In 1987, at the Rencontre Assyriologique in Istanbul, my good friend and colleague, Kirk Grayson, who was at that time the director of the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia Project in Toronto, asked me if I would be willing to undertake the editing of Esarhaddon's royal inscriptions. I agreed to do so with the understanding that I had numerous obligations at the University of Pennsylvania and that I would be able to work only sporadically on the volume. I had no idea that the preparation of this book would take so long. By the time the first draft of the manuscript was completed, the RIM Project was in difficulty due to severe funding problems. The corpus of Esarhaddon's inscriptions was thrown into limbo, but was rescued by Grant Frame, who revived the project in Philadelphia when he was awarded funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities; thus, my work became the inaugural volume of the rebranded RIM Project, the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period Project (RINAP).
In the course of the preparation of this volume, numerous individuals and institutions have aided me; I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to all of them.
Work on the present corpus of texts necessitated extensive travel for collation of previously published inscriptions and for examination of unpublished material. Thanks must be expressed to the various museums and museum authorities who have allowed me to collate documents in their collections, provided me with information, and facilitated me in my research. In particular, the directors, keepers, curators, and assistants of the Aleppo Museum (Aleppo), Vorderasiatisches Museum (Berlin), Harvard Semitic Museum (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (Chicago), Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (Geneva), Archaeological Museums (Istanbul), Fr. Schiller Universität (Jena), British Museum (London), Yale Babylonian Collection (New Haven), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Musée du Louvre (Paris), University Museum (Philadelphia), Wiener Museum für Völkerkunde (Vienna), and the Universität Zürich (Zürich). There were too many individuals at all of these institutions that went out of their way to make my research easier and to help me enjoy their collections and their cities for me to mention individually, but I am deeply grateful for their wonderful hospitality and help in my research. In addition, I would like to thank the Trustees of the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vorderasiatisches Museum, and the University Museum for allowing me to publish photographs of objects bearing Esarhaddon inscriptions, and the University of Toronto Press for allowing me to include text nos. 118–129, 131–139, and 1010, which are taken from Frame, RIMB 2, with only minor updating/changes.
Numerous individuals aided in the production of this volume in some way. Since the preparation of this book has spanned two decades, it is impossible for me to name everyone who has provided information on particular pieces or contributed in some other way. I hope I will be forgiven if I have inadvertently left anyone out. In Toronto, when the volume was under the direction of Kirk Grayson (director of the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia Project), several individuals contributed to the technical preparation of the volume: Amy E. Barron, Katherine Glaser, Hope Grau, and Jamie Novotny. During the final stages of preparation, when the book was under the direction of Grant Frame (director and editor-in-chief of the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period Project) in Philadelphia, several postdoctoral researchers and student assistants helped in the completion of the volume: Joshua Jeffers, Andrew Knapp, Jamie Novotny, Matthew T. Rutz, Zackary Wainer, and William Zimmerle. Robert Ritner and Jennifer Houser Wegner provided an up-to-date translation of the Egyptian inscriptions that appear on VA Ass 2258 (text no. 71). Last, but by no means least, Steve Tinney undertook the arduous task of generating the final camera-ready copy and converting and preparing the texts for the online version. My deepest gratitude is offered to them.
The penultimate manuscript was read by Eckart Frahm, Israel EphĘżal, and Wilfred Lambert, all of whom made numerous astute comments, welcome criticisms, and improvements, particularly on the transliterations and translations. In addition to providing valuable feedback, Eckart Frahm kindly provided me with unpublished editions, copies, and photographs of select sources for text no. 1 (exs. 32–33), text no. 57 (exs. 6 and 9), text no. 58 (ex. 3), and VA 7505 and its duplicate VA 15465 (text no. 1006) prior to publication by him. Members of the 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.
Finally, my appreciation must go to the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the University of Toronto, and several private individuals, in particular Dr. Lawrence Shiff, whose financial support paid for my travel to the numerous museums cited above, with the exception of my trip to Syria, which was paid by the University Museum and its then-director Robert Dyson. The preparation of this volume has been very educational and a great deal of fun. I am deeply grateful to Kirk Grayson, to whom this volume is dedicated, for involving me in his project and funding my travel, to Robert Dyson who funded my only trip to the Near East, and to Grant Frame who rescued my work from oblivion.
Philadelphia, September 2010
E. Leichty
Erle Leichty
Erle Leichty, 'Preface', RINAP 4: Esarhaddon, The RINAP 4 sub-project of the RINAP Project, 2019 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap4/rinap4frontmatter/preface/]