The Archival Background ofthe Texts

The bulk of the Nineveh legal texts, as indeed the bulk of all texts discovered in Niniveh, were excavated at a time when Near Eastern archaeology still was in its infancy and no accurate methodology for the documentation of the finds made had yet been developed. As a result, we now lack essential information about the exact findspots of the excavated tablets. For the overwhelming majority of them, the only available indication about their provenance is "from Kuyunjik" (the acropolis of Nineveh), and sometimes even this general provenance remains doubtful despite the inclusion of a tablet in the "Kuyunjik Collection."[[10]] This is of course most unfortunate, especially since a knowledge of the findspot often is of decisive importance in determining the archival context and function of a legal text.

Of the texts included in the present volume, the (approximate) provenance of the following four can be established from the published excavation reports:

No. 88 (DT 12 = ADD 317, 'archive' or dossier of Aḫi-ṭalli, harem governess, dated 687 B.C.): SW Palace of Sennacherib.[[11]
No. 111 (K 76 = ADD 229, dossier of Seʾ-madi, village manager of the crown prince, dated 680 B.C.): SW Palace, "Chamber of Records."[[12]
No. 114 (BM 134582 = Iraq 32 12, fragment dated 702): Chol, i.e. "flat area within the curve of the river and city outer walls."[[13]
No. 217 (Sm 921 = ADD 378, dossier of Mannu-ki-Arbail, cohort commander, c. 673 B.C.): Library of the SW Palace.[[14]

In addition, the provenance of two further documents to be edited in Pt. II can be similarly established:
Sm 957 = ADD 128 (corn loan dated 665 B.C.): SW Palace.
K 296 = ADD 642 (dossier of Iddin-Iya, priest of Ninurta, from the postcanonical [i.e., post-648] period): SW Palace, "Chamber of Records."
This is not much, but provides some extremely valuable clues to the archival background of the whole corpus.

As can be seen, practically all the texts in the above list originate from the palace of Sennacherib in the SW corner of the mound of Kuyunjik, constructed in 703-694 B.C. and occupied throughout the 7th century; the dates on the tablets (687, 680, *673, 665, post-648) neatly reflect the occupational history of the palace. Three of them are explicitly said to have been found in the "Chambers of Records" (the royal library, rooms XL and XLI of the palace) among thousands of other archival texts and pieces of literature. It is also explicitly stated in the excavator's report that many more similar documents were found in these rooms.[[15]] This means that many more texts included in the present volume must have been deposited in the royal library. It is possible, with the help of the archival connections shown in the above list, to pinpoint at least some of these with reasonable confidence.

If tablets from the dossiers of Ahi-talli, Seʾ-madi and Mannu-ki-Arbail were kept in the royal library, it is reasonable to suppose that the rest of their dossiers too (which all together make up about 8.5% of the present volume) was kept there. Furthermore, considering that the Aḫi-ṭalli dossier belongs to a larger set of transactions of the "central city" harem of Nineveh (nos. 81-99), which in all probability was located within the SW Palace, it stands to reason that the other harem documents too were preserved with this dossier.[[16]] Similarly, one can speculate that if the dossiers of a village manager (Seʾ-madi) and a cohort commander (Mannu-ki-Arbail) could be kept in the royal library, then at least some of the other similar dossiers (e.g., that of Baḫianu, nos. 60-80)[[17]] should derive from the same place. In fact, it is likely that most of the major dossiers in the present volume dating from the reigns of Sennacherib and his successors were deposited in the "Chambers of Records." However, there is no way of conclusively proving that this was the case, because it is certain that many documents in the corpus originate from elsewhere.

A major portion of the tablet finds in Nineveh was made in the Palace of Assurbanipal (actually, the old "Succession Palace" where Sennacherib had exercised his duties as crown prince under his father Sargon, restored by Assurbanipal in 648-645 B.C.) at the north end of the Kuyunjik mound. It is likely that most if not all the documents from the reigns of Sargon II and earlier kings included in this volume (nos. 1-33) were found in that palace.[[18]] Moreover, as the example of no. 114 in the above list shows, the corpus also includes stray finds from various parts of the citadel and even outside the citadel proper.[[19]] Many of the isolated documents included in the "Varia" sections of the present volume probably originate in various departmental archives of the palace administration, dispersed in the various public buildings of the citadel including the above-mentioned two palaces; some, like no. 114, may even derive from private houses or refuse dumps.[[20]]

However that may be in individual cases, it can be regarded as certain that the overwhelