In view of Sargon's involvement with Israel and the "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel" and his successful military campaigns throughout the Near East, from Philistia in the Southwest to Urarṭu in the North and Babylonia in the Southeast, every general history of ancient Assyria or Mesopotamia includes some treatment of his reign. In 1908, the American Assyriologist and historian A.T.E. Olmstead published his 1906 Cornell University dissertation Western Asia in the Days of Sargon of Assyria 722–705 B.C.: A Study in Oriental History. Surprisingly, this was to be the only monographic length study of his reign for over a century, although useful chapters on his reign appeared by A.K. Grayson in CAH2 3/2 in 1991 and by W. Mayer in his Politik und Kriegskunst der Assyrer in 1995. In 2001 R.A. Gabriel even had a chapter on Sargon in his book Great Captains of Antiquity (part of the series Contributions in Military Studies); Sargon was the only Mesopotamian ruler included in the volume. A. Fuchs has presented important biographical overviews of the king within the past decade in RLA 12/1–2 (2009) pp. 51–61 and PNA 3/2 (2011) pp. 1239–1247. Recently, three books on Sargon appeared in almost successive years: Le campagne babilonesi ed orientali di Sargon II d'Assiria: un'analisi topografica (a revision of a 2007 doctoral dissertation presented at the Università di Roma La Sapienza) by F. Maniori in 2014, The Campaigns of Sargon II, King of Assyria, 721–705 B.C (in the series Campaigns and Commanders) by S.C. Melville in 2016, and Sargon II, King of Assyria (in the series Archaeology and Biblical Studies) by J. Elayi in 2017. The first author provides a detailed study of Sargon's southern and eastern campaigns, while each of the latter two authors provides a study of all Sargon's campaigns, although the authors do not always see things in the same way.
Translations of individual inscriptions of his or of selective passages from them — generally those dealing with Biblical matters — often appear in compendiums of translations of ancient Near Eastern texts, for example, Gressmann, ATAT2 (translations by E. Ebeling); Pritchard, ANET3 (translations by A.L. Oppenheim); Briend and Seux, TPOA (translations by M.-J. Seux); Galling, Textbuch2 (translations by R. Borger); TUAT 1/4 (translations by Borger); and COS 2 and 4 (translations by K.L. Younger and F.M. Fales).
Before discussing the major previous editions and studies of this text corpus, I would like to cite here briefly some other important works in which Sargon II texts have been published. For editions/transliterations of a single text, or a very small group of texts, often accompanied by a copy and/or a photograph, see especially: Schrader, Sargonsstele (1882); Nassouhi, MAOG 3/1 (1927); Thureau-Dangin, RA 30 (1933); Unger, IAMN 9 (1933); Weidner, AfO 14 (1941–44); Barnett in Woolley and Barnett, Carchemish 3 (1952); Gadd, Iraq 16 (1954); Wiseman, Iraq 17 (1955); Gadd in Crowfoot, Samaria-Sebaste 3 (1957); Tadmor, Eretz-Israel 8 (1967); Levine, Stelae (1972); Saggs, Iraq 37 (1975); Al-Rawi, Iraq 56 (1994); Frame, Orientalia 68 (1999); Kessler, AfO 50 (2003–4); Niederreiter, RA 99 (2005); Frame, Subartu 18 (2006); Akdoğan and Fuchs, ZA 99 (2009); Frahm, KAL 3 (2009); Frame, Studies Parpola (2009); Frame, CUSAS 17 (2011); Frahm, AoF 40 (2013); Lauinger and Batiuk, ZA 105 (2015); Baruchi-Unna and Cogan, IMSA 9 (2018–19); and Marchesi, JNES 78 (2019).
According to the noted French archaeologist J.-C. Margueron, "Mesopotamian archaeology was born at the end of March 1843, on the day when P.E. Botta, the consular agent at Mosul, brought to light a group of buildings with bas-reliefs and inscriptions on the mound of Khorsabad (Dur-Sharrukin)."[37] The buildings that Botta (1802–1870) brought to light were the palace of Sargon II at his capital of Dūr-Šarrukīn ("Fortress/Wall of Sargon"), located next to the Khosr River about fifteen km northeast of the Iraqi city of Mosul. He carried out work there only until the following year, 1844, and in 1845 returned to France. However, he had unearthed numerous magnificent stone wall panels decorated with carved reliefs and massive stone sculptures of winged bulls, among other items. He sent a series of five letters about his discoveries back to Jules Mohl in Paris and these were published in the Journal asiatique[38] while Botta was still in Iraq. These reports encouraged the French government to send the artist E. Flandin to make drawings of the reliefs. The few items that Botta brought back to Paris caused a great sensation when they were displayed in the Louvre in 1847 and V. Place was thus sent out to continue the work at Khorsabad, where he, aided by F. Thomas, excavated in 1852-1854, finding more fabulous items. In numbering the rooms and courtyards in the palace that were excavated, Botta used Arabic numerals for rooms and Roman numerals for courts; however, some of the spaces initially thought by him to have been open areas (i.e., courts) were later realized to be rooms. Thus, for example, Court VII on his plan was actually the throne room, and Courts II, V, X, XIII, and XIV were also rooms. He did however refer to areas II, V, X, XIII, and XIV as rooms in connection with his copies, but continued to cite them with Roman numerals. Place corrected most of these in his plan of the palace (replacing the Roman numerals with Arabic ones), but he did not correct all of them (e.g., the throne room remained Court VII). As mentioned in the Editorial Notes, it has been thought best to maintain Botta's numbering (i.e., using Roman numerals) when citing rooms with inscribed wall slabs since that is how they are noted on his copies and in most recent publications of the texts, but to use Arabic numerals for rooms mentioned in connection with other texts, texts mostly found during the later excavations by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, which cited the rooms with Arabic numerals. Botta thought that he had found the Nineveh of the Bible and so his and Flandin's publication claimed in its title: Monument de Ninive, 5 volumes published in 1849–1850 (Paris). The first two volumes of Monument de Ninive contained plans of the individual rooms excavated and Flandin's drawings of the reliefs, as well as drawings of some individual objects and of some details on the reliefs. Volumes 3 and 4 contained Botta's typeset copies of inscriptions on the bulls, paving slabs, and wall slabs, as well as on a few other items; and volume 5 recorded the discovery of the site and a description of the excavations, as well as having chapters on writing and decipherment. Botta, and later Place, found numerous inscribed materials. Botta's initial copies of some of the texts that he found were published with his reports in Journal asiatique and the copies are preserved today in the archives of the Institut de France in Paris. He also made squeezes of many of the texts, which he used to correct his initial copies before they were published in typeset characters in Monument de Ninive. In the table of contents of volumes 3–4, a small "c" is placed with the plate number for each copy that had been collated from a squeeze or from the original in the Louvre (e.g., "99c") and this is also done in this volume when a Botta plate number is cited in a text catalogue and usually in text introductions and commentaries, but it is not normally indicated in the bibliography sections of the individual texts, footnotes, or in runs of consecutive numbers.[39]
Place, who had worked at Khorsabad in 1852-1854, entitled the publication of his work Ninive et l'Assyrie (3 volumes published in 1867–1870; Paris), although he recognized that Khorsabad was not ancient Nineveh. The first volume included, among other matters, descriptions of the various buildings and structures found and a discussion of the manner of construction used by the Assyrians. In addition to chapters on attempts at determining what the structures would have looked like and how they were decorated, on the excavation and transport of the antiquities discovered, and on numerous other topics (e.g., glyptics, painting, and ceramics), the second volume had a chapter on cuneiform inscriptions and an almost forty-page appendix (pp. 281–319) by J. Oppert on the inscriptions on the winged bulls, clay cylinders, and gold, silver, and 'antimony' tablets (text nos. 9, 43, 46, 45, and 47 respectively), with typeset copies of the texts, interlinear transliterations and Latin translations, as well as French translations.[40] Oppert also presented a translation of the annals based on the material from Rooms II, V, XIII, and XIV of the palace (text nos. 1–4), although this translation also incorporated parts of the Display Inscription from Room XIV (text no. 8). His were the first real published editions of texts from Khorsabad, but he had previously published translations of all or part of some of them elsewhere (e.g., bull: Oppert, Chronologie [1856] pp. 35–39 = Annales de Philosophie chrétienne 53 [1856] pp. 346–350; cylinder: Annales de Philosophie chrétienne 65 [1862] p. 45 no. 5 and pp. 183–188 [with a partial translation already back in 1856]). The third volume contained plans of the site and buildings, reconstructions of various structures, drawings of various reliefs and other finds, and heliogravures of the gold, silver, bronze and 'antimony' tablets, as well as of two exemplars of the Khorsabad Cylinder inscription (pls. 77–78). Some drawings of items from other sites (in particular Kuyunjik) are also found in volume 3.
Botta's publication Monument de Ninive came out quite quickly after his work at the site, in only about five years, while Place's took about fifteen years. Among the most active scholars working at this time on the decipherment of cuneiform was the aforementioned German-French scholar Julius (Jules) Oppert (1825–1905). Situated in Paris, he produced the most important early works on the texts from Khorsabad in a series of articles and books, beginning already in 1855–1856 with a partial translation of the Khorsabad Cylinder inscription (text no. 43) in the Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire (vol. 8) and a translation of the Khorsabad Bull inscription (text no. 9) in the Annales de Philosophie chrétienne (vol. 53). Among his publications are Les inscriptions assyriennes des Sargonides et les fastes de Ninive (1862; text nos. 7, 43, and 73); Les fastes de Sargon, roi d'Assyrie (721 à 703 avant J.C.), traduits et publiés d'après le texte assyrien de la grande inscription des salles du palais de Khorsabad, with J. Ménant (1863; text no. 7); Grande inscription du palais de Khorsabad, with Ménant (1863; text no. 7); and Les inscriptions de Dour-Sarkayan (Khorsabad) provenant des fouilles de M. Victor Place (1870; text nos. 1–4, 9, 43, and 45–47). Sometimes his works were published in two different places (e.g., Sargonides also appeared in the periodical Annales de Philosophie chrétienne vol. 65, and his section in Place's Ninive et l'Assyrie volume 2 also appeared as Dour-Sarkayan). In addition to working with Oppert on two books on Sargon's Khorsabad Display inscription, Joachim Ménant (1820–1899) published French translations of all or parts of several inscriptions of Sargon in his works Annales des rois d'Assyrie (1874; text nos. 1–4, 7, 9, 12, 16–17, 41, 43, 46, 50, 55, 73, 92, 95, and 103) and Babylone et la Chaldée (1875; text nos. 1–2).
David Gordon Lyon (1852–1935) produced his book Keilschrifttexte Sargon's, Königs von Assyrien (722–705 v. Chr.) (Leipzig) in 1883 as the fifth volume in the series Assyriologische Bibliothek. This had been his doctoral thesis at the University of Leipzig, where he had been a student of Friedrich Delitzsch. The volume includes copies, transliterations, translations, and commentary of several inscriptions from Khorsabad, those on clay cylinders (text no. 43), on winged bulls (text no. 9), and on tablets of bronze, silver, gold, and 'antimony' (text nos. 44–47). The volume concludes with a glossary arranged according to the root letters in Hebraic script and a combined index of geographical, personal, and divine names. The edition of the cylinder was based on four exemplars (two in Paris and two in London) and that of the winged bulls on two exemplars in Paris, although with some variants from additional exemplars. He had also been able to examine the four tablets in the Louvre. D.D. Luckenbill later described his work as "a model of accurate, painstaking scholarship" (ARAB 2 p. 1 §2).
In 1889, Hugo Winckler (1863–1913) published an edition of the official inscriptions of Sargon II and it remained the most important and extensive publication of this ruler's inscriptions for over a century.[41] In two volumes, his Die Keilschrifttexte Sargons nach den Papierabklatschen und Originalen neu herausgegeben (Leipzig) included copies and editions of basically all the inscriptions known up until that time. Following an introduction to Sargon's official inscriptions and the historical information in them, volume 1 presents editions of Sargon's official inscriptions and concludes with an index of Akkadian words and a combined index of geographical, personal, and divine names. Although the editions are now outdated, they represented a great advance on what had been available up until the time of their publication. Hand copies of almost all the texts edited in volume 1 are found in volume 2. These copies were made by L. Abel; however, Winckler had clearly been involved in their preparation and they are generally referred to as his copies. Volume 2 has copies of the Khorsabad Annals (pls. 1–28 nos. 1–52, 55, and 58–60 [text nos. 1–4 and 6]), the Display Inscription of Room XIV (pls. 25–27 and 29 nos. 53–54, 56–57, and 61–62 [text no. 8]), the Display Inscription (pls. 30–36 nos. 63–78 [text no. 7]), five pavement slabs (pls. 37–40 [text nos. 10–14]), the inscription on the back of wall slabs (pl. 40 [text no. 41]), the inscription on winged bulls (pls. 41–42 [text no. 9]), the inscriptions on four metal and stone tablets (pls. 42–44 [text nos. 44–47]), the Khorsabad Cylinder inscription (pl. 43 [text no. 43]), the Nineveh Prism (pls. 44–46; referred to as "Das zerbrochene Prisma [A and B]" and "Der Bericht über den Zug gegen Asdod nach S." [text no. 82]), the Cyprus Stele (pls. 46–47 [text no. 103]), the Nimrud wall slabs (pl. 48 [text no. 73]), and various other short inscriptions (pl. 49: Khorsabad altar [text no. 49], epigraphs [text nos. 23–28, 30–32, 34–35, and 37–39], two so-called "harem" inscriptions [text nos. 16–17], inscriptions on glass and stone vessels [text no. 77], bricks [text nos. 50–51, 53–55, and 95], an eyestone [referred to as a "Siegelabdruck"; text no. 61], and clay cones [text no. 92]).[42] These copies comprise ones for which he was able to examine the originals (relatively few), ones for which he was able to collate Botta's copies from squeezes (a large part of the volume), and ones for which his copies are totally based on Botta's copies and his views of what should have been on them. The third group thus provides no independent evidence for exactly what was on the inscriptions, and, for the most part, they are not normally used in this volume, although they are cited in the text bibliographies. With regard to the second group, it is often difficult to determine whether improvements to Botta's copies were based upon what he could actually see on the squeezes or if they were based on what he believed must have been on the inscription. F. Thureau-Dangin has said with regard to Winckler's copies:
A.T.E. Olmstead has stated:
While my own examination of the squeezes often does support or allow Winckler's corrected readings, it more often indicates that signs copied by him as being fully preserved were damaged on the original, are unclear (at times perhaps due to an imperfectly made squeeze), or are even not (or no longer?) visible on the squeezes. While Winckler was an excellent scholar and his corrected copies normally make good sense, they cannot be relied upon. As already noted by Fuchs (Khorsabad p. 6), the most important of Winckler's copies are those that he made having collated the squeezes in Paris, but even here it is not possible to rely on his copies without question.[45] In sum, it is often not clear from the copies whether something was actually seen by him or has been restored/corrected in the copy, and his editions do not always clarify matters. As a result, it is likely that on occasion the editions presented in the present volume have interpreted his copies erroneously. In the text catalogues in this volume, a small "c" is placed after a Winckler text number that was collated by him from a squeeze (e.g., "Winckler, Sar. 2 pl. 16 no. 34c" in the catalogue for text no. 2 section 5). At times his copies specifically state where a squeeze began or ended. If this does not match his square brackets, this is indicated in the transliteration based upon Winckler's copy in the score by superscript "‣" and "•" bullets, for the beginning and end of the squeeze respectively.[46]
The publication in 1912 of Une relation de la huitième campagne de Sargon (714 av. J.-C.) (Textes cunéiformes du Louvre 3) (Paris) by the great French Assyriologist François Thureau-Dangin (1872–1944) presented an extremely important new inscription of Sargon's, a report (or letter) from the king to the god Aššur describing the campaign in his eighth regnal year (714) against Urarṭu and Muṣaṣir (text no. 65). Although the large tablet had been purchased by the Louvre from an antiquities dealer, the piece had clearly been found at Aššur since several additional small fragments of the tablet discovered by German archaeologists at that city were later published by O. Schroeder in 1922 (KAH 2 no. 141) and by E. Weidner in 1937–39 (AfO 12 pp. 144–148 and pl. XI). In addition to a copy, photographs, and an edition of the text, Thureau-Dangin's volume also includes an edition (aided in part by collation of squeezes) of a section of the Annals from Room II that basically duplicated part of the new text and an edition of a section from the Nineveh Prism that also described the campaign against Muṣaṣir.[47]
The article "Zu den Inschriften der Säle im Palaste Sargon's II. von Assyrien" published by Franz Heinrich Weissbach (1865–1944) in 1918 (ZDMG 72 pp. 161–185 and plate before p. 161) proved to be of great importance for our understanding of Sargon's inscriptions on the walls of his palace at Khorsabad. In particular, he recognized that room XIV preserved parts of two different inscriptions, part of the king's annals (text no. 4) and a separate display inscription (text no. 8), and he provided an edition of the latter text. He also improved our understanding of the various versions and copies of the annals and main display inscription in the various rooms of the palace. His study laid an important foundation for work on these texts.
As a result of work producing editions of the corpus of Assyrian royal inscriptions for the files of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, in 1926–1927 Daniel David Luckenbill (1881–1927) published English translations of the entire corpus available up until that time in his two-volume work Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia (ARAB). For the reign of Sargon, volume two includes approximately fifty inscriptions written on stone wall slabs, winged bulls, paving slabs, and steles, on metal tablets, on clay prisms, tablets, cylinders, and cones, and on mud bricks, as well as on several other minor objects. The inscriptions from Khorsabad are presented first, followed by those from Aššur, Calah (Kalḫu), and Nineveh. Luckenbill's work was based entirely on published material, without any additional collation, and he maintained Winckler's line numbering for the annals. ARAB has remained the main English translation of the royal inscriptions of Sargon up until the present time.
Winckler, like Oppert, had combined the versions of the annals from the different rooms of Sargon's palace into one recension, which while useful in many ways, also makes it difficult at times to determine exactly what comes from which room and exactly what is based on restoration as opposed to being actually preserved in the version from one or the other room. Thus, in 1929 the Norwegian scholar Arthur Godfred Lie (1887-1932) presented The Inscriptions of Sargon II, King of Assyria. Part I: The Annals Transliterated and Translated with Notes (Paris). This volume actually only gives an edition of the version of the annals from Room II, although where sections from that room were missing, he includes an edition of the sections in Room V. In addition, numerous footnotes give variants from Rooms V, XIII, and XIV to what is found in Room II. The line numbering of the Annals is based on the text in Room II, and, where it was thought necessary to include material from Room V, the lines are numbered separately, according to the line number on the relevant slab from Room V. Like Winckler, Lie had examined the squeezes in Paris, although he does not indicate exactly which ones he was able to see and it is difficult to determine which readings in the volume are based upon examination of the squeezes. Regrettably, Lie only published Part I of Sargon's inscriptions. Useful reviews of his work were presented by Thureau-Dangin (RA 27 [1930] pp. 159–160) and Olmstead (AJSL 47 [1930–31] pp. 259–280).
Following Botta's and Place's work at Khorsabad, no further major archaeological exploration of the site took place until 1929-1935, when the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago sent out a team led in turn by Edward Chiera (in 1928–1929), Henri Frankfort (in 1929–1932), and Gordon Loud (in 1932–1935), with Thorkild Jacobsen as the epigraphist. Two volumes in the series Oriental Institute Publications resulted: Khorsabad, Part I: Excavations in the Palace and at a City Gate, by Loud, with chapters by Frankfort and Jacobsen (OIP 38) in 1936; and Khorsabad, Part II: The Citadel and the Town, by Loud and Charles B. Altman (OIP 40) in 1938.[48] Jacobsen's chapter in Khorsabad 1 included copies and editions of the inscriptions on five pavement slabs from the palace chapels (earlier thought to be the "harem" section of the palace [text nos. 16–21]) and two inscriptions found in the throne room (one on a fragment of a wall slab with part of Sargon's annals and one on a brick [text nos. 5 and 52 ex. 1 respectively]). The chapter on the inscriptions in Khorsabad 2 included copies and editions of three inscriptions by Jacobsen (one on threshold and stair slabs from the temple of the god Nabû, one on threshold slabs from residence L, and one on a stone altar found in the town area; text nos. 22, 2002, and 49 ex. 3 respectively), as well as a list of moveable inscriptions (those found on tablets, prisms, pottery, etc.).[49] Photos showing several inscriptions are found in these two volumes. The information given in the current volume for the findspots and excavation numbers for some of the items found by the Oriental Institute excavations may include some uncertain information, although attempts have been made to prevent this. There are various reasons for this. As noted by Loud in Khorsabad 2 p. ix, "room numbers assigned in the field have been altered in publication" and "Place's numbering of the palace rooms and courts has been retained." (See ibid. pp. 109–110 for a concordance of the publication and field numbers for the rooms.) At times information on a piece may only come from the original excavation records or from a published volume (Khorsabad 1 or 2); thus, pieces that are stated to come from different rooms may in fact have come from the same room. J. Larson has also determined that on at least three separate occasions, the excavators began the DŠ (at times DS and D.S.) series with a new no. 1.[50] As a consequence, the lower numbers in these series are shared, without explicit differentiation, by three different finds. By consulting the original field ledgers, ambiguities can be resolved in most cases.[51] In addition, the designations for various places differed from those used by Botta and Place. The most important differences between how locations are cited are given below:
In 1958, Hayim Tadmor (1923–2005) published a two-part article on "The Campaigns of Sargon II of Assur: A Chronological-Historical Study" in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies (volume 12 pp. 22–40 and 77–100). Although the article published only one small new inscription (A 16947; text no. 102) and two new fragments of the Nineveh Prism (Rm 2,92 and Sm 2049; text no. 82), his careful study of the chronology of Sargon's reign has remained important for all later studies of the royal inscriptions and campaigns of Sargon. He examined in particular the information on the fall of Samaria (pp. 33–40), using information from the Annals of Room II and from the Nimrud Prism (text nos. 1 and 73), and on the campaigns to Philistia and the border of Egypt (pp. 77–84), using in particular the Aššur Prism and the Nineveh Prism (text nos. 63 and 82).
Although it only included editions (by C.B.F. Walker) of some of Sargon's epigraphs and the inscription on the altars from Khorsabad (text nos. 23, 26, 28–30, 36–39, and 49), Pauline Albenda's 1986 study The Palace of Sargon, King of Assyria / Le palais de Sargon d'Assyrie (French translation by A. Caubet) presents a detailed study of the wall reliefs and stone objects found at Khorsabad, making particular use of the original drawings produced by Botta and Flandin in the 1840s and cataloguing all the pieces known to exist today.
In 1993, Andreas Fuchs presented his doctoral dissertation, a new edition of the royal inscriptions of Sargon II from Khorsabad, at the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, a work completed under the supervision of R. Borger. The dissertation was published the following year as Die Inschriften Sargons II. aus Khorsabad. In August 1991, he had been able to examine original documents in the Louvre and to make use of photographs of Botta's squeezes. In addition, Borger provided him with transliterations and/or collations of seven exemplars of the Khorsabad Cylinder preserved in London and Chicago. In Fuchs' work, the various versions of the Annals were presented as one text, using the "score" method. This used a different set of line numbers for the Annals than those used by Winckler (only the first twenty-five line numbers were the same) or Lie (only the first 234 line numbers were the same). In addition to these editions, the volume concluded with four appendices — the textual building blocks of the inscriptions from the palace, notes on the Annals and the Display Inscription, the geographical lists in the texts, and a reconstruction of the campaign in the king's twelfth regnal year — and indices (with very useful commentaries) of personal, geographical, and divine names. The work is an excellent piece of scholarship, although the separation of the transliterations (pp. 29–287) from the translations (pp. 289–372) is at times awkward, particularly with regard to the different versions of the Annals.
In November 1993, the Louvre opened "De Khorsabad à Paris," a special exhibition to commemorate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Botta's opening of excavations at Khorsabad. The exhibition ran until February 1994 and resulted in two useful publications: E. Fontan (ed.), De Khorsabad à Paris: La découverte des Assyriens (1994); and A. Caubet (ed.), Khorsabad, le palais de Sargon II, roi d'Assyrie (1995). The former volume includes chapters dealing with the discovery of Khorsabad and its excavators, as well as their discoveries and publications, and how the public received them. The latter is composed of presentations given at a conference held on January 21–22, 1994 to commemorate the occasion and exhibition; it contains articles dealing with such matters as the inscriptions on the back of Khorsabad relief slabs (text no. 41), Sargon's Cyprus Stele (text no. 103), and the glazed brick panels at Khorsabad (text no. 58), as well as the construction of the city, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago's work at the site, and other matters.
As part of the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia project, in 1995 G. Frame published the royal inscriptions of the rulers of Babylonia from 1157 to 612 BC (RIMB 2), including those from Babylonia written in the name of its Assyrian overlords. These included six inscriptions of Sargon II: two brick inscriptions from Babylon (text nos. 123–124), and one clay cylinder inscription and three brick inscriptions from Uruk (text nos. 125–128). These record him sponsoring work on the city walls of Babylon and on the Eanna temple at Uruk. The editions of these texts presented in the current volume (text nos. 123–128) are essentially duplicates of those published in RIMB 2.
A few years later, in 1998, A. Fuchs presented a study of Sargon's fragmentary Nineveh Prism, combined with the even more fragmentary texts on the Aššur Prism and a clay tablet (text nos. 82, 63, and 102 respectively). In addition to a careful edition of the texts based on an examination of the originals in London and Berlin, the volume (Die Annalen des Jahres 711 v. Chr. [SAAS 8]) includes new copies of the cuneiform texts and several appendices — dating according to regnal years in Assyria, the sikkatu-lock, Ursâ's companion, Daltâ and the anger of the gods, and Iāmānī and Pir'û — as well as indices of personal, geographical, and divine names. Based on the material mentioned in the text, Fuchs states that the inscription likely dates to 711, the king's eleventh regnal year. The edition of the Nineveh Prism presented by Fuchs is the basis for the one published here (text no. 82), which is the result of collaboration between G. Frame and A. Fuchs.
37 Margueron, Mesopotamia p. 13.
38 JA 4/2 (1843) pp. 61–72 and pls. I–XII; and pp. 201–214 and pls. XIII–XXI. JA 4/3 (1844) pp. 91–103 and pls. XXII–XXXI; and pp. 424–435 and pls. XXXII–XXXVIII. JA 4/4 (1844) pp. 301–314 and pls. XXXIX–XLIX. These include at times notes and comments by J. Mohl. For English translations of these letters, see Botta's Letters on the Discoveries at Nineveh (London, 1850) and Illustrations of the Discoveries at Nineveh; Consisting of Forty-Nine Plates of the Sculpture and Inscriptions on Ancient Assyrian Monuments, with Descriptions, being a Translations of M. Botta's Letters on the First Discoveries at Nineveh (London, 1850). Note also JA 4/5 (1845) pp. 201–207 and pls. L–LV, a report by Botta to the Minister of the Interior.
39 The squeezes that are still extant are preserved in the Louvre and were jointly given the museum number AO 7382 when they were accessioned into the Louvre. Although P.E. Botta indicates that he made squeezes of Monument de Ninive 3–4 pls. 32–35, 40, 47, 51, 73, 76, 79 (top), 117, 125, 135 (bottom) 139, 143 (top), 160 (bottom), 173, and 181–183, these were either destroyed or lost many years ago. The Louvre accession records indicate that squeezes of pls. 40, 47, 51, and 125 were among those acquired by the Louvre about a century ago when they moved there from the Bibliothèque Nationale, but the ones of pls. 40, 47, and 125 cannot be located today and for pl. 51, see below. Actually, there appears to be some uncertainty in the records whether squeezes of pls. 40 and 47 did indeed enter the Louvre. In addition, there may in fact never have been squeezes of the slabs presented on the top of pls. 79 and 143 (Room II, slab 2 [text no. 1 section 1] and Room VIII, slab 23 [text no. 7 ex. 5 section 12]) and bottom of pls. 135 and 160 (Room VIII, slab 16 [text no. 7 ex. 5 section 6] and Room XIV, slab 7 [text no. 8 section 3]), with Botta's indication that this plate had been collated only referring to the other slab on the plate, for which a squeeze does exist. Winckler indicates that he did not see squeezes of the inscriptions presented on the top of Botta's pl. 79 and bottom of pl. 160; the other two slabs have parts of the Display Inscription, for which Winckler only provided a copy of the text in Room X (with variants from the other exemplars). Squeezes of only ten of the fourteen epigraphs on pl. 180 are currently preserved in the Louvre and that is all that were extant at the time they entered the Louvre. There is a squeeze in the Louvre labeled as being pl. 51, but it is actually an impression of the inscription on the back of the bull colossus in question (text no. 41 ex. 21), and not of part of the inscription between the bull's legs (text no. 9 ex. 2).
40 Editions of some dockets dated to the reign of Merodach-Baladan (Marduk-apla-iddina II) and of a clay cone inscription of Adad-apla-iddina (see Frame RIMB 2 pp. 56–57 B.2.8.6) are also presented.
41 Three years earlier, in 1886, Winckler had published his thesis, written in Latin at the University of Berlin, on the annals of Sargon II (De inscriptione Sargonis, regis Assyriae, quae vocatur Annalium).
42 Note that apart from the Annals texts and the Display Inscription from Room XIV (text nos. 1–4, 6, and 8) many of these copies are composite copies, made from two or more exemplars. This is the case in particular for the Khorsabad Display Inscription (text no. 7), the five pavement slab inscriptions (text nos. 10–14), the inscription on the backs of wall slabs (text no. 41), the inscription on the winged bulls (text no. 9), and the cylinder inscription (text no. 43), but also for some of the shorter inscriptions (e.g., those on bricks).
43 Thureau-Dangin, RA 24 (1927) p. 75.
44 Olmstead, AJSL 47 (1930–31) p. 259.
45 Although some of the squeezes made by P.E. Botta are no longer extant or have been lost, all of those that H. Winckler claims to have used are still preserved in the Louvre.
46 See for example Winckler, Sar. 2 pl. 4 no. 8, which is his copy for Botta, Monument de Ninive plate 75c (text no. 1 lines 118–130). When his indication of the beginning or end of the squeeze runs through a sign, the "‣" or "•" are given before and after the sign respectively.
47 It is useful to note here the article by Thureau-Dangin in RA 24 (1927) pp. 75–80 that includes important collations of the version of Sargon's Annals from Room II (text no. 1) based upon his examination of the squeezes then held in the Biblothèque Nationale (Paris) and in particular new copies of slabs 13 and 14 that were made by Ch.-F. Jean based upon the squeezes (text no. 1 sections 12–13).
48 Note also the four preliminary reports produced by H. Frankfort (OIC 16–17 and 19–20).
49 For Jacobsen's nos. 4 and 5, see text no. 10 ex. 4 and the commentary to text no. 11 in this volume.
50 This has to do with numbers similar to DS 22, D.S. 113, and DŠ 48, and not to those where there is an indication of the field season (e.g., DŠ 32-47). In the present volume, DŠ is used in every case, even though DS or D.S. may appear in the actual field record.
51 My thanks must be expressed to J. Larson and J.A. Brinkman for sharing information from their work on the provenances of the materials from Khorsabad.
Grant Frame
Grant Frame, 'Overview of Previous Publications / Editions / Scholarship', RINAP 2: Sargon II, Sargon II, The RINAP 2 sub-project of the RINAP Project, 2021 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap2/rinap2introduction/overviewofpreviouspublications/]