The preparation of this book, the inaugural volume of the RINBE series, began several years before this series was formally established by Karen Radner and Grant Frame in June 2017. In fact, it began shortly before the official establishment of the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship for Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Historisches Seminar – Abteilung Alte Geschichte) in August 2015. Late in 2014, Radner and Jamie Novotny started discussing plans for long-term, Open Access, digital Assyriology projects. They quickly decided to not only retro-digitize the four published volumes of the sub-series Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: Assyrian Periods (RIMA) and Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: Babylonian Periods (RIMB) of the long-defunct, University-of-Toronto-based Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia (RIM) Project led by A. Kirk Grayson, but also to start preparing editions of the remaining first-millennium-BC royal inscriptions, in particular, those of Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar II, and their successors. This led to Novotny preparing Oracc-compatible transliterations of the Neo-Babylonian inscriptions edited in Rocío Da Riva's book The Inscriptions of Nabopolassar, Amel-Marduk and Neriglissar and Hanspeter Schaudig's volume Die Inschriften Nabonids von Babylon und Kyros' des Großen samt den in ihrem Umfeld entstandenen Tendenzschriften. Textausgabe und Grammatik. The first dataset includes the texts of Amel-Marduk and Neriglissar and became the foundation upon which Royal Inscriptions of Babylonia online (RIBo; http://oracc.org/ribo/) was built. In December 2016, Frauke Weiershäuser permanently joined Radner's team and started lemmatizing the inscriptions of Nabonidus, as well as translating them into readable, modern English; she also began preparing new German translations.
It was not until June 2017, however, when Radner and Frame formally established the RINBE series, that the present book really began to take shape. In April 2018, Novotny secured funding from the Gerda Henkel Foundation, and the resultant program of museum research enabled the team to begin transforming the transliterations for the project from non-critical, retro-digitized and lemmatized versions of texts published by other scholars to critical and authoritative editions prepared through first-hand examinations of the originals, thereby ensuring that RINBE 2 contains carefully-prepared, discipline-standard, and peer-reviewed editions.
The present volume is the result of the close and long-term collaboration between Weiershäuser and Novotny. As for the division of labor, the bulk of the work was done by Weiershäuser, RINBE 2's primary author. She collated most of the pieces in the British Museum (London) and all of the available objects in the Iraq Museum (Baghdad) and the Vorderasiatisches Museum (Berlin); wrote most of the book's introduction, and most of the text introductions and on-page notes; and prepared the bibliographies. Novotny, the book's secondary author, prepared the initial transliterations of the Nabonidus inscriptions, the editions of the inscriptions of Amēl-Marduk and Neriglissar, the catalogue of texts and exemplars, and most of the front and back material; collated many exemplars of Nabonidus' "Eḫulḫul Cylinder" (Nabonidus 28); wrote some sections of the book's introduction, most of the commentaries, and some of the on-page notes; created most of the score transliterations; edited the English of the entire manuscript; and produced the final camera-ready copy of book. Weiershäuser and Novotny were assisted by Giulia Lentini, MA, who provided research and editorial support, including the collation of some pieces of Nabonidus' "Eḫulḫul Cylinder" (Nabonidus 28).
Work on the present corpus of inscriptions necessitated travel for collation of previously published inscriptions and for examination of unpublished material. The authors wish to thank the various museums and museum authorities that have aided them in the preparation of this book. In particular, they would like to thank the directors, keepers, curators, and assistants of the British Museum (London), the Vorderasiatisches Museum (Berlin), the Israel Museum (Jerusalem), the Iraq Museum (Baghdad), the Louvre Museum (Paris), and the Yale Babylonian Collection (New Haven). Specifically, the authors would like to express their gratitude to Shaymaa Abdulzahra, Luma al-Duri, Juliane Eule, Frank Gaedecke, Anna von Graevenitz, Helen Gries, Barbara Helwing, Markus Hilgert, Agnete Lassen, Laura Peri, Nura Qusy, Sonja Radujkovic, Qais Hussein Rasheed, Ilham Shakir, Tawfeeq Abidmohammed Sulatan, Jonathan Taylor, and Ariane Thomas. They and their colleagues have been extremely helpful and have extended to us every courtesy and assistance, sometimes at very short notice.
As is usual with a volume of this scale, numerous individuals aided in the production of the book and online material in some way. While the authors have collated most of the texts themselves, other scholars have kindly collated some texts, provided information on pieces, or aided in some way. These include, in alphabetical order, Selim Adalı, Yigal Bloch, Rocío, Da Riva, Anmar Abdulillah Fadhil, Hussein Flayyeh, Grant Frame, Laith Hussein, Ahmed Ibrahimi, Joshua Jeffers, Enrique Jiménez, Frans van Koppen, Nathan Morello, Olof Pedersén, Karen Radner, Hanspeter Schaudig, Ali Ubaid Shalgham, Jonathan Taylor, Poppy Tushingham, Klaus Wagensonner, and Christopher Walker. In particular, we would like to thank Da Riva and Pedersén for their generous and manifold support. Their deep knowledge of the sources and, in Pedersén's case, of the minutia of excavation work undertaken at Babylon, have greatly improved the quality of the information provided in this volume. The penultimate manuscript was read by Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Johannes Hackl, Christian Hess, and Martin Worthington, all of whom made numerous astute comments, welcome criticisms, and improvements, particularly on the transliterations and translations. In addition, the members of the RINBE editorial board (especially Grant Frame and Karen Radner) and our project consultants generously made time to offer helpful suggestions, especially at the beginning and near the completion of the volume. Their time, care, and generosity are greatly appreciated. Special thanks must be given to Steve Tinney for providing technical support. The authors have tried their best to name everyone who aided in the production of RINBE 2 and, thus, any omissions are unintentional.
The authors' appreciation goes out to the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München for providing financial and material support of the work on the RINBE Project and its online counterpart, RIBo, as outlined in the Preface. Without these institutions' generous assistance, it would not have been possible to complete this volume.
Munich April 2020
Frauke Weiershäuser and Jamie Novotny
Frauke Weiershäuser & Jamie Novotny
Frauke Weiershäuser & Jamie Novotny, 'Preface', RIBo, Babylon 7: The Inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, The RIBo Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2022 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/ribo/babylon7/rinbe2frontmatter/preface/]