Just like many of the other late Neo-Assyrian rulers, Ashurbanipal has been a popular subject of study from the early days of Assyriology and, therefore, it is little surprise that there are numerous books, dissertations, and articles devoted to him, his inscriptions, and his reign. [47] From the 1860s and 70s to the present, numerous works, large and small, have been devoted to Assyria's last great king. Because this is not the place to present a complete and detailed historical survey of the publication of the Ashurbanipal corpus, or to provide a complete bibliographical study of this king, we will focus on previous editions (and translations) and major studies of the corpus that have advanced our knowledge of this king's royal inscriptions. Extensive bibliographies are provided for each text.
Treatments of Ashurbanipal and his reign are to be found in every general history of Assyria or Mesopotamia. Particularly useful are the biographical sketches by Grayson in CAH2 3/2; Radner, Ruby, and Weissert in PNA 1/1 pp. 159–171 sub Aššūr-bāni-apli; and Arnaud, Assurbanipal. Translations of selected inscriptions of his often appear in collected works of Mesopotamian texts in translation, for example, Oppenheim in ANET2 and Borger in TUAT 1/4.
Before discussing previous editions and major studies of this text corpus, we would like to cite here other works in which Ashurbanipal texts have been published. For copies, typeset Neo-Assyrian or hand-drawn facsimiles, see in particular: Layard, ICC; 1 R; 2 R; 3 R; 5 R; Lehmann-Haupt, Šamaššumukîn; Winckler, Sammlung 3; Ungnad, VAS 1; Scheil, Prisme; King, CT 34; Leeper, CT 35; Thompson, Arch. 79 (1929); Bauer, Asb.; Thompson, Iraq 7 (1940); Wiseman, Iraq 13 (1951); Knudsen, Iraq 29 (1967); Millard, Iraq 30 (1968); Mahmud and Black, Sumer 44 (1985–86); and Marzahn, FuB 27 (1989). 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: Weidner, AfO 7 (1931–32); Thompson, AAA 20 (1933); Thompson, Esar.; Aynard, Prisme; Borger, JCS 19 (1965); Weippert, Edom; Freedman, St. Louis; Cogan and Tadmor, Orientalia NS 46 (1977); Borger, BAL2; Walker, CBI; Gerardi, JCS 40 (1988); Weissert and Onasch, Orientalia NS 61 (1992); Onasch, ÄAT 27; J.M. Russell, Writing on the Wall; Novotny, Eḫulḫul; Novotny, Orientalia NS 74 (2005); Novotny, SAAB 15 (2006); Searight, Assyrian Stone Vessels; and Novotny, SAACT 10. Information on objects containing inscriptions of Ashurbanipal is provided in a few museum and excavation catalogues. The most useful of these are: Bezold, Cat. 1–4; King, Cat.; Lambert and Millard, Cat.; and Lambert, Cat.; and Cogan and Tadmor, JCS 40 (1988) pp. 87–96. The catalogue of texts provided in Borger, BIWA pp. 320–388 is also very useful.
In 1871, G. Smith's History of Assurbanipal, Translated from the Cuneiform Inscriptions was the first book dedicated entirely to Ashurbanipal's life and texts. Work on the volume began in 1866 and, to some extent, was prepared in conjunction with The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. 3: A Selection from the Miscellaneous Inscriptions of Assyria (= 3 R), a volume published by Sir H. Rawlinson with the assistance of Smith. The cost of publishing this 384-page tome was generously covered by J. W. Bosanquet, a well-known chronologist, and H. Fox Talbot, one of the early pioneers whose efforts greatly advanced the decipherment of Akkadian cuneiform. The original Ashurbanipal cuneiform sources used by Smith included editions (and very general studies) of the prisms (which he calls "cylinders"), tablets, and epigraphs published by him in 3 R, as well as a few other royal inscriptions and Neo-Assyrian letters. Although thirty-six inscriptions were used, the editions of Prisms A, B, C, D, and E (text nos. 11, 3, 6, 4, and 1–2 respectively) formed the backbone of Smith's "history." [48] The texts themselves were edited passage by passage (prologue, first campaign, etc.), with the master text appearing in typeset Neo-Assyrian cuneiform, beneath which appeared the corresponding transliteration and English translation. Occasionally minor variants were cited and some major variants were edited after the master text.[49]
J. Ménant, in 1874, published French translations of the Ashurbanipal inscriptions published by G. Smith, as well as a short brick inscription of Aššur-etel-ilāni.[50]
In 1887 and 1889, S.A. Smith took it upon himself to publish a collection of texts dating to Ashurbanipal's reign. The three-volume Die Keilschrifttexte Asurbanipals, Königs von Assyrien (668–626 c. Chr.) contained a full treatment of Rm 1 — the so-called Rassam Prism (text no. 11 [Prism A] ex. 1), a hand-drawn facsimile of which T.G. Pinches had published several years earlier in The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. 5: A Selection from the Miscellaneous Inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia (= 5 R) — editions (transliterations and German translations) of a few royal inscriptions and numerous (about thirty) Neo-Assyrian letters.[51] Typeset Neo-Assyrian copies of previously unpublished texts accompanied the editions, commentaries, and glossaries. Die Keilschrifttext Asurbanipals represents the first major German publication dealing with this Assyrian king.
In 1890, in a volume of Neo-Assyrian historical texts edited by E. Schrader (KB 2), P. Jensen published editions of a handful of inscriptions of Ashurbanipal. These included the texts known to him, those published in 2 R; 3 R; 5 R; G. Smith, Assurbanipal; and S.A. Smith, Keilschrifttexte 1–2.[52]
H. Winckler, in 1895, published annotated copies of thirty inscribed objects of Ashurbanipal in the third volume of his three-part Sammlung von Keilschrifttexten. The principal contents were a moderately revised version of Rm 1 (text no. 11 [Prism A] ex. 1),[53] which Pinches had published in 1880 (5 R), and more accurate copies of the principal exemplars of Prisms B (text no. 3) and D (text no. 4) than the ones given by G. Smith in 3 R; this marked a departure from the publication of composite texts.
One of the most important scholarly works on Ashurbanipal was published by M. Streck in 1916 in his impressive three-volume Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige bis zum Untergange Niniveh's.[54] This excellent piece of scholarship brought together the then-known material and produced a high-quality study of the lives and reigns of the last kings of the Assyrian empire, as well as annotated editions of the available inscriptions of Ashurbanipal, Aššur-etel-ilāni, and Sîn-šarra-iškun. Volume 1 provided a comprehensive introduction to the extant corpus of inscriptions (with relevant bibliography), contemporary textual sources (letters, archival documents, "religious texts," etc.) that gave insight into the reigns of Ashurbanipal and his successors, and the (political and building) history of Assyria from the death of Esarhaddon to the fall of Nineveh. Chapter 4 (Zur Geschichte Assyriens vom Tode Assarhaddons bis zum Untergange Ninevehs) tackled many complex issues, including the problems of internal chronology, and it was the first critical study of this important period of Assyrian history.[55] Volume 2 contained the editions (transliterations and German translations) of the then-known corpus of inscriptions of Assyria's last kings, which included: five versions of the annals written on prisms (Prisms A–E); twenty-two annalistic texts written on clay tablets; fourteen "display inscriptions" written on cylinders, tablets, and steles; sixteen epigraphs written on sculpted wall slabs; drafts of epigraphs inscribed on nine clay tablets; a literary text (a dialogue between Ashurbanipal and the god Nabû); three brick inscriptions (two from Babylon and one from Nippur); a building inscription from Nippur; twenty-two colophons known from tablets found in Ashurbanipal's libraries; an inscription of Aššur-etel-ilāni; two texts of Sîn-šarra-iškun; and a stele inscription of Ashurbanipal's wife Libbāli-šarrat.[56] Volume 3 included complete glossaries of Akkadian words, logograms, and proper names, as well as supplemental information on texts that had been published in 1914.[57] Streck's magnum opus, despite being extremely outdated, remains to this day one of the most important principal scholarly resources for the study of Ashurbanipal and his successors.
In 1927, D.D. Luckenbill included translations of the then-published Ashurbanipal texts in his Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia (vol. 2), a two-volume set that comprised English translations of the entire corpus of Assyrian royal inscriptions available at that time.[58] ARAB 2 included approximately seventy inscriptions written on prisms (which he calls "cylinders"), tablets, cylinders, paving stones, and steles. Luckenbill's work was based entirely on published material, most of which appeared a decade earlier in Streck, Asb.; the texts were not collated against the originals.
