Assyrian Historiography | Page 9

Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead
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).]
The year 880 marks also the removal of the capital from Nineveh to Kalhu, [Footnote: First mentioned as starting point of an expedition in 879, Ann. III. 1.] which indicates that to this year we are to attribute the majority of the building inscriptions. But, as they are all more or less identical with the closing section of the Annals, we may best discuss them in that place. Continuing with the Annals, we now reach a section where it is the only source. And just here the Annals is lacking in its most essential feature, an exact chronology, no doubt because the dated year was not given in the source, though the months are carefully noted! In the last of the years given in this section, probably 876, we are to place the various bull and lion inscriptions, which in general agree with this portion of the Annals. [Footnote: Bulls 76, 77; Lions 809, 841. Budge-King, 189 ff. Le Gac, 181 ff. Made up of brief attribution to king, then regular building text, then duplicates of Ann. III. 84 ff.] One of these bull inscriptions, as well as the text of the great altar, adds a good bit in regard to the hunting expeditions, which may be dated, so far as they can be dated at all, to this year. [Footnote: Bull 77; Budge-King, 201 ff.; Peiser KB. I. 124 f.; Altar, L. 43 ff.; Le Gac, 171 ff.] Here too we must place the Mahir document, [Footnote: V R. 69 f.; Budge-King, TSBA. VII. 59 ff.; Budge-King, 167 ff. S. A. Strong, RP2, IV. 83 ff.; Harper, 29 ff.] describing the erection of a temple to that deity at Imgur Bel, as is shown by the specific reference to a campaign to the Lebanon for the purpose of securing cedar. The years 875-868 seem to have been years of peace, for the only reference we can attribute to them is an expedition to the Mehri land for beams to erect a temple at Nineveh [Footnote: Ann. III. 91 f.] and so to this period we must assign the Ishtar bowl inscriptions. [Footnote: III R. 3, 10; Budge-King, 158 ff.; S. A. Strong, RP2, II. 95.] Finally, we have the campaign of 867, the last fixed date in the reign of Ashur nasir apal, and the reason for compiling the latest edition of the Annals. For this year, and for this alone, this latest edition has the value of a strictly contemporaneous document. [Footnote: Ann. III. 92 ff.]
The last section of the Annals consists of the building account, found also in nearly all the other inscriptions, though naturally here it is in the form it last assumed. It may be seen in greater or less fulness in the so called Standard Inscription, [Footnote: L. 1 ff.; Schrader, _Inschrift Asur-nasir-abals_; Talbot, _Proc. Soc. Antiquaries of Scotland_, VI. 198 ff.; Meissner, _Chestomathie_, 7 f.; Abel-Winckler, 6. RP1, VII. 11 ff.; Ward, _Proc. Amer. Oriental Soc._, X. xcix; Budge-King, 212 ff.; Le Gac, 153 ff. The number of slabs containing this inscription which may be found in the various Museums of Europe and America is simply amazing. No full collection or collation of these has ever been made. Many are
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