab" and to the "Temple of Ishtar" may perhaps allow us to date to this same tenth year the highly important tablet which gives a full account of the campaign in Kirhi and Lulume and which also ends with the restoration of the Ishtar temple. [Footnote: K. 2807; 91-5-9, 196. III R. 5, 4; Tablet IV of Budge-King, 121 ff. Winckler, AOF. III. 246. Hommel, Gesch., 511 f.] Here too and not with the Annals must be placed the fragment with the Arvad episode. [Footnote: Scheil, RT. XXII. 157. Restorations, Streck, ZA. XVIII. 186 n. 2. First attributed to Tiglath Pileser, Peiser, OLZ. III. 476; Winckler, ibid. IV. 296; cf. AOF. III. 247.—Bricks I R. 6, 5; Scheil, op. cit. 37; Winckler, Sammlung, I. 31; Budge-King, 127. Other inss., King, Supplement, 453, 488.]

CHAPTER III

THE DEVELOPMENT OF HISTORICAL WRITING

(Ashur nasir apal and Shalmaneser III)

After the death of Tiglath Pileser, there is a period of darkness. A few bricks and other minor inscriptions give us the names of the rulers and possibly a bit of other information, but there is not a single inscription which is important enough to furnish source problems. It is not until we reach the reign of Tukulti Ninib (890-885) that we again have an Annals [Footnote: Scheil, Annales de Tukulti Ninip II, 1909; cf. Winckler, OLZ. XIII. 112 ff.] and not until the reign of his son Ashur nasir apal (885-860) that we have problems of the sources.

The problem of the sources for the reign of Ashur nasir apal may be approached from a somewhat different angle than we took for those of Tiglath Pileser. Here we have a single document, the so called Annals, which gives practically all the known data of the reign. Earlier writers on the history of Assyria have therefore generally contented themselves with references to this one document, with, at most, an occasional reference to the others. This should not blind us, however, to the fact that the problem of the sources is by no means as simple as this. Indeed, for far the greater portion of the events given in the Annals, we have earlier and better sources. We may therefore best attack the problem as to the sources of the reign by working out the sources of the Annals.

Taking up the introduction to the Annals, [Footnote: I R. 17 ff.; Budge-King, 254 ff. Le Gac, Les Inscriptions d'Assur-Nasir-Aplu III. 1907, 1 ff. Peiser, KB. I. 50 ff. H. Lhotzky, Annalen Asurnazirpals, 1885. Oppert, Expédition en Mésopotamie, 1863, I. 311 ff.; Rodwell, RP¹, III. 37 ff.; Sayce, RP², II. 134 ff.; Menant, 67 ff.; Manuel, 1880, 335 ff.] it at once strikes us as curious that it consists of a hymn to Ninib, at the entrance to whose temple these slabs were placed, and not of a general invocation to the gods, beginning with Ashur, such as we are accustomed to find in other annalistic inscriptions. Further, we have other slabs in which this Ninib hymn occurs as a separate composition, [Footnote: Slabs 27-30, Budge-King, 255 n.—Other invocations are the Bel altar at Kalhu, BM. 71, Budge-King 160; Strong, JRAS. 1891, 157; and the Ishtar lion BM. 96, II R. 66, 1; S. A. Strong, RP², IV. 91 f.; dupl. Budge-King, 206 ff.] and this leads us to assume that it is not the original introduction. This is still further confirmed by the fact that we do find such a required invocation in the beginning of the Monolith inscription. Clearly, this is the original invocation. The second section of the Annals begins with the praise of the monarch, and here too begins the parallelism with the Monolith. The last events mentioned in the Monolith date from 880 and it is thus far earlier than our present edition of the Annals, which contains events from so late a date as 867. To this extent, then, the Monolith is a better document. It was not, however, the direct source of the Annals, as is shown by certain cases where the latter has preserved the better readings of proper names. Indeed, we should not over rate the Monolith, for it too is a compilation like its younger sister, and is by no means free from obvious mistakes, though in general better than the Annals. [Footnote: BM. 847. Photograph, Budge-King, lxix; Paterson, Assyr. Sculptures, 64. I R. 27; Budge-King, 242 ff.; cf. 254 ff.; Le Gac, 129 ff. Peiser, KB. I. 118 ff. Menant, 66 f. Talbot, Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit., VII. 189 ff.; RP¹, VII. 15 ff.] For some portions of this earlier section, we have also separate slabs with small portions of the text, [Footnote: BM. 90830, cf. Budge-King, 255 n.; L. 48 f.] and these regularly agree with the Monolith as against the Annals. [Footnote: I. 57, transposition; I. 69, the significant omission of shadu; and a large number of cases where they agree in spelling as against the Annals.]

For the last of these years, 880, we have also the inscription from Kirkh, [Footnote: III R. 6; Budge-King, 222 ff.; Le Gac, 137 ff. Peiser, KB. I. 92 ff.] which contains data for this year alone, and ends abruptly with the return from Nairi. This might be expected from its location at Tushhan, on the border of that country, and we are therefore warranted in assuming that it was set up here immediately after the return from the campaign and that in it we have a strictly contemporaneous document. Judged by this, the Annals, and even the Monolith, do not rank very high. Important sections are omitted by each, in fact, they seem to agree in these omissions, though in general they agree fairly closely with the account set up in the border city. It would seem as if the official narrative of the campaign had been prepared at Kirkh, immediately after its close, by the scribes who followed the army. [Footnote: Cf. Johns, Assyr. Deeds and Documents, II. 168.] One copy of this became the basis of the Kirkh inscription while another was made at Kalhu and it was from this that the Monolith and Annals are derived. [Footnote: Ann. II. 109, where Mon. has 300 as against 700 of Kir. and Ann., shows Ann. did not use Kir. through Mon.; Kir. has 40 as against 50 of the others in II. 111, and 200 for 2000 in II. 115; proper names such as Tushha for Tushhan show nearness of Mon. to Kir., but the likeness can hardly be considered striking.] From this, too, must have been derived the slab which gives a fourth witness for this section. [Footnote: L. 48 f.]

With this year, 880, the Monolith fails us. But even if we had no other document, the Annals itself would show us that the year 880 was an important one in the development of our sources. At the end of the account for this year, we have a closing paragraph, taken bodily from the Ninib inscription, which may thus be assigned to 880. This is further confirmed by the manner in which, this passage in the Annals abstracts the last lines of the Monolith, [Footnote: Ann. II. 125-135a is the same as the Ninib inscription l-23a (BM. 30; Budge-King, 209 ff.), and this in turn is merely a resume of the close of the Monolith.] which is repeated almost in its entirety at the close of the Annals itself. The column thus ends a separate document, whose last line, giving a list of temples erected, seems to go back to one recension of the Standard inscription, which in its turn goes back to the various separate building inscriptions.

That the Annals itself existed in several recensions is indicated by the fact that, while there are no less than at least seventeen different duplicates of Column I, [Footnote: Le Gac, Introd.] there are but seven of II and five of III; that there is one of II only [Footnote: Le Gac, iii.] and one of III; [Footnote: Ibid. 126 f.] and that there is still another, in at least three exemplars, in which parts of the Standard and Altar inscriptions are interpolated between the Ninib invocation and the main inscription. [Footnote: Ibid, ii; 123 f. (B).]