Individual Neo-Babylonian royal inscriptions have been edited and published as early as 1852, when G.F. Grotefend (Erläuterungen) first presented an edition of Nabonidus' Tarif Stele (Nabonidus 43); note that Grotefend's translation of that badly preserved text bears little resemblance to a modern translation of that same Akkadian text. It was not until much later in the nineteenth century that more Neo-Babylonian inscriptions, including the Babylon Stele (Nabonidus 3), began to appear in scholarly publications. The first significant publication of this group of texts was in 1890, in volume 3/2 of the then-important series Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek. C. Bezold edited the then-available inscriptions of Neriglissar and F.E. Peiser published the then-known inscriptions of Nabonidus.[[152]]
Twenty-two years later, in 1912, S. Langdon edited all of the Neo-Babylonian inscriptions known to him in his Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften. That seminal work contained three texts of Neriglissar and fifteen inscriptions of Nabonidus. The transliterations were accompanied by German translations.[[153]] Despite the importance of Neo-Babylonian royal inscriptions, Langdon's 1912 edition was the last successful attempt to collect and publish all of the known texts of that genre and period in a single place.
P.-R. Berger, however, had planned to remedy that desideratum in the 1970s by publishing a three-volume edition (with up-to-date transliterations, translations, and studies) of the then-known corpus of texts. The first volume, Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften: Königsinschriften des ausgehenden babylonischen Reiches (626–539 a. Chr.), which contained a catalogue and bibliographical information, appeared in 1973, but the planned second and third volumes were never published and, therefore, Langdon, NBK continued to be the discipline-standard edition of the inscriptions of Babylon's last native kings.
In 1989, P.-A. Beaulieu published a comprehensive study of the inscriptions of Nabonidus as part of his book The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556–539 BC. Although he did not include fully-fledged editions as part of his study, Beaulieu did include transliterations and translations of key passages of Nabonidus' inscriptions, thus, updating some of the more important sections of that king's texts.
In 2001, H. Schaudig published his doctoral dissertation Die Inschriften Nabonids von Babylon und Kyros' des Großen samt den in ihrem Umfeld entstandenen Tendenzschriften: Textausgabe und Grammatik, and this greatly improved matters. After nearly ninety years, Schaudig was the first person to undertake the publication of an up-to-date and authoritative treatment of Neo-Babylonian royal inscriptions. Not only did he provide carefully-prepared transliterations and German translations of fifty-five inscriptions of Nabonidus, but he also prepared a detailed grammatical analysis of that group of texts. R. Da Riva accurately remarked in 2008 that "Schaudig's work is the only substantial improvement over Langdon that we have today."[[154]] Apart from some of Da Riva's own later publications, this currently holds true.[[155]]
In 2008, R. Da Riva published a very informative, general study of the genre entitled The Neo-Babylonian Royal Inscriptions: An Introduction. Although that book does not include editions of the texts themselves, it does include a wealth of information about this important group of texts, including extensive bibliography and a comprehensive catalogue of inscriptions.[[156]] Several years later, in 2013, Da Riva performed a similar service to Assyriology by publishing up-to-date editions and studies of the known inscriptions of Nabopolassar, Amēl-Marduk, and Neriglissar. Her book The Inscriptions of Nabopolassar, Amel-Marduk and Neriglissar includes transliterations and translations of fifteen inscriptions of Nabopolassar, six inscriptions of Amēl-Marduk, and nine inscriptions of Neriglissar. Between Schaudig and Da Riva, a sizeable portion of Langdon's 1912 edition of inscriptions has been updated. New, authoritative editions of the numerous texts of the dynasty's most famous ruler, Nebuchadnezzar II, however, are yet to appear.[[157]]
Since 2015, the inscriptions included in Da Riva, SANER 3 have been included on the LMU Munich-based Royal Inscriptions of Babylonia online (RIBo) Project, in its "Babylon 7" sub-project, in a lemmatized (linguistically annotated) and Open Access format.[[158]] The texts in Schaudig, Inschriften Nabonids were made publically available in December 2018. Thus, earlier versions of the inscriptions included in this book, as well as those in the currently in preparation RINBE 1 volume, have been available for free for several years.[[159]]
152 In that same volume, H. Winckler edited the inscriptions of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II. French translations of a few inscriptions of Neo-Babylonian kings, including a few of Neriglissar and Nabonidus did appear in Ménant, Babylone et la Chaldée, which was published in 1875. That book did not, however, include transliterations of those sources.
153 Five inscriptions of Napolassar and fifty-two texts of Nebuchadnezzar II were also included in that book. No inscriptions of Amēl-Marduk were included in Langdon, NBK. The Napolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II texts were adapted from his 1905 book Building inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian Empire: Part 1, Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, which was based on his Ph.D. dissertation (Columbia University).
154 Da Riva, GMTR 4 p. ix.
155 Especially Da Riva, Twin Inscriptions; Da Riva, SANER 3; and Da Riva, ZA 103 (2013) pp. 196–229.
156 Of note, Da Riva, GTMR 4 p. 131 mentions seven fragments not included in Schaudig, Inschriften Nabonids.
157 These texts are to be edited in the first volume of this series, in two parts.
158 http://oracc.org/ribo/babylon7/pager, as well http://oracc.org/ribo/pager [2020].
159 The Nebuchadnezzar II inscriptions to be included in RINBE 1/1 were made public in December 2019. Note that the version included on RIBo also includes German translations.
Frauke Weiershäuser & Jamie Novotny
Frauke Weiershäuser & Jamie Novotny, 'Overview of Previous Editions', 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/rinbe2introduction/overviewofpreviouseditions/]