Thirty-five epigraphs of Ashurbanipal engraved on sculpted wall slabs that once lined the walls of the North Palace and South-West Palace at Nineveh are preserved. Eight (nos. 25–28 and 33–36) come from Room XXXIII of Sennacherib's "Palace Without a Rival." Twenty-five of the remaining twenty-seven epigraphs were presumably discovered in five rooms of Ashurbanipal's own palace (North Palace): two in Room F (text nos. 40 and 48), three in Room I (text nos. 29–30 and 37), two (or three) in Room M (text nos. 24, 38, and possibly 49), nine (or ten) in the upper story of Room S (= S¹; text nos. 41, 44, 46, 50, 54–58, and possibly 49), two in the top floor of Room V/T (= V¹/T¹; text nos. 43 and 47), and six whose location is uncertain (text nos. 39, 42, 45, 51–53). The two remaining epigraphs (text nos. 31–32) could come from either Room XXXIII of the South-West Palace or Room I of the North Palace.
The extant epigraphs record information about the following military achievements: (1) the war against Aḫšēri of Mannea (text no. 24); (2) the defeat of the Elamite king Teumman at Tīl-Tūba (text nos. 25–32) and the installation of Ummanigaš (Ḫumban-nikaš II) on the throne of Elam (text nos. 33–34); (3) the flaying of two high profile Gambulian rebels (text no. 36); (4) the capture of Babylon after the death of Ashurbanipal's brother Šamaš-šuma-ukīn (text no. 38); (4) the defeat of Ummanigaš (probably text no. 39); (5) the capture and looting of Elamite cities during Ashurbanipal's wars with the Elamite king Ummanaldašu (Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III) in 647 and 646 (text nos. 40–48); (6) the capture of Ummanaldašu (text no. 49); and (7) the looting of the city Bīt-Luppi (text no. 51). In addition, one epigraph (text no. 35) records that Ashurbanipal made Elamite envoys stand before messengers of the Urarṭian king Rusâ and hold writing boards with insulting messages, while another epigraph (text no. 50) records that the Assyrian king made several captured Elamite kings (Ummanaldašu [Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III], Tammaritu, and Paʾe) serve him a meal at a banquet.
A label (text no. 37) on a relief identifies the depicted city as the city Arbela, one of the goddess Ištar's principal cult centers. Presumably that city's depiction was part of a scene showing a triumphal procession of Ashurbanipal, during which defeated Gambulian leaders (including Dunānu and his brother Samgunu) were paraded through the streets of Arbela with the decapitated heads of the Elamite king Teumman and his entourage hung around their necks.
Lastly, five epigraphs (text nos. 54–58) record two successful lion hunts, one that took place out in the open steppe (text no. 54) and one that was staged on the outskirts of Nineveh (text nos. 55–58); during the latter, Ashurbanipal appears to have symbolically killed eighteen lions, one for each city gate of Nineveh.
A partially preserved two-line epigraph is engraved on a sculpted slab that once decorated a wall of the Throne Room of the North Palace (Room M). The inscription, which is known only from E. Norris' published copy (1 R pl. 8 no. 1), records the conquest and plundering of Birat-Adad-rēmanni, an important fort situated on the Assyrian-Mannean border; the event took place during Ashurbanipal's war against Aḫšēri of Mannea (between 663 and 649).
Access the composite text [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap5/Q003723/] of Ashurbanipal 24.
According to the note accompanying the copy of the inscription in 1 R (pl. 8 no. 1), the epigraph was written on a slab adjoining the one bearing text no. 38, BM 124946 (Room M, slab 13), which depicts Ashurbanipal reviewing booty and prisoners after his troops had captured Babylon (648). The stated location is highly implausible since it is doubtful that the sole, small corner slab 14 would have been devoted to depicting a scene from Ashurbanipal's Mannean campaign or that slabs 10–11 would have contained a relief depicting an event other than the aftermath of the capture of Babylon. Furthermore, only the base of slab 14 is said to have remained and slabs 10–11 were ruined (according to W. Boutcher's second plan; these slabs are marked as more or less intact in his original plan). This leaves the poorly preserved slabs 2–7 as potential locations for this now-lost epigraph; slabs 8–9 were unsculpted. A piece from that series of slabs (AO 19912 and AO 19921; Or. Dr. 7 no. 32) shows Assyrian cavalry men and archers in difficult mountain terrain, near a river, presumably assaulting a city (on the now-lost slab 6). Since Birat-Adad-rēmanni was located in mountainous terrain, in the border region between Assyria and Mannea, this epigraph may have accompanied the image of the besieged city that was depicted on slabs 6–7 of Room M. As K. Radner (personal communication) has pointed out, the depiction of the rugged terrain seems to match that of the region around modern Penjwin near the Iranian border. R.D. Barnett (Sculptures from the North Palace p. 46), however, suggests that the besieged city may have been the Elamite city Murūbisi, which is mentioned in an epigraph inscribed on BM 124793 (text no. 49), a slab discovered by H. Rassam in 1886; although that fragment is generally assigned to this room, there is no documented proof of BM 124793 being found in Ashurbanipal's throne room. Barnett's proposed identification stems from (1) the fact that the Elamite king Ummanaldašu (Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III) is being escorted to a chariot in mountainous terrain on BM 124793 and (2) the assumption that the unidentified Elamite king on BM 124945–6 (Room M, slabs 12–13) is that same captive Elamite king. With regard to the latter point, it is now generally assumed that the Elamite depicted on BM 124945–6 is Tammarītu; see, for example, Novotny and Watanabe, Iraq 70 (2008) p. 119.
R. Borger (BIWA pp. 298 and 385), presumably accepting the findspot notation in 1 R as accurate, suggests that the piece on which this epigraph was inscribed sank to the bottom of the Tigris River in May 1855. According to Boutcher, slabs 2–3, 7, 10–11, 15–16, and 18–20 of Room M were to have been sent to the Louvre, and, therefore, Borger, without explicitly stating it, seems to suggest that the epigraph in question would have appeared on slabs 10–11, which is unlikely because those two slabs would not have depicted a scene of a siege in rugged mountain terrain, as already noted by Barnett (Sculptures from the North Palace p. 46). Moreover, the piece bearing the Birat-Adad-rēmanni epigraph need not be at the bottom of the Tigris. The evidence is two-fold: (1) Slab 7, or at least part of it (compare AO 19912 and AO 19921 to Or. Dr. 7 no. 32), made it to Paris; and (2) slabs 4–6 were very poorly preserved and not sent to the Louvre (according to Boutcher). Given the meager available evidence, it seems plausible that this damaged two-line epigraph was inscribed on a fragment from slab 6 (or slab 5) of Room M. How the piece became associated with slabs 12–13 (BM 124945–6) of Ashurbanipal's throne room, however, remains unclear. If the piece had been sent back to London with the Babylon booty scene — which could explain the notation in 1 R — one would expect the inscribed fragment to have already been discovered in the British Museum's collections.
As for Birat-Adad-rēmanni, this settlement may have been one of the towns and forts that Ashurbanipal claims to have conquered and destroyed in his campaign to Mannea. According to several annalistic texts, a number of cities near Paddiri that had once belonged to Assyria and been annexed by Mannea returned to Assyria after the defeat of Aḫšēri. See, for example, text no. 3 (Prism B) iii 52b–61. Since the names and number of settlements captured and destroyed in that region are not recorded in Ashurbanipal's prism inscriptions, it is possible that Birat-Adad-rēmanni may have been one of them.
Contrary to the copy in 1 R (pl. 8 no. 1) and Borger's transliteration (BIWA p. 298), there may be more damage at the end of both lines than suggested. See the on-page note to lines 1 and 2 for details.
One of the eight preserved epigraphs on the well-known Tīl-Tūba relief from Room XXXIII of Sennacherib's "Palace Without a Rival" (South-West Palace, slab 3, lower register), which Ashurbanipal had redecorated, reports that the Elamite king Teumman, before being beheaded by a common Assyrian soldier, ordered his son (Tammarītu) to shoot his bow (at the Assyrians). The Assyrian victory near the Ulāyu River took place in 653, during Ashurbanipal's second Elamite campaign.
Access the composite text [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap5/Q003724/] of Ashurbanipal 25.
This epigraph is also known (with minor orthographic variants) from two clay tablets containing the so-called Teumman and Dunānu cycle of epigraphs (Borger, BIWA p. 300 no. 7a): (1) K 4527 obv. 3´ and K 12000A obv. 5´; and (2) 81-7-27,246 obv. 3´. These tablets are edited in Part 2.
A second epigraph from the battle of Tīl-Tūba relief sequence (South-West Palace, Room XXXIII, slab 3, lower register) records that an injured Teumman fled with his son (Tammarītu) from the battlefield, but was caught and beheaded. The six-line text is engraved above a man having his head cut off by an Assyrian soldier.
Access the composite text [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap5/Q003725/] of Ashurbanipal 26.
This Tīl-Tūba-related epigraph is also preserved on two of the clay tablets inscribed with epigraphs concerning Ashurbanipal's wars against the Elamite king Teumman and the Gambulian ruler Dunānu (Borger, BIWA pp. 300–301 no. 9): (1) K 4527 obv. 6´–9´; and (2) 81-7-27,246 obv. 5´–6´. The tablet versions contain minor orthographic variants and omit line 6 (see Part 2).
A four-line epigraph engraved on the lower register of a wall slab in Room XXXIII of Sennacherib's Palace at Nineveh (slab 1) identifies the severed head held by a soldier riding in a chariot as that of the Elamite king Teumman. The text, which appears above a left-facing Assyrian chariot, states that the defeated Elamite ruler was beheaded by a common Assyrian soldier during the battle at Tīl-Tūba; at least one later Elamite king (Tammarītu) would complain bitterly about that deed to Ashurbanipal.
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Another epigraph included on the reliefs showing the defeat of the Elamite Teumman and his troops at Tīl-Tūba (South-West Palace, Room XXXIII, slab 2, lower register) records the death of Urtaku, an in-law of the Elamite king. This five-line text states that the dying Urtaku, who had been critically wounded by an arrow, begged an Assyrian soldier to cut off his head.
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This text is also known from a large clay tablet that is inscribed with numerous epigraphs recording the details of Ashurbanipal's second Elamite campaign (against Teumman) and his war against Gambulu (Borger, BIWA p. 302 no. 15): K 2674 + Sm 2010 + 81-2-4,186 ii 4–7 (see Part 2). In addition to minor orthographic variants, the epigraph on K 2674+ leaves the name and title of the wounded Elamite noble blank.
A four-line epigraph engraved over a man hiding in a forest during a battle records that a eunuch of the Elamite king Teumman by the name of Itunî destroyed his own bow. The sculpted wall slab comes from Room I of Ashurbanipal's own palace (North Palace, Room I, slab 1). Both the relief and text refer to an event that took place in 653, during Ashurbanipal's second Elamite campaign.
Access the composite text [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap5/Q003728/] of Ashurbanipal 29.
This Elamite campaign-related epigraph is also partially preserved on two clay tablets (Borger, BIWA p. 302 no. 16): (1) K 2674 + Sm 2010 + 81-2-4,186 ii 8–10; and (2) K 13741 obv. 1´–2´ (see Part 2). In addition to minor orthographic variants, the epigraph on K 2674+ does not include the name of the Elamite king (Teumman).
Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers
Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers, 'Epigraphs, Part 1 (text nos. 24-29)', 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/rinap51textintroductions/epigraphspart1texts2429/]