Assyrian Historiography | Page 2

their deeds in war, but their building operations, and
more especially the buildings erected in honor of the gods. Now and
then we have an incidental reference to military activities, but rarely
indeed do we find a document devoted primarily to the narration of
warlike deeds. Side by side with these building inscriptions were to be

found dry lists of kings, sometimes with the length of their reigns, but,
save for an occasional legend, there seem to have been no detailed
histories. It was from the former type that the earliest Assyrian
inscriptions were derived. In actual fact, we have no right to call them
historical in any sense of the word, even though they are our only
sources for the few facts we know about this early period. A typical
inscription of this type will have the form "Irishum the vice gerent of
the god Ashur, the son of Ilushuma the vice gerent of the god Ashur,
unto the god Ashur, his Lord, for his own life and for the life of his son
has dedicated". Thus there was as yet little difference in form from
their Babylonian models and the historical data were of the slightest.
This type persisted until the latest days of the Assyrian empire in the
inscriptions placed on the bricks, or, in slightly more developed form,
in the inscriptions written on the slabs of stone used for the adornment
of palace or temple. For these later periods, they rarely have a value
other than for the architectural history, and so demand no further study
in this place. Nevertheless, the architectural origin of the historical
inscription should not be forgotten. Even to the end, it is a rare
document which does not have as its conclusion a more or less full
account of the building operations carried on by the monarch who
erected it.
It was not long until the inscriptions were incised on limestone. These
slabs, giving more surface for the writing, easily induced the addition
of other data, including naturally some account of the monarch's
exploits in war. The typical inscription of this type, take, for example
that of Adad nirari I, [Footnote: BM. 90,978; IV. R. 44 f.; G. Smith,
_Assyr. Discoveries_, 1875, 242 ff.; Pognon, JA. 1884, 293 ff.; Peiser,
KB. I. 4 ff.; Budge-King, 4 ff.; duplicate Scheil, RT. XV. 138 ff.;
Jastrow, ZA. X. 35 ff.; AJSL. XII 143 ff.] has a brief titulary, then a
slightly longer sketch of the campaigns, but the greater portion by far is
devoted to the narration of his buildings. This type also continued until
the latest days of the empire, and, like the former, is of no value where
we have the fuller documents.
When the German excavations were begun at Ashur, the earliest capital
of the Assyrian empire, it was hoped that the scanty data with which we

were forced to content ourselves in writing the early history would
soon be much amplified. In part, our expectations have been gratified.
We now know the names of many new rulers and the number of new
inscriptions has been enormously increased. But not a single annals
inscription from this earlier period has been discovered, and it is now
becoming clear that such documents are not to be expected. Only the
so-called "Display" inscriptions, and those with the scantiest content,
have been found, and it is not probable that any will be hereafter
discovered.
It was not until the end of the fourteenth century B. C. with the reign of
Arik den ilu, that we have the appearance of actual annalistic
inscriptions. That we are at the very beginning of annalistic writing is
clear, even from the fragmentary remains. The work is in annals form,
in so far as the events of the various years are separated by lines, but it
is hardly more than a list of places captured and of booty taken, strung
together by a few formulae. [Footnote: Scheil, OLZ. VII. 216. Now in
the Morgan collection, Johns, _Cuneiform Inscriptions_, 33.]
With this one exception, we do not have a strictly historical document
nor do we have any source problem worthy of our study until the time
of Tiglath Pileser I, about 1100 B.C. To be sure, we have a good plenty
of inscriptions before this time, [Footnote: L. Messerschmidt,
Keilschrifttexte aus Assur. I. Berlin 1911; _Mittheilungen der
Deutschen Orient Gesellschaft_; cf, D. D. Luckenbill, AJSL. XXVIII.
153 ff.] and the problems they present are serious enough, but they are
not of the sort that can be solved by source study. Accordingly, we
shall begin our detailed study with the inscriptions from this reign.
Then, after a gap in our knowledge, caused by the temporary decline of
Assyrian power, we shall take up the many problems presented by the
numerous inscriptions of Ashur