Assyrian Historiography | Page 6

marks its peculiar character. Our conclusion must be that it is a poor copy of a good original. C is between A and B, agreeing with the latter in a strange interpolation [Footnote: III. 2a-c.] and in the omission of the five kings of the Muski. [Footnote: I. 63b. King, _Supplement_, 116 follows C.] A is the latest but best preserved, while the character of the text warrants us in making this our standard as it has but few unique readings and but one improbable omission. [Footnote: VII. 105-8.] The same account, in slightly different form and seemingly later in date [Footnote: K.2815 is dated in the eponomy of Ninib nadin apal, the LAH MA GAL E official. He probably is after the rab bi lul official in whose year the hexagons are dated.] is also found in some tablet inscriptions. [Footnote: Budge-King, 125 n.3; K.2815, with different conclusion; 81-2-4, 220, where reverse different; K.12009; K.13840; 79-7-8, 280; 89-4-26, 28; Rm. 573: Winckler, AOF. III. 245.]
A second annalistic group is that postulated as the original of the so called Broken Obelisk. Of documents coming directly from Tiglath Pileser himself, the only one that can with any probability be assigned to this is the tiny fragment which refers to the capture of Babylon. [Footnote: K. 10042; Winckler, AOF. I. 387.] But that such a group did exist is proved by the extracts from it in the obelisk prepared by a descendant of Tiglath Pileser, probably one of his sons, Shamshi Adad or Ashur bel kala. [Footnote: Photograph, Budge-King, li; Paterson, _Assyr. Sculptures_, 63. I R. 28; III R. 4, 1; Budge-King, 128 ff. Lotz, _op. cit._, 196 ff.; Peiser, KB. I. 122 ff.; Talbot, JRAS. OS. XIX. 124 ff.; Houghton-Finlay, RP(1), XI. 9 ff.; Oppert, _Hist._, 132 ff.; Hommel, _Gesch._, 532 ff.; Menant, 49 ff. Proved to Tiglath Pileser, Lotz, _op. cit._, 193 f.; cf. Budge-King, 131 n. 4, though Streck, ZA. XVIII. 187 ff., still believes that it belongs to an earlier king. Found at Nineveh, though it deals with Ashur constructions.] Only the upper portion, probably less than half to judge by the proportions, is preserved, and even this is terribly mutilated. Fortunately, the parts best preserved are those relating to the years not dealt with in the Annals. The first half of the document is devoted to the campaigns of Tiglath Pileser, then come his hunting exploits, and only a bit at the end is reserved for the building operations of the unknown ruler under whom it was erected. Its source seems to have had the same relation to the earliest form of the Annals that the Obelisk of Shalmaneser III had to the Monolith, that is, it gave the data for the earlier part of the reign, that covered by the other source, very briefly, only expanding as it reached a period where the facts were not represented by any other document. That our earlier Annals, or perhaps rather, one of its sources, was a main source of our second type, is proved by the coincidences in language in the two, in one case no less than twenty signs the same, [Footnote: In year V we have _ishtu...adi alu Kargamish sha matu Hatte...isu elippe pl mashku tahshe_.] not to speak of the hunting expeditions. But this earlier Annals was not the only, or at least not the direct source for the Obelisk, nor was that source merely a fuller recension of it. Data for the first six years, not found in the earlier Annals, are given in the Obelisk, [Footnote: Obl. I. 17, reference to Marduk nadin ahe, King of Akkad; II. 1, one thousand men of land of...; II. 2, four thousand of them carried prisoner to Assyria, the position of which shows that it cannot, with Budge-King, 132 n., be referred to Ann. III. 2, the Kashi; II. 12, the Mushki (?); II. 13, temple of Ami and Adad. These all precede the Carchemish episode.] while our document also, for the first time in Assyrian historical inscriptions, dates the events by the name of the eponym for the year, and, still more unusual, by the month as well. That the Obelisk may be considered merely a resume of this original source is shown by the statement that he conquered other lands and made many wars, but these he did not record. [Footnote: Obl. IV. 37.] As they seem to have been given after the hunting feats, in the lost lower part of column IV, we may assume that all that preceded is taken from that source. Furthermore, we are given the other hunting exploits "which my [father] did not record." [Footnote: Obl. IV. 33.] The numbers of beasts killed, which the scribe intended especially to emphasize, have never, curiously enough, been inscribed in the blanks