Kassite Sumerian Dedicatory Inscriptions

Kassite dedicatory inscriptions in Sumerian are found on bricks, eye stones, glass axes, door knobs, stone vessels, blocks of lapis lazuli and other objects. The longest and most interesting inscription is found on the fragments of a life-size stone statue of Kurigalzu I [/ckst/P223740,P223776,P223741,P223742] that was erected in the Eʾugal temple of Enlil and Ninlil in the newly established capital at Dūr-Kurigalzu.

The royal inscriptions demonstrate the desire of the Kassite kings to be seen as guardians and restorers of ancient royal and religious traditions. Kurigalzu's statue inscription speaks about the restoration of cults to various ancient Sumerian gods, including Nanna [/amgg/listofdeities/nannasuen/index.html] (the moon god), Inana [/amgg/listofdeities/inanaitar/index.html], Ninisina [/amgg/listofdeities/ninisinna/index.html] (a healing goddess) and Nergal [/amgg/listofdeities/nergal/index.html] (god of the netherworld). Each of these gods is described in terms that derive from traditional Sumerian mythology, providing evidence for the active knowledge of that mythology by Kurigalzu's scholars.

A large number of Kassite royal inscriptions was found in Dūr-Kurigalzu, the capital built by Kurigalzu I. Other places where such texts were found include Nippur, Isin, Adab, Kiš, Larsa, Ur, and Susa.

View Larger Map. Map adapted from the ANE placemarks for Google Earth file by Olof Pedersén.

Sumerian royal inscriptions from the Kassite period have been studied by Alexa Bartelmus in her unpublished Master's thesis Das Sumerische der Königsinschriften der Kassitendynastie. Orthographie, Lexikon, Idiomatik (Munich 2006). This thesis has been of much help in editing the royal inscriptions in the present project.

Further reading

• Bartelmus, Alexa 2010 Restoring the Past. A Historical Analysis of the Royal Temple Building Inscriptions from the Kassite Period. KASKAL 7 (2010) 143-171.
• Bartelmus, Alexa and Jonathan Taylor Collecting and Connecting History: Nabonidus and the Kassite Rebuilding of E(ul)maš of (Ištar)-Annunītu in Sippar-Annunītu. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 66, 113-128. Download from EBSCO (subscription required).
• Brinkman, John A. 1976 Materials and Studies for Kassite History. Volume 1. A Catalogue of Cuneiform Sources Pertaining to Specific Monarchs of the Kassite Dynasty. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
• Clayden, T. 1996 Kurigalzu I and the Restoration of Babylonia. Iraq 58: 109-21. Download [http://www.jstor.org/stable/4200423] from JSTOR (subscription required).
• Clayden, Tim 2009 Eye-stones. ZOrA 2, 36-86.
• Clayden, Tim 2009 Glass Axes of the Kassite Period from Nippur. ZOrA 4, 92-135.
• Veldhuis, Niek C. 2008 Kurigalzu's Statue Inscription. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 60: 25-51. Download [http://www.jstor.org/stable/25608620] from JSTOR (subscription required).

Niek Veldhuis

Niek Veldhuis, 'Kassite Sumerian Dedicatory Inscriptions', Corpus of Kassite Sumerian Texts, The ckst Project, 2019 [http://oracc.org/introduction/dedicatoryinscriptions/]