No. 1 is a treaty between Šamši-Adad V, king of Assyria (823-811), and Marduk-zakir-šumi I, king of Babylon (c. 850-820, exact regnal years unknown). In addition, an otherwise unknown individual named Marduk-rimanni seems to figure as a third contracting party. Judging from the context where he appears, he may have been a Babylonian, but this is uncertain. He may be identical with the governor mentioned in obv. 3', in which case he would be an Assyrian.[[9]]
The extant clauses of the treaty are almost entirely military. Of the principal contracting parties, Marduk-zakir-šumi is called king, while Šamši-Adad is not. This indicates that the treaty was concluded before Šamši-Adad's accession and can accordingly only date from the stormy last years (827-824) of Shalmaneser III, the time of the great rebellion of Aššur-da"in-aplu. The present treaty was thus probably occasioned by an internal power struggle in Assyria, described in Šamši-Adad's inscriptions as follows (1 R 29 i 39ff):
"When Aššur-da"in-aplu, in the time of Shalmaneser, his father, acted wickedly, bringing about sedition, rebellion and evil plotting, caused the land to rise in revolt, prepared for war, brought the people of Assyria, north and south, to his side, strengthened (his position by) oath, made all the cities obey him and set his mind to begin strife and battle - the cities of Nineveh, Adia, Šibaniba, Imgur-Illil, Iššabri, Bet-šašširi, Šimu, Šibhiniš, Tamnuna, Kipšuna, Kurbail, Tidu, Nabulu, Kahat, Assur, Urakka, Sallat, Huzirina, Dur-balaṭi, Dariga, Zabban, Lubdu, Arrapha, Arbail, Amidi, Til-abnâ, and Hindanu, a total of 27 cities, along with their fortresses, which had revolted against Shalmaneser, my father, and gone to the side of Aššur-da"in-aplu, at the command of the great gods, my lords, I brought into submission at my feet."
Šamši-Adad's father, Shalmaneser III, had years earlier concluded a bilateral friendship and peace treaty with the father of Marduk-zakir-šumi I, the other treaty party, and actually gone to the aid of the latter at the time of a revolt (Grayson Chronicles p. 167, and cf. above p. XVIII). By providing military assistance to Shalmaneser's (legitimate) heir, to which he was evidently obligated by oath, Marduk-zakir-šumi was thus simply returning a favour rendered to him earlier. There is no reason to take the treaty to indicate Babylonian supremacy over Assyria, as has been hitherto done. On the contrary, the treaty terms (cf. especially obv. 8-13) imply perfect equality between the contracting parties.
It is possible that the present treaty is referred to in a fragmentary entry in the Synchronistic History (col. iii 1'-5'):
"They [Šamši-Adad and Marduk-zakir-šumi] established [perfect friendship and peace (ṭūbta sulummâ gamra) with each other; the peoples of Assyria and Babylonia] were joined [together. ......] They fixed [a boundary line by mutual consent]."
If so, the text can be defined as a 'mutual friendship and peace treaty' comparable with the other similar treaties in the Synchronistic History. For the restorations, which are certain, see Grayson Chronicles pp. 167f and 286; the break preceding the passage is at least 10 lines wide and actually requires a reference to the Aššur-da"in-aplu rebellion (compare, e.g., col. ii 29'-37' of the same text).
No. 2 is a treaty between Aššur-nerari V, king of Assyria (754-745), and Mati'-il, king of Arpad, an Aramaic city-state north of Aleppo. It was probably concluded in Aššur-nerari's very first year and it seems to have been duly observed by Mati'-il, since, while Arpad was the target of an Assyrian campaign in 754, the city does not figure in Assyrian sources later in Aššur-nerari's reign.
The situation changed in the reign of Tiglat-Pileser III, who succeeded Aššur-nerari after a coup d'état. Possibly feeling no longer bound by the treaty, Mati'-il soon joined an anti-Assyrian revolt in coalition with other Syrian city-states and Urarṭu - an alliance expressly forbidden in the present treaty (cf. the fragmentary lines in col. iii 5'-10'). The revolt was a failure; Urarṭu was defeated in 743, while Arpad fell after a three-year siege and was reduced to a province in 740.
No account of the circumstances which led to the conclusion of the present treaty is extant, but it is very unlikely that Mati'-il was actually defeated in the 754 campaign. After all, it took Tiglath-Pileser III three years to take Arpad by siege. By analogy to other comparable cases, it can be assumed that the treaty was the result of a political surrender in the face of the advancing Assyrian troops; that is, it too represents a 'favour' of the Assyrian king, 'granted' at the request of Mati'-il himself.
The text has remarkable affinities with three Aramaic treaties found at Sefire near Aleppo (KAI 222-224), all of them likewise concluded between Mati'-il of Arpad and a mysterious Bar-ga'yah of KTK, who figures in the texts as Mati'-il's overlord. Since, despite extensive debate, the identity of Bar-ga'yah and KTK has not yet been established, it is necessary to point out that all the essential features in these treaties (the treaty gods, the structure and formulation of the texts, and the actual treaty terms) imply that the other contracting party was the king of Assyria.
Since there is no evidence that Mati'-il was forced to conclude a treaty with any Assyrian king other than Aššur-nerari - no Assyrian campaigns to Arpad are recorded between 805 and 754 - the conclusion seems inevitable that Bar-ga'yah ("son of majesty") in fact is a pseudonym for this king. We accordingly hold that KTK too stands for Assyria,[[10]] and that the Sefire treaties are the Aramaic counterpart - though not an exact translation - of our Text 2. It does not require much imagination to find a reason for the use of a pseudonym (or euphemism) for a hated overlord in a text like this. It may well have been 'part of the deal', the only feasible way by which Mati'-il could accept the treaty without being ousted from his throne by the anti-Assyrian elements of his population. One only needs to recall what happened within the walls of Jerusalem at the time Sennacherib's troops were besieging the city (2 Kings 18: 13ff) to understand the delicacy of the situation.
A detailed comparison of these two treaties falls outside the scope of the present edition, but it may be pointed out that all of the few extant treaty clauses in Text 2 find a parallel in the Sefire treaties (cf. iii 9-10 = KAI 224: 2-3 and 19-20; iii 21-22 = KAI 224: 4-6; iii 23-27 = KAI 222 B 23-25; iv 1-3 = KAI 222 B 28-33; v 1-4 = KAI 224: 11-13), and all the clauses extant only in Sefire would comfortably fit in the breaks of our text. Note also the affinities between the ceremonial acts and curses in both treaties (e.g., no. 2 i 10ff // KAI 222 A 36-40; 2 i 4 // KAI 222 A 32; 2 v 14 // KAI 222 A 29), not to speak of individual details of formulation and the general structure of the texts. Parallels with other texts of the present volume are easy to find, as in KAI 222 C compared with no. 6: 283ff, 385ff and 494ff.
No. 3 is a fragment of an intriguing treaty of Sennacherib, king of Assyria (704-681). It seems to concern the royal succession, the extant clauses closely paralleling those found in nos. 6 and 8. The peculiar list of gods appearing in the curse sections makes it likely that the text dates from either 683 or 682 B.C.[[11]]
Even though the name of the heir apparent is broken away, there is thus every reason to believe that the treaty concerned the controversial promotion of Esarhaddon, which was soon to plunge Assyria into a bloody civil war. The background of this treaty is described as follows in Esarhaddon's inscriptions:
"Although I was younger than my big brothers, my father and begetter, by command of the gods, justly preferred me to my other brothers, saying: 'This is my heir.' Respecting the weighty decree of Šamaš and Adad, he assembled the people of Assyria, great and small, my brothers and the seed of my father's house, and before Aššur, Sin, Šamaš, Nabû and Marduk, the gods of Assyria and the gods inhabiting heaven and earth, made them pronounce their weighty names in order to protect my succession." (Borger Esarh. p. 40, Nin. A i 8-19; cf. ibid. i 50f and 80f.)
No. 4 is a fragment of a treaty of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (681-669), likewise belonging to the category of loyalty oaths. Since the extant treaty clauses exclusively consist of assurances of loyalty to Esarhaddon, who is not referred to as king but 'my lord' only, it seems likely that the treaty was imposed shortly before Esarhaddon's accession in late Adar (March), 681 B.C. No references to it are found in contemporary sources.
No. 5 is a treaty between Esarhaddon and Baal, king of Tyre, probably concluded after the conquest and destruction of Sidon in 676 B.C. The inscriptions of Esarhaddon imply that a treaty with Baal was concluded on that occasion:
"From these cities of his (i.e. Abdi-Milkutti, king of Sidon) I entrusted Ma'rubbu and Ṣariptu in the hands of Baal, king of Tyre, and imposed upon him, in addition to the previous yearly tax, a tribute to my lordship." (Borger Esarh. p. 49.)
This statement is broadly in agreement with the spirit of the present treaty, which can be regarded as relatively favourable to Baal, giving him free access to all ports of trade on the Mediterranean coast and limiting Assyrian control of Tyre to the presence of a royal agent and collection of toll, "as in the past" The references to the "destroyed cities" and "the Sidonites" in col. iii 4' and 30' further support the dating of the text to 676 B.C.
Sidon's ruthless destruction and reduction into an Assyrian province were doubtless intended as warning signals to all Phoenician cities harbouring dreams of total independence from Assyria. Accordingly, it seems certain that the present treaty, with its relatively lenient terms, must have been preceded by gestures of submission from Baal.
Five years later, having refused cooperation with the Assyrian troops invading Egypt, Baal had to suffer a totally different kind of treatment from Esarhaddon. The Assyrian monarch tersely notes:
"I conquered Tyre, which lies in the middle of the sea, and took away from its king Baal, who relied on Taharka, king of Egypt, all his cities and possessions." (Borger Esarh. p. 86.)[[12]]
No. 6 is the composite text of a treaty of Esarhaddon concerning the succession of his son Assurbanipal, concluded in Iyyar, 672 B.C. The purpose and date of the treaty are clearly stated in the text itself and confirmed by other contemporary sources, e.g., the later inscriptions of Assurbanipal (Streck Asb p. 2f):
"Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, my father and begetter, heeded the command of Aššur and Mullissu, the gods in whom he trusted, who told him that I was to exercise the kingship. On the 12th of Iyyar, at the noble command of Aššur, Mullissu, Sin, Šamaš, Adad, Bel, Nabû, Ištar of Nineveh, Ištar of Arbela, Ninurta, Nergal and Nusku, he convened the people of Assyria, great and small, from coast to coast, made them swear a treaty oath by the gods (adê nīš ilāni) and established a binding agreement to protect my crown-princeship and future kingship over Assyria."
The composite text of the treaty has been reconstructed from hundreds of fragments reduceable to eight separate manuscripts, all found in the Nabû temple of the city of Calah. The manuscripts contain orthographic and linguistic variants, as well as occasional errors and omissions, but are otherwise for all practical purposes identical. The only significant differences lie in the treaty preamble, where each manuscript has a different 'city-ruler' as the other contracting party:
| Manuscript H: | Humbares of Nahsimarti |
| G: | Bur-Dadi of Karzitali |
| T: | Hatarna of Sikris |
| a: | Larkutla of Mazamua |
| A: | Ramataja of Urakazabanu |
| F: | Tuni of Ellipi |
| d: | NN of Izaja |
| I: | (destroyed) |
Primarily for this reason, the texts were dubbed 'the Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon' in Wiseman's editio princeps. This designation has recently been critisized by Watanabe, who regards it as misleading insofar as the texts were evidently imposed in identical form on the whole population of Assyria, not just on vassals. "It is only due to an accident that the VTE tablets drawn up for the Median chieftains have come down to us."[[13]]
This may be so, but there is another side to the matter that should not be overlooked. The texts are, as a matter of fact, formulated as bilateral agreements between rulers, and in addition they share many features with the Mati'-il and Sefire treaties (see under no. 2), which incontestably represent the classic type of a vassal treaty. Thus, while primarily drawn up for a different purpose, they could also secondarily be put to use as treaties concluded with vassals. In this context, note particularly lines 393f of the treaty, where the other party is pledged to accept the supremacy of Assyria and its chief god. This is a stipulation suiting a treaty with a newly acquired vassal, not a loyalty oath imposed on the whole empire, and its significance increases when it is considered together with the background of the 'city-rulers' with whom the treaties were concluded.
All of them ruled areas in the eastern periphery of Assyria. Excepting Mazamua (modern Sulaimaniya), these places were all situated in Media (today's Iran), and none of them appear to have been firmly under Assyrian control. In fact, at the time the treaties were drawn up, most of them must have been only recently reduced into vassal status. Ellipi, a vassal state under Sargon II and Sennacherib, was certainly independent at the accession of Esarhaddon. Ramataj a of Urakazabanu joined the ranks of vassals in 675 B.C. - three years before the present treaty - as a result of a military operation described as follows in Esarhaddon's inscriptions:
"Fear of the nimbus of Aššur my lord overcame Uppis , city-ruler of Partakka, Zanasana, city- ruler of Partukka, and Ramateia, city-ruler of Urakazabarna, distant Medes who under my royal forefathers had not crossed the border of Assyria nor trodden her ground, and they brought big stallions and blocks of genuine lapis lazuli to Nineveh, my capital, and kissed my feet. They implored my lordship on account of city-rulers who had attacked them and asked for my help (kitru). I sent with them eunuchs of mine, governors of the districts next to their countries; they defeated the people living in those cities and made them bow at their feet. I imposed upon them tax and tribute to my lordship.
"(From) Patušarri, a region on the border of the Salt Desert in the land of the distant Medes, near Mt. Bikni (= Mt. Demavend near Teheran), the lapis-lazuli mountain, the ground of whose l and none of my royal ancestors had trodden, I took as spoils of war to Assyria Šidirparna and Eparna, two mighty city-rulers who had not submitted to yoke, along with their people, riding horses , oxen, sheep, camels, and a heavy tribute." (Borger Esarh. p. 54 iv 32ff.)
A fragmentary oracle query from the time before the Salt Desert venture suggests that Bur-Dadi of Karzitali became a vassal at this juncture:
"Should Esarhaddon , king of Assyria, send troops to the city of Andarpati[anu ......] to collect a tribute of horses [......]? Should they advance as far as the Salt Desert [......] and from there [......] to the city of Karzi[tali? ......] the house of Tatt[î [......] Karzita[li ......] Eparna ... ... Will they return [aliv]e and safely?" (AGS 33+)
The reference to tax and tribute imposed on Ramataja shows that he had to pay yearly for the aid (kitru) he had received. It can accordingly be no coincidence that at least . two further rulers figuring in the present treatise (Humbareš of Nahšimarti and Tunî of Ellipi) also received military aid from Esarhaddon. See AGS 52 and CT 53 638, both texts explicitly using the same word for the help given (kitru) as in the case of Ramataja. Neither of these texts can be exactly dated, but 673 should not be far off the mark.
An oracle query from about the same time (PRT 22) concerns a tribute-collecting expedition to Sikris, whose ruler Hatarna appears as a treaty party in manuscript T. The vassal status of Sikris is clear from the text but there is no evidence when it had been established. Under Sargon II, the city had been part of the province of Harhar. The city and ruler of Izaia (manuscript d) are not otherwise known.
In sum, it can be stated that at least four, and possibly as many as seven, of the eight 'city-rulers' figuring in these treaties had become Assyrian vassals within a period of three years before the treaties were concluded. This being so, it seems quite possible that these texts really were meant to function as 'vassal treaties', instruments relegating the oath-taking rulers to a status of permanent vassalage. This interpretation is not in conflict with the texts' obvious character as loyalty oaths; the two concepts are not mutually exclusive.
No. 7 is a fragment of a treaty of Esarhaddon, possibly imposed upon the king's subjects after an abortive coup d'état attempted in early 670 B.C.[[14]] The tiny size of the fragment naturally makes this interpretation very tentative.
No. 8 is a pact of loyalty to Assurbanipal (king of Assyria, 669-627 B.C.) imposed on the Assyrian royal family, aristocracy and nation at large by the queen dowager Zakutu after Esarhaddon's death in November 669 B.C. This treaty maintained the internal stability of the empire for 17 years but was ultimately to be broken by Assurbanipal's brother Šamaš-šumu-ukin the most prominent 'contracting party' in the document. Assurbanipal's inscriptions dealing with the outbreak of Šamaš-šumu-ukin's rebellion refer to it as follows:
"That faithless brother of mine, Šamaš-šumu-ukin, who did not guard my treaty (adê), made the people of Babylonia, Chaldea, Aram and the Sealand, my servants and subjects, defect from me..." (Streck Asb, p. 30: 96ff.)
No. 9 is a treaty of Assurbanipal dating from the time of the Šamaš-šumu-ukin rebellion (652-648 B.C.), and phrased in the form of a vow made in the first person plural. The identity of the group(s) of people involved remains uncertain, but judging from obv. 26ff, it seems certain that they had literally taken part in the rebellion and later changed sides. This strongly points to Sealanders, the Chaldean tribes inhabiting the shore of the Persian Gulf, who under the leadership of Nabû-bel-šumati had sided with Šamaš-šumu-ukin but by 650, when the tide turned, had started going over to the Assyrian side. Compare ABL 289, a letter of Assurbanipal assuring that the king was favorably disposed to the Sealanders and did not associate them with the crimes of Nabû-bel-šumati, as well as the following letter from Assurbanipal's general Bel-ibni, sent to make use of the situation:
"On the 16th I entered the city of Kissik with the Palace Superintendent; many troops of the Sealanders, the king my lord's servants, came to see me in Kissik. On the 17th we imposed the treaty (adê) upon them, and on the 18th we went down to the Sealand. The whole Sealand is firmly set to become the king's servants again." (ABL 521 r. 7-15.)
Alternatively, one may compare the following royal letter, probably addressed to Assurbanipal's staunch supporter Nabû-ušabši, the governor of Uruk:
"[The king's] w[ord to NN. From the beginning you have ......] guarded my [treaty], and not sinned against my favour and oath. You have fallen and died on account of all the messages and orders I have been sending to you. And truly by these recent things that you have done you have surpassed everything.
"The fact that for the sake of my name you have isolated yourself, [keeping on the side of] the representative of Aššur and Marduk; that you have kept my watch] and not made common cause with my enemy; the fact that ever since you returned [from] my presence and saw that the Babylonians, Chaldeans and Arameans were not loyal, you sent [...] your countrymen [...] and made them conclude (this) treaty with me: 'We will not change nor [violate] the treaty of Assurbanipal; we will not side with his enemy; as long as we [live], we will keep the treaty [we have concluded with him]; [...] his ally shall be our ally, and we will walk with him [...]' - from these facts I have experienced your [genuine love] and loyalty [to me].
"[Now ...] this campaign [...] set for your life. This very day, those who have sinned against my treaty - your eyes will notice how the god will once again swiftly call to account those who tampered with the treaty. As for you, remain under the protection of Aššur and Marduk, and you will thrive within their castle.
"Now then I am sending to you my eunuch Nabû-eriba, my 'third man' Nergal-šarru-uṣur, and Akkullanu of the clergy of Aššur with my treaty tablet.Join the treaty, let the confidence of my servants settle upon your countrymen and let them become confident. For my part, let me see your love and affection even more clearly, multiply the numerous favours I have already granted to you, pay back fully my debt with you, and make your name great in the assembly of Babylonia." (ABL 539)
No. 10 is a treaty of Assurbanipal with the Arab tribe of Qedar, probably concluded just before the outbreak of the rebellion of Šamaš-šumu-ukin in 652 B.C. (see Weippert, WO 7 [1976] 69ff). The background to the treaty is describing the passage from Assurbanipal's inscriptions cited above, p. XXII; the actual conclusion of the treaty is described later in the same inscriptions as follows:
"Abiyate', the son of Te'ri, came to Nineveh and kissed my feet. I concluded with him a treaty of vassalage to me, put him as king in place of Yauta' and imposed upon him a yearly tribute of gold, beads, pappardillu stones, antimony, camels and stud-asses." (Piepkorn Asb p. 85.)
If the readings in line 1' of the treaty are correct, a son of the defeated Yauta', who had fled to Nabatea, was also included in the treaty. Considering the situation, it seems likely that he was detained in Nineveh in order to be brainwashed and kept in store as a possible later candidate for the kingship of Qedar.
No. 11 is a treaty of Sin-šarru-iškun, king of Assyria (ca. 627-612 B.C.) with three unidentifiable individuals, who judging from their names seem to have been Babylonians. The name of the Assyrian king was tentatively given (following Clay, Goetze, and Borger) as Sin-šumu-lešir in Grayson's recent edition of the text, but collation by Foster indicates that Scheil's original reading Sin-šarru-iškun (ZA 11 47) is preferable. This reading is also the only acceptable one from the viewpoint of space considerations; there just is not enough room for restoring S[I.SÁ LÚ.GAL-SAG ša mAN.ŠÁR-NIR.GÁL-DINGIR.MEŠ] in Obv. 1.
In absence of the body of the document containing the treaty stipulations, it is fruitless to spend many words on its date or purpose. It seems likely, though, that the persons figuring as the other treaty party were Sin-šarru-iškun's allies in his struggle with Nabopolassar for the control of Babylonia. Note that five letters from Babylonia addressed to Sin-šarru-iškun (ABL 412, 469, 1089, 1365 and 1366) indicate that the king had supporters in the country until late in his reign.
No. 12 is only an extract from the curse section of a treaty of Sin-šarru-iškun; judging from its place of discovery (a house of exorcists in Assur see p. L), it may have belonged to a loyalty pact imposed on the Assyrian population after the king's accession following a civil war in 627(?) B.C. Compare above, under no. 4.
No. 13 is an interesting vassal treaty resembling in its formulation no. 5 (Baal treaty). Unfortunately, the preamble has not been preserved and no names are found in the extant portion of the text, so that the identity of the contracting parties as well as the date and historical context of the treaty remain obscure. If the restoration of col. ii 8' is correct, which seems quite possible (cf. Text 10: 6 and Borger Esarh. p. 54 ii 24), then the text is a treaty with an Arab king. In view of its affinities with no. 5 (cf. also ii 6'f with PRT 16: 9f, cited above, p. XIX), it may date from the reign of Esarhaddon, in which case it would be Esarhaddon's treaty with Hazael of Qedar or his son Yauta' (Borger Esarh. p. 53f), but all this is very conjectural.
No. 14 is not a treaty but part of an inscription of Esarhaddon relating to the succession treaty which he imposed on his subjects in lyyar 672 B.C. (see no. 6). The text is not only unique as a royal inscription but is also badly damaged and difficult. Especially at the beginning of col. i it is hard to grasp the nature of the narrative. It does seem, however, that its purpose was to justify the unorthodox way in which the king settled his succession, and if the beginning and the end of the text were better preserved, they might well shed interesting new light on the motives underlying the king's decision.
It seems that the king had repeatedly approached the mother goddess Belet-ili with a query ("[When] ([i-nu-ma]) I ten times over (ešrāti) had asked Belet-ili: 'Why?'", col. i 1), presumably through extispicy, and obtained an answer, cited in i 2-5, which probably led to the decision about the succession and the imposition of the treaty. While the nature of both the query and the answer to it remain obscure, the fact that the king turned to the goddess of birth implies that he was concerned about his sons. Whether this concern was based on his own tragic experiences during his time as crown prince (see under no. 3) or on the behaviour of the princes themselves, as suggested by LAS 170, remains obscure.
Col. ii of the reverse, which contains a prayer section customarily concluding royal inscriptions in the Babylonian formulary, seems to link the succession settlement with the planned return of Marduk's statue to Babylon. The first part of the prayer is addressed to several gods (perhaps all the Babylonian gods 'deported' by Sennacherib to Assyria), the latter part to Belet-ili alone. A more detailed analysis of this intriguing text fallsside the scope of the present edition.
9 One Marduk-rimanni, chief cupbearer, is known as the eponym of year 779, and another one was the governor of Calah in 728. Since sons of prestigious families often were named after their grandfathers, it is possible that these officials represent different generations in the same family, and accordingly an Assyrian official with the same name may also have been active in the mid-820's.
10 We prefer to leave the interpretation of KTK open for the time being, but we believe that it is not the name of a country but rather an epithet or pseudonym that refers to Assyria in a manner that masked the participation of Assyria in the treaty from the Aramaic speaking population of Arpad.
11 See JCS 39 (1987) 164 and 180.
12 This later incident is described in more detail in another inscription of Esarhaddon: "[On my return (from Egypt) I marched against Baal, king of] Tyre, who lives [in the middle of the sea, and trusting in his friend Taharka, king of Kush], had thrown off the yoke [of Aššur my lord. The terrible sheen of] Aššur, king of the gods, and the splendour of my lordship [overwhelmed him; he submitted to my yoke, and crouching before] me on his knees supplicated my majesty. [... In an effort to appease] my angry mind, [he brought] his daughters along with an [ample] dowry and all the [taxes and tribute] which he had ceased paying [to Nineveh into my presence] and kissed my feet [......]. I took away from him his cities on the continent, [reorganized that district], placed [it in the hands of my eunuch] and turned it into Assyrian territory."(Borger Esarh. p. 110, Frt. A, rev.)
13 BaM Bh 3 (1987), p. 4.
14 See JCS 39 (1987) 175.
Simo Parpola
Simo Parpola, 'The Treaty Corpus', Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths, SAA 2. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1988; online contents: SAAo/SAA02 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa02/thetreatycorpus/]