Over the years this long composition has been known to Assyriologists under different names. The most attested, and the one still employed here, is the "Divine Directory" (Götteradressbuch) of Aššur, immediately after which comes the title "Topography" (Stadtbeschreibung) of Aššur. Neither of these two names, however, completely suits the nature of the text; the first can only be applied to the opening section, which effectively contains a list of the deities of the city grouped temple by temple (§ 1), while the following section, deals with objects that can be categorized as topographical, such as city gates and shrines (§§ 2–8). Recently A. George has coined the title "Assyrian Temple List" to refer to the portion of the text that lists temples both within Aššur and also elsewhere (§ 4). Lastly, S. Parpola has proposed the name "Cultic Topography" which has the advantage of bringing together the two "souls" of the text: the identification of the deities according to their respective temples and the references to the owners of each divine house.
The text can be divided into eight sections, although no one exemplar preserves all of them together.
The opening section (§ 1), as mentioned above, lists the deities residing in the temples of the city of Aššur (see Recension B ll. 1–119) and is similar to several parallel lists, such as the Divine Directory included in the Nippur Compendium (see Nippur Compendium ll. iv 2–v 24).
The second section (§ 2) is a list of the thirteen city gates of Aššur (see Recension B ll. 120–133). The first part of this list (see Recension B ll. 120–127) duplicates the list preserved in a building inscription of Shalmaneser III (Shalmaneser III 25), which was composed on the occasion of the restoration of the double walls of the city and thus reflects the topography of Aššur during this king's reign (858–824 BC). The following five city gates (see Recension B ll. 128–133), a pair of which appear earlier in a royal inscription of Erišum (Erišum I 01), should most probably be interpreted as the known names of ancient gates added to the first part of the list for the sake of completion. Thus, while the first part of this section represents the sequence of the gates starting at the north-west corner and making a clockwise circuit of the walls of the city, the last part has no topographical significance.
The third section (§ 3), only partially preserved, includes a list of the five divine watchmen guarding the city and its walls, moat and main street (see Recension B ll. 134–143).
The fourth section (§ 4) is the part of the text which A. George recently christened the "Assyrian Temple List" due to the fact that the temples listed here were not exclusively located in Aššur, but also in other Assyrian cities such as Nineveh, Arbil, Kurba'il, and Kalhu. Those temples, like the temple of Marduk and the shrine of Zarpanītu at Babylon and two other temples at Zabban, were probably included because they were considered to be theologically important. As regards the organization of the text, the arrangement used in this section is the three sub-column type with ceremonial Sumerian names on the left, an explanation of those names by means of Akkadian translations in the middle, and their everyday Akkadian counterparts on the right. In this sense the list shows an affinity with Tintir, the Nippur Compendium, and other "topographical" texts, which all relied on the well-established scholarly tradition of lexical and explanatory texts. The Assyrian Temple List has been transmitted in four recensions which differ from each other in the number and order of the temples listed. The main recension (see Recension A) includes 42 temple names; as the fullest and longest recension, it is considered to be the standard version. The Recension B lists 33 temple names, selecting only the temples of Aššur for this section, and leaving out the temples in other cities. The Recension C1 and the Recension C2 record 37 temple names and can be distinguished by whether the of the temples of the god Nabû is in the second half (Recension C1) or in the first half (Recension C2). As far as the order of the temples is concerned, the topographic arrangement that lists temples by city district, used in Tintir 4, is not employed here. Instead, the opening section (§ 1) and the Assyrian Temple List (§ 4) are both ordered by theological importance, listing the gods according to their hierarchical position within the traditional pantheon.
The fifth section (§ 5) is a short list of the three ziqqurats of Aššur (see Recension A ll. 43–45; Recension B ll. 176–178).
The sixth section (§ 6) lists the esoteric names of the four major cult-centers of Assyria, i.e. Aššur, Nineveh, Arbela, and Kalzu (see Recension A ll. 46–47; Recension C1 ll. 40–41; Recension C2 ll. 28'–31').
The seventh section (§ 7) offers a list of the gates of the East Annex of Ešarra, an enclosed courtyard built by Sennacherib (Sennacherib 166) and adjoined to the south-east front of the main building of the Aššur temple (see Recension Recension B ll. 179–184).
Finally, the eighth section (§ 8) contains a summary which ends the whole work (see Recension Recension A ll. 48–49; Recension C1 ll. 42-43; see Recension C2 ll. 32'–33').
The text is known from many exemplars from Nineveh (modern Kuyunjik), where they were found in Ashurbanipal's library, and from Aššur itself (modern Qala'at Sherqat), where they were excavated in the contemporary library of the exorcist Kiṣir-Aššur and his family.
The lack of cohesion that can be recognized between the different sections of the text suggests a composition derived from originally independent lists. The final form as a whole cannot be dated earlier than Sennacherib's reign, due to the presence of § 7. At the same time, however, the above-mentioned affinity between § 2 and the building inscription of Shalmaneser III clearly shows that some of these originally independent lists must date from the ninth century BC.
The closest parallel to this composition is undoubtedly Tintir = Babylon, with which the present text also shares its main purpose: the theological and cosmological glorification of the city as a means to celebrate the pre-eminence of the central state.
Further Reading
Giulia Lentini
Giulia Lentini, 'Götteradressbuch of Ashur', Babylonian Topographical Texts online (BTTo), BTTo, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2022 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/gtteradressbuchofashur/]