The year 1933 was a watershed for the study of Ashurbanipal. Two important volumes publishing a wealth of new sources appeared. The earliest was T. Bauer's two-volume Das Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals vervollständigt und neu bearbeitet. The book was divided into two parts: the copies (Keilschrifttexte) and editions (Bearbeitung). Part 1 comprised 64 plates of hand-drawn facsimiles of approximately 170 (mostly previously unpublished) clay prisms and tablets housed in the British Museum (London).[59] This greatly expanded the available corpus of texts, especially building and dedicatory inscriptions; the two most significant/largest pieces included were the fragmentarily preserved prisms BM 105315+ (text no. 9 [Prism F] ex. 2) and K 1794+ (text no. 6 [Prism C] ex. 1).[60] Part 2 contained editions (transliterations and German translations) of most of the inscriptions that Bauer had copied, together with relevant bibliography and some commentary. For the texts that were not copied or edited,[61] Bauer often provided corrections and updated readings; these were the results of his firsthand re-examination of the originals in London. The numerous texts were grouped in three general categories: (1) building and dedication inscriptions; (2) unique texts; and (3) epigraphs. Contrary to the book's title (and its foreword), Das Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals did not include the entire then-known corpus of inscriptions of this Assyrian king. Nevertheless, Bauer's work, especially Part 1 (Keilschrifttexte), proved itself to be a vital supplement to Streck, Asb. and it remains to this day the publication with the most copies of the inscribed objects of Ashurbanipal.
Shortly after Bauer, Asb. appeared, A.C. Piepkorn published the first part of his planned two-volume work on the texts of Assyria's last great king. Historical Prism Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal 1: Editions E, B1–5, D, and K (Assyriological Studies 5) made available many of the then-unpublished 243 prism fragments in the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, as well as a few pieces in his own possession.[62] This new material, which included texts in the British Museum (London), in Piepkorn's own words "increased [Prism] E by two and a half times, giving us almost the entire text of [Prism] B, provided valuable additions to [Prisms] D and C, and permitted the reconstruction of [Prism] F down to a few signs." One hundred and forty-seven fragments were used to produce new, critical editions of the earliest four versions of Ashurbanipal's annals: Prisms E (text no. 1), B (text no. 3), D (text no. 4), and "K" (= C; text no. 6).[64] One motive for Piepkorn's interest in the Ashurbanipal material, seems to have been to fix the poor editorial practices of earlier scholarship, which he found "somewhat less than satisfying." He states that the purpose of his work was "(1) to provide all the available Assyrian historical prism inscriptions of Ashurbanipal in their correct, chronological sequence, as far as this sequence can be determined; (2) to assign the various published or otherwise available historical prism fragments to the proper edition in the degree to which our present knowledge makes this possible; [and] (3) to make available for historians the additional information contained in the Ashurbanipal fragments of the Oriental Institute."[65] The high quality of the editions was ensured by first-hand collation of the material, something that had been lacking in previous publications. Piepkorn's access to the unpublished Oriental Institute sources allowed him to make one very significant discovery: he recognized that Prism F, which was then known only from three fragments published by V. Scheil (= text no. 9 exs. 36, 44, and 48), and Bauer's Prism Aa (= text no. 9 ex. 2) were one and the same inscription. A second volume — one editing Prisms C (text no. 6), F1–5 (text no. 9), and A (text no. 11), as well as a few other texts — was planned, but Piepkorn left Assyriology before completing the task and, thus, over half of the Ashurbanipal pieces in the Oriental Institute purchased by E. Chiera in 1928 remained unpublished.[66]
Between 1933 and 1995, no major publications editing the inscriptions of Ashurbanipal appeared. However, the same cannot be said about the publication of new texts and/or fragments discovered at Nineveh (1927–32) and Kalḫu (1950–56 and 1985). Copies of prism fragments from Nineveh were published by Campbell Thompson in "The British Museum Excavations at Nineveh, 1931-32," Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 20 (1933) pp. 71–113 and pls. LXXX–XCVII and "A Selection from the Cuneiform Historical Texts from Nineveh (1927-32)," Iraq 7 (1940) pp. 85–131 and figs. 1–20; and by A.R. Millard in "Fragments of Historical Texts from Nineveh: Ashurbanipal," Iraq 30 (1968) pp. 98–111 and pls. XIX–XXVII. A catalogue of prisms of Ashurbanipal (as well as those of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon) found during Campbell Thompson's excavations was published in 1968 by W.G. Lambert and A.R. Millard in their Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum, 2nd Supplement. The material from Kalḫu was published by D.J. Wiseman in "Two Historical Inscriptions from Nimrud," Iraq 13 (1951) pp. 21–26; E.E. Knudsen in "Fragments of Historical Texts from Nimrud: II," Iraq 29 (1967) pp. 49–69 and pls. XIV–XXIX; and M. Mahmud and J. Black in "Recent Work in the Nabû Temple, Nimrud," Sumer 44 (1985–86) pp. 137 and 151–152. A large prism fragment acquired by the Louvre in 1947 was published by J.-M. Aynard in 1957, in Le prisme du Louvre AO 19.939. In 1988, M. Cogan and H. Tadmor published a catalogue of the Ashurbanipal inscriptions in the Oriental Institute (Chicago) that were to have appeared in the follow-up volume to Piepkorn, Asb.; "Ashurbanipal Texts in the Collection of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago" (JCS 40 [1988] pp. 84–96) contained information on approximately 175 fragments, most of which were exemplars of Prism F (text no. 9).[67] This new material more than doubled what had been available to Streck, Luckenbill, Bauer, and Piepkorn. However, the Oriental Institute pieces remained largely unpublished until 1996 (see below).
