The volumes in the RINAP series are modeled upon the publications of the now-defunct Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia (RIM) Project, with a few modifications, in particular the addition of indices of proper names. Like the RIM volumes, the volumes in this series are not intended to provide analytical or synthetic studies, but rather to provide basic text editions that can serve as the foundations for such studies. Thus, extensive discussions of the contents of the texts are not presented, and the core of each volume is the edition of the relevant texts.
In this volume, the order of the texts is based for the most part upon the following two criteria:
Following the practice of the RIM series, inscriptions that cannot be assigned definitely to a particular ruler are given text numbers beginning at 1001. Certain other inscriptions that provide information relevant for establishing royal names and titles (e.g., "servant seals") and any composed in the name of another member of the royal family (e.g., royal wives) have been given numbers that begin at 2001.
In the volumes of the RINAP series, the term "exemplar" is employed to designate a single inscription found on one object. The term "text" is employed to refer to an inscription that existed in antiquity and that may be represented by a number of more or less duplicate exemplars. In these editions exemplars of one text are edited together as a "master text," with a single transliteration and translation. Variants to the "master text" are provided either on page (major variants) or at the back of the volume (minor variants).
Each text edition is normally supplied with a brief introduction containing general information. This is followed by a catalogue containing basic information about all exemplars. This includes museum and excavation numbers (the symbol + is added between fragments that belong to the same object), provenance, lines preserved, and indication of whether or not the inscription has been collated (c = collated with the original, (c) = partially collated with the original, p = collated by means of a photograph, (p) = partially collated from a photograph; and n = not collated). The next section is normally a commentary containing further technical information and notes. The bibliography then follows. Items are arranged chronologically, earliest to latest, with notes in parentheses after each bibliographic entry. These notes indicate the exemplars with which the item is concerned and the nature of the publication, using the following key words: photo, copy, edition, translation, study, and provenance. Certain standard reference works (e.g., the various volumes of "Keilschriftbibliographie" and "Register Assyriologie" published in Orientalia and Archiv für Orientforschung respectively; Borger, HKL 1–3; AHw; CAD; and Seux, ERAS) are not normally cited, although they were essential in the collecting and editing of these texts. While the bibliographies should contain all major relevant items, they are not necessarily totally exhaustive; a vast amount of scattered literature exists on many of the inscriptions edited in this volume and much of this literature is of only limited scholarly interest.
As noted earlier, a distinction is made between major and minor variants to a "master text"; the major variants are placed at the bottom of the page and the minor variants at the back of the book. In brief, major variants are essentially non-orthographic in nature, while minor variants are orthographic variations. Orthographic variants of proper names may at times be significant and thus on occasion these will also appear on the page as major variants. Complete transliterations of all exemplars in the style of musical scores are found in the pdf on Oracc at http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/scores/ and thus any reader who finds the notes on variants insufficient for his/her needs may check the full reading of any exemplar (the pdfs of the scores for previous RINAP volumes are also now available on Oracc). Such scores, however, are not normally given for bricks and seal inscriptions. Objects whose attribution to a particular text is not entirely certain are given exemplar numbers that are followed by an asterisk (*); for example, IM 18627 is regarded as text no. 41 ex. 3*, since it is uncertain that it is an exemplar of that text. Moreover, these exemplars are listed in separate catalogues (Likely Additional Exemplars), beneath the main catalogue.
Several photographs are included in this volume. These are intended to show a few of the object types upon which Sargon's inscriptions were written and to aid the reader in understanding the current state of preservation of some of the inscriptions.
As is the normal practice for transliterating cuneiform inscriptions, lower case Roman is used for Sumerian and lower case italics for Akkadian; logograms in Akkadian texts appear in capitals. The system of sign values in Borger, Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon (MZ), is generally followed. A number of inscriptions use at times Babylonian sign forms in a text written mainly with Assyrian sign forms and vice versa; this has not been indicated in the editions. As in previous volumes, certain variant sign forms are not specifically indicated in the transliterations. For example, no attempt is normally made to indicate when a sign taken to be DUB was actually written with a standard UM form (and vice versa); the same generally holds true for reading such signs as EZEN/SAR, GAB/TAḪ, and DUL/DU6. Italics in the English translation indicate either an uncertain translation or a word in the original language. In general, the rendering of geographical names follows the Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes (Rép. Géogr.) and personal names follows The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (PNA); however, the names of Babylonian rulers follow the spelling used in RIMB 2.
There are several differences between the RIM and RINAP styles. Among these, the most notable is that all partially preserved or damaged signs, regardless of how they are broken, now appear between half brackets (⸢ and ⸣). Thus, no partially preserved sign has square brackets ([ and ]) inserted in its transliteration; for example, [DINGI]R and LUGA[L KU]R appear in the transliteration as ⸢DINGIR⸣ and ⸢LUGAL KUR⸣ respectively. This change was made to ensure compatibility of the online RINAP editions with the standards of the Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus (Oracc), the parent site and project where RINAP Online is housed. This change was implemented in the print version in order to present identical editions in RINAP 2 and RINAP Online. Note, however, that the translations may appear more damaged than their corresponding transliterations indicate, as the translations were prepared according to standard Assyriological practices; for example, ⸢DINGIR⸣ (= [DINGI]R) and ⸢LUGAL KUR⸣ (= LUGA[L KU]R) are translated as "[the go]d" and "king [of the lan]d," and not "the god" and "king of the land."
Since some of the most important inscriptions of Sargon either no longer exist, having been lost in the Tigris in 1855, or were reburied at the site, and thus are only attested via copies made by their excavator P.E. Botta at the site of Khorsabad (ancient Dūr-Šarrukīn) or at times also by poorly preserved squeezes of the inscriptions, it has been found necessary to edit some texts in a different manner than is normally the case in the RIM and RINAP volumes and to make use of some additional sigla. This is described more fully in the Introduction to the volume and/or at the relevant inscriptions, but a brief summary is also provided here. For texts 1–4 and 8, although there is only one actual exemplar of the inscription, it has been thought best to provide a score for each inscription, providing either full or partial transliterations of the various sources for a lost original (e.g., Botta's copy published in Monument de Ninive, a copy made by H. Winckler after examination of a squeeze of the inscription, a copy made by Ch.-F. Jean following an examination of a squeeze, a copy made by Botta at Khorsabad and preserved in the Institut de France or published in Journal asiatique in the 1840s, or a squeeze currently preserved in the Louvre). With regard to additional sigla, a superscript dagger (†) is placed after a sign that has an abnormal/incorrect form in a copy by Botta that cannot be verified or corrected from collation of the original or a squeeze, or from an earlier copy made by Botta (normally one preserved in the Institut de France and/or published in the Journal asiatique). A superscript right-facing triangular bullet (‣) is employed in the scores to note where a copy by H. Winckler specifically indicates that he began to collate the inscription from a squeeze. A superscript circular bullet (•) is similarly employed to note where Winckler specifically indicates that his collations from a squeeze ended. This latter siglum (•) is also used in the transliteration of text no. 117 (Najafabad Stele) to indicate where the lines of the inscription on the squeezes preserved in the Royal Ontario Museum end. At times Botta's copies misalign fragments of a wall slab; a double dagger (‡) is employed in the scores to indicate the point in the line of a Botta copy where one must either go up or down a line in his copy in order to continue reading the relevant line.
The reader should note that there is some inconsistency in the use of Roman versus Arabic numerals for the room numbers of the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad in publications. It has been thought best to cite the rooms from which inscribed wall slabs come (basically rooms I–XIV) using roman numerals, following the practice initiated by the first excavator of the site, Paul-Emile Botta, and used in most publications of the texts (e.g., Winckler, Sar.; Lie, Sar.; and Fuchs, Khorsabad), but to use Arabic numerals for the other rooms (mostly in connection with texts found during the later excavations of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and following its practice [e.g., Loud, Khorsabad 1; and Loud and Altman, Khorsabad 2]). See the Introduction for a fuller explanation of the matter.
In addition to the indices of museum and excavation numbers and selected publications found in RIM volumes, the RINAP volumes also contain indices of proper names (personal names, topographical names, and divine names). Concordances to correlate the line numbers used for the Khorsabad Annals in this volume and those given in the previous major editions by H. Winckler and A. Fuchs are also provided. Searchable online versions of the manuscripts are maintained on Oracc by MOCCI (Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative). Web versions of the editions are also hosted on CDLI (Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative).
Philadelphia June 2020
Grant Frame
Grant Frame
Grant Frame, 'Editorial Notes', RINAP 2: Sargon II, Sargon II, The RINAP 2 sub-project of the RINAP Project, 2021 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap2/rinap2frontmatter/editorialnotes/]