The preparation of this book has taken far longer than expected partly because the number of inscriptions of Sennacherib has continued to increase at a pace commensurate with the passing of the decades since the inception of the project. The delay was compounded by the unexpected closure of the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia (RIM) Project resulting in a long period when no research was done at all. Grant Frame, with the encouragement of Erle Leichty, rescued the Sennacherib project in 2007 when he founded the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) Project at the University of Pennsylvania with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The authors are extremely grateful to Professors Frame and Leichty for their initiative.
While Kirk Grayson has been involved in research on Sennacherib since his graduate student days in the 1950s, active work on preparing the corpus of the complete royal inscriptions of this king only began in earnest under the auspices of the RIM Project in the 1980s. Lynne George and Hannes Galter, student assistants on the Project, began the systematic preparation of preliminary transliterations and bibliographies of some of the texts. When Grayson had completed RIMA 3, he personally took over work on the Sennacherib project in the mid-1990s and continued in that capacity until 2003 when family and illness forced him to stop. During that time, Grayson did the bulk of the research and collation of the texts of Sennacherib that were inscribed on clay cylinders, clay prisms, clay and stone tablets, stone horizontal prisms, and stone bull and lion colossi, preparing the transliterations, translations, scores, catalogues, introductions, commentaries, and bibliographies. In 2003, Grayson found it necessary to cease scholarly pursuits and thus work on the Sennacherib volumes was put on hold.
In 2008, when the last RIM volume appeared, the RIM Project officially ceased to exist and the fate of the Sennacherib inscriptions was in limbo. Grant Frame, however, was given responsibility for the materials and manuscripts. In 2008–2009, Matthew Rutz, the Project's postdoctoral researcher, organized the numerous paper and electronic files, carefully assessed the material, especially the inscriptions from Aššur, made some preliminary notes on what work needed to be carried out, and collated several clay cylinders and prisms in the British Museum (London).
After Rutz took up a position at Brown University in 2009, Jamie Novotny took over responsibility for the Sennacherib texts. He reorganized and standardized the contents of the book, prepared the front and back material, collated further texts in the British Museum (London) and Vorderasiatisches Museum (Berlin), wrote the book's introduction and most of the on-page notes, updated and expanded the existing commentaries and bibliographies, and finalized the editions and scores.
Work on the present corpus of texts necessitated extensive 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 cooperated in the preparation of this book. First, they would like to thank the directors, keepers, curators, and assistants of the Vorderasiatisches Museum (Berlin), Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (Chicago), British Museum (London), Yale Babylonian Collection (New Haven), and Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). Specifically, the authors express their gratitude to John Curtis, Walter Farber, Irving Finkel, Joachim Marzahn, Jonathan Taylor, and Christopher Walker. These individuals, and their staff, have been extremely helpful and have extended to us every courtesy and assistance. Secondly, they would like to thank the Trustees of the British Museum and the Vorderasiatisches Museum for allowing the RINAP Poject to publish photographs of objects bearing Sennacherib inscriptions, and the British Institute for the Study of Iraq for giving permission to reproduce plans published in the journal Iraq.
As usual with a volume in this series, numerous individuals aided in the production of the volume in some way. Since the preparation of this book has spanned more than two decades, it is impossible to name everyone who has contributed to RINAP 3/1 and thus any omissions is unintentional. 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 Jeremy Black, Eckart Frahm, Grant Frame, Douglas Frayne, Renee Gallery, Hannes Galter, Lynne George, Amir Harrak, Mikko Luukko, Alan Millard, John Russell, Julian Reade, Karen Radner, Matthew Rutz, Edmond Sollberger, David Stronach, and Christopher Walker.
In Toronto, during the RIM years, and later in Philadelphia, several individuals contributed to the technical preparation of the volume and they deserve credit for performing tedious and time-consuming tasks. For the Toronto stage of production, the authors offer their gratitude to Lynne George and Hannes Galter for preparing and entering the preliminary transliterations of some of the inscriptions, and to Hope Grau and Jill Ruby for performing various other tasks. For the Philadelphia stage of production, the authors would like to thank the postdoctoral researchers and student assistants who helped in the completion of the volume: Hezekiah Akiva Bacovcin, Matthew Rutz, Irene Sibbing Plantholt, Zackary Wainer, and especially Andrew Knapp. Last, but by no means least, special thanks must be given to Steve Tinney for undertaking the arduous task of generating the final camera-ready copy and converting and preparing the texts for the online version.
The penultimate manuscript was read by Nicholas Postgate, Greta Van Buylaere, and Martin Worthington, all of whom made numerous astute comments, welcome criticisms, and improvements, particularly on the transliterations and translations. In addition to providing valuable feedback, Martin Worthington kindly provided the RINAP Project with a near complete draft of his unpublished book Principles of Akkadian Textual Criticism. In addition, members of the RINAP editorial board and the project consultants offered helpful suggestions at various times near the completion of the volume. Their time, care, and generosity are greatly appreciated.
Wilfred Lambert, to whom this book is dedicated, had been asked to serve as a reader, but sadly passed away prior to reviewing the manuscript. Lambert served as a reader for all ten RIM volumes and the first two published RINAP volumes (RINAP 1 and RINAP 4). His critical feedback, which stemmed from his vast knowledge of Mesopotamian texts (published and unpublished) and secondary literature, always improved the books immensely. The authors would like to acknowledge here their gratitude to Wilfred Lambert not only for his time, service, and generosity to both the RIM and RINAP Projects, but also for his numerous contributions to the field of Assyriology.
The authors' appreciation goes out once again to the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the University of Toronto, the University of Pennsylvania, and several private individuals, in particular Laurence Shiff and Malcolm Horsnell, whose financial support allowed for their travel to the numerous museums cited above and provided the funding necessary for them to conduct the research in Sennacherib's inscriptions and to publish this volume.
Last, but by no means least, the authors wish to record their gratitude for the ongoing support and encouragement of their families: Eunice Grayson†, Vera and Sally Grayson, and six grandchildren; Denise Bolton, Robert and Diana Novotny, and Jennifer Novotny.
Toronto and Philadelphia, June 2012
A. Kirk Grayson
Jamie Novotny
A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny
A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny, 'Preface', RINAP 3: Sennacherib, The RINAP 3 sub-project of the RINAP Project, 2019 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap3/rinap31frontmatter/preface/]