The influx of new sources generated some interest in improving our understanding of the Ashurbanipal corpus. R.D. Freedman, in his doctoral dissertation, The Cuneiform Tablets in St. Louis (Columbia University, 1975), produced a new edition of Prism C (text no. 6); that work utilized a few of the then-unpublished pieces that were in the personal collection of Piepkorn.[68] Cogan, sometimes in cooperation with Tadmor, produced in the 1970s and 80s a series of articles devoted to the recensional history and editorial techniques of Ashurbanipal's scribes. The most important of these were: "Ashurbanipal Prism F: Notes on Scribal Techniques and Editorial Procedures," JCS 29 (1977) pp. 97–107; "Gyges and Ashurbanipal: A Study in Literary Transmission," Orientalia NS 46 (1977) pp. 65–85; and "Ashurbanipal's Conquest of Babylon: The First Official Report - Prism K," Orientalia NS 50 (1981) pp. 229–240. In her 1987 dissertation from the University of Pennsylvania (Assurbanipal's Elamite Campaigns: A Literary and Political Study), P. Gerardi produced an excellent overview of this king's annalistic texts.[69] In the early 1990s, H.-U. Onasch and E. Weissert devoted some attention to Ashurbanipal's inscriptions, especially on this king's Egyptian campaigns and his education. These two scholars produced one article on reassessing Prisms E₁ and E₂ (text nos. 1–2) ("The Prologue to Ashurbanipal's Prism E," Orientalia NS 61 [1992] pp. 58–77). In addition, Onasch's published dissertation (Die assyrischen Eroberungen Ägyptens [ÄAT 27], 1994) produced new studies and editions of many texts reporting on Assyria's activities in Egypt during the reigns of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal.[70]
G. Frame, in 1995, published editions of Ashurbanipal's Babylonian Inscriptions in Rulers of Babylonia: From the Second Dynasty of Isin to the End of Assyrian Domination (1157-612 BC) (Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Babylonian Periods 2). This group of texts comprised twenty-three texts from Babylon, Borsippa, Dūr-Kurigalzu, Mê-Turran, Nippur, Sippar, and Uruk, as well as sixteen inscriptions written in the name of a loyal governor of Ur (Sîn-balāssu-iqbi).[71] Following the strict editorial principals of the Toronto-based RIM Project (directed by Grayson), the collated (composite) transliterations were accompanied by readable English translations, short introductions, detailed catalogues of sources and commentaries, and extensive bibliographies. The high quality of the transliterations was ensured by collation of the texts from the originals (or from photographs); this was a marked improvement over earlier publications, some of which relied solely on published (not always accurate) hand-drawn copies.
The most comprehensive study and edition of Ashurbanipal's inscriptions was published by R. Borger in 1996. Beiträge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals: die Prismenklassen A, B, C = K, D, E, F, G, H, J und T sowie andere Inschriften (BIWA) was the fruitful product of research that began in 1988, when Borger started producing a critical edition of the Rassam Prism (text no. 11 [Prism A] ex. 1). It was obvious early on that what the field of Assyriology really needed were new editions of the complete corpus of Ashurbanipal's inscriptions, something that would replace Streck's 1916 opus magnum.[72] The monumental task of compiling and transliterating the vast source material began in 1989. Between 1989 and 1994, Borger transliterated (almost exclusively from the originals) all the inscriptions of Ashurbanipal that he could get access to in the British Museum (London) and the Oriental Institute (Chicago). His countless hours of carefully examining hundreds of clay prisms and tablets produced over 1,100 pages of hand-written notes, collations, and transliterations, as well as over 300 new joins (including many between pieces in Chicago and London).[73] The heart of BIWA — the principal product of Borger's herculean efforts, which contribute significantly to the Ashurbanipal corpus — is its conflated and well-annotated editions of this king's prism inscriptions and related texts.[74] Chapter I was primarily devoted to Prisms A and F; Chapter II to Prisms B and D; Chapter III to Prisms C, Kh, G, and T; Chapter IV to the E Prisms; Chapter V to Prisms H, J, and miscellaneous prism inscriptions; Chapter VI to translations; Chapter VII (which was prepared by A. Fuchs) to the Inscription from the Ištar Temple; and Chapter VIII to epigraphs on clay tablets.[75] Chapter IX contained a catalogue of objects. Following in the footsteps of his much earlier Die Inschriften Asarhaddons, Königs von Assyrien (1956), Borger did not edit each inscription separately, but rather edited parallel passages of different inscriptions together. Moreover, unlike that earlier work, where the variants were listed in footnotes, the BIWA transliterations embedded every minor textual variant within the transliterations.[76] This complicated, yet detailed editing style produced information-packed pages with unfriendly, densely-annotated conflated texts (sometimes comprising material from as many as eight or nine different inscriptions). Despite these editions being difficult to use, even for experienced Assyriologists, Borger's many contributions have greatly furthered our understanding of the most important inscriptions of Ashurbanipal. BIWA's transliterations are without question very accurate and contain very few (minor/typographical) errors. In some ways, Borger achieved the goal that he set for himself in 1989, but in other ways he did not; BIWA produced top quality editions of Ashurbanipal's annals, but failed to produce editions of the complete corpus of texts (something that has still yet to be achieved). Moreover, it has replaced Streck, Asb. as the primary scholarly resource for this corpus of texts.
Since 1996, there have been many publications concerning Ashurbanipal's inscriptions, but few have made improvements to Borger's editions, or, at the very least, forwarded alternate interpretations of the extant source material. For example, J. Novotny, in 2002, reclassified text no. 5 as Prism I, rather than as Prism TVar, since that inscription should be regarded as a unique text, and he, in 2008, untangled some of the problems surrounding the compositional history of text nos. 6 (Prism C), 7 (Prism Kh), and 8 (Prism G), suggesting that the former annalistic text was written in 647 (Ashurbanipal's 22nd regnal year) and that the latter two inscriptions were composed one year later, in 646 (his 23rd year on the throne).[77]
In 2014, Novotny published a short monograph on a few texts of this Assyrian king. Selected Royal Inscriptions of Assurbanipal: L3, L4, LET, Prism I, Prism T, and Related Texts (State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts 10) was intended to be a teaching aid for students interested in temple building and decoration and in reading Assyrian texts other than the ones included in Borger, BAL2. Twenty texts, including text nos. 5 (Prism I) and 10 (Prism T) of this volume, were presented in typeset Neo-Assyrian cuneiform, together with transliterations, English translations, and complete glossaries of Akkadian words and personal names.[78]
47 For a good historical survey of previous work on the Ashurbanipal corpus (1866–1996), see Borger, BIWA pp. xii–xiii, xv–xvi, 1–3, 7–9, 86–87, 122–123, 126–128, 130–133, 173–175, 188, 258–259, and 297–299.
48 The following prisms were used with certainty by G. Smith: K 1678+ (text no. 11 [Prism A] ex. 2), K 1697+ (text no. 11 [Prism A] ex. 3), K 1700+ (text no. 4 [Prism D] ex. 3), K 1775+ (text no. 3 [Prism B] ex. 1), K 1794 (text no. 6 [Prism C] ex. 1), K 1821 (text no. 1 [Prism E₁] ex. 1), and K 1828 (text no. 2 [Prism E₂] ex. 1*).
49 This publication format was used, for example, for G. Smith, Senn.
50 Annales pp. 250–295.
51 The royal inscriptions included in that work are: K 1794 (text no. 6 [Prism C] ex. 1), K 2652 (a dedication inscription to Ištar), K 2674 (a tablet containing a collection of epigraphs), K 2675 (the Large Egyptian Tablets Inscription), K 2867 (the Large Hunting Inscription), Rm 3 (text no. 6 [Prism C] ex. 2a), the Nabû Inscription, and the Mullissu Inscription. Col i of K 1794, which contains part of the prologue, was mistakenly regarded as the building report of col. x in part 2 of that book (pp. 18–25). Part 2 (pp. 89–99) also contained comments on Rm 1 by C. Bezold, C.F. Lehmann-Haupt, T.G. Pinches, and J.N. Strassmaier.
52 In that same volume, H. Winckler prepared an edition of a brick inscription of Aššur-etel-ilāni and a fragment of a cylinder inscription of Sîn-šarra-iškun.
53 Regarding H. Winckler's copy of Rm 1, see the comments of R. Borger in BIWA (p. 1).
54 The final process of preparing the book took several years, with the typesetting starting in the fall of 1908. Most of the first two volumes were completed by the fall of 1912 and the bulk of the third book was finished by the end of 1913. The final pieces were set in place in 1914 and 1915. For details, see Streck, Asb. pp. VII–VIII (with n. 1).
55 Streck, Asb. pp. CCXXX–CDLXXII.
56 The texts were edited primarily from published copies and photographs, rather than from the originals (in London and Berlin); see Streck, Asb. pp. V–VI. Moreover, many of the inscriptions in that volume were edited from a single source; for example, his no. 3.a.β (BE 8072) of section I.IV, a text now known today to have been written on twenty-seven bricks (Frame, RIMB 2 pp. 208–209 B.6.32.7). On one occasion, M. Streck edited an inscription in the wrong place: K 1703 (text no. 6 [Prism C] ex. 3b) was regarded as a tablet, rather than as a prism. For editions of the dialogue between Ashurbanipal and Nabû and the colophons, see respectively Livingstone, SAA 3 pp. 33–35 no. 13 and Hunger, Kolophone.
57 The most important new Ashurbanipal texts for M. Streck were the three prism fragments published by V. Scheil (Prisme pp. 43–44 and pls. 6–7) since these pieces belonged to a new edition of this king's annals (which he designated as Prism F); these are text no. 9 (Prism F) exs. 36, 44, and 48. L.W. King's supplement to C. Bezold's four-volume Kouyunjik catalogue (King, Cat.) also contained a few new pieces.
58 Luckenbill, ARAB 2 pp. 290–407 §§762–1129. In addition, he also translated the few known inscriptions of Aššur-etel-ilāni and Sîn-šarra-iškun; see pp. 408–416 §§1130–1165 of that book.
5 On the quality of T. Bauer's copies, see the remarks of R. Borger in BIWA (p. xvi): "Es muss allerdings hervorgehoben werden, dass seine Kopien — trotz der schönen Handschrift — nicht immer voll zuverlässig sind. Die von ihm gebotenen Zeichenformen sind u.U. zu stark normalisiert nach bestimmten Drucktypen."
60 Bauer, Asb. pls. 1–13. BM 105315+ (and duplicates) were designated as Prism Aa and this edition was regarded as a separate text from M. Streck's Prism F; the equation of Aa with F was first made by A.C. Piepkorn (see below). Until T. Bauer's 1933 copy, only a small portion of K 1794+ had been published; see 3 R pls. 27 and 34; G. Smith, Assurbanipal; and S.A. Smith in Keilschrifttexte 2. Earlier publications wrongly regarded the prologue, which reports of Ashurbanipal's building activities, as the main building report. This understanding was corrected when R. Campbell Thompson published an edition and copy of BM 121006+ (text no. 10 [Prism T] ex. 1) in 1931; see Thompson, Esar. pp. 29–36 and pls. 14–18.
61 For example, T. Bauer did not re-edit Prisms A, B, F (which he regarded as a different inscription than his Aa), G (K 1703), H, and Bauer's Prism G = A.C. Piepkorn's Prism K and R. Borger's Prism C. For details on Prism K = C, see the commentary of text no. 6 (Prism C) and Borger, BIWA p. 126.
6 Deposit 809 comprises A 7919–8162. The pieces were purchased by E. Chiera from a local dealer at Mosul and they were accessioned on December 10th, 1928. A.C. Piepkorn personally acquired fifteen additional pieces in Mosul in April, 1933. These remained in his possession until his death, at which time they were bequeathed to the Oriental Institute (Chicago); these are now A 11858–A 11870. A 11848–A 11858 were also purchased by Chiera. This material is generally thought to be the result of clandestine digging at Nineveh during R. Campbell Thompson's excavations; many are believed to have come from Area SH.
63 Piepkorn, Asb. p. 3.
64 A.C. Piepkorn's Prism K was represented by a single fragment (K 1703). This corresponded to T. Bauer's Prism G. The designation K was used to avoid confusion with the designations provided for the inscriptions of Ashurbanipal by A.T.E. Olmstead in his Historiography; see Piepkorn, Asb. p. 101 n. 1.
65 Piepkorn, Asb. pp. 3–4. Like D.D. Luckenbill, A.C. Piepkorn was highly influenced by A.T.E. Olmstead's Historiography and took to heart his complaints about the growing tendency to use only "the final Assyrian edition."
66 Editions of A 8011–A 8163 were to have appeared in that volume. As M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (JCS 40 [1988] p. 85 n. 3) have stated, A.C. Piepkorn seems to have prepared a complete manuscript of the Ashurbanipal prisms. In 1957, when Tadmor visited Piepkorn, the manuscript that he had prepared in the 1930s could no longer be located.
67 The catalogue was the result of H. Tadmor's first-hand examination of the material in 1956–57 and 1971 and M. Cogan's work on the texts in 1978 and 1980.
68 See n. 62.
69 Gerardi, Assurbanipal's Elamite Campaigns pp. 49–77.
70 Two important contributions of E. Weissert on the life and inscriptions of Ashurbanipal are "Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph in a Prism Fragment of Ashurbanipal (82-5-22,2)," which was published in Parpola and Whiting, Assyria 1995 (pp. 339–358), and his treatment of this king's rise to power in PNA 1/1 (pp. 160–163 sub Aššūr-bāni-apli I).
71 Frame, RIMB 2 pp. 194–247 B.6.32.1–2016. The inscriptions of Šamaš-šuma-ukīn and Aššur-etel-ilāni were also published in that volume; see pp. 248–259 B.6.33.1–2001 and pp. 261–268 B.6.35.1–5.
72 For details, see Borger, BIWA pp. vii–xviii.
73 These were published on thirteen microfiche, as 8o-Heft, 4o-Heft, and LoBl.
74 The contents of R. Borger's BIWA volume — minus, of course, the inscriptions on tablets — are found in RINAP 5/1.
75 Chapter I also contained transliterations of Prisms B, D, I, C, Kh, G, and T; and Chapter II also contained transliterations of Prisms I, C, Kh, G, and T. In addition, numerous annalistic texts written on clay tablets were included in BIWA Chapters I–IV; for example, the Letter to Aššur (K 2802+) is edited on pp. 76–82, the Nergal-Laṣ Inscription (K 2631+) on pp. 82–85, K 2652 (and duplicates) on pp. 101–103, and K 2656+ (and duplicates) on pp. 155–158.
76 For details, see Borger, BIWA pp. xiii–xiv and 2. For example: A II 107 F II 18 B III 1 C IV 11) ina tukul || tu-kul-ti an-šár u || Ø dingirXV(auch C = CND4) || dingiramar-utu(B = B1, B9, B/D17, B/D20, D10) dingir-meš || Ø(F, B ; C = CND4 hiat) Ø || gal-meš(A26) en-meš-ia || iá (C = CND4 hiat) ta* || ul-tu || iš-[tú](A14) || Ø(F, B, C) šà || šà-bi || Ø(F, B, C) lúen || Ø(F, B, C) uru-meš || Ø(F, B, C).
77 Respectively Studies Walker p. 192 n. 6 and SAOC 62 pp. 127–135. R. Borger (BIWA pp. 131 and 257), for example, thought that text nos. 6 (Prism C), 7 (Prism Kh), and 8 (Prism G) were all written in the same year: 647. Further details about the dating of these inscriptions is provided in the Dating and Chronology section.
78 Most of the editions included in that volume were prepared by J. Novotny. The edition of the Large Egyptian Tablets Inscription (SAACT 10 no. 20), however, was prepared by S. Parpola and reviewed by Novotny only in the final proofs.
Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers
Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers, 'Overview of Previous Editions', RINAP 5: The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal, Aššur-etel-ilāni, and Sîn-šarra-iškun, The RINAP/RINAP 5 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2019 [http://oracc.org/rinap/rinap5/rinap51introduction/overviewofpreviouseditions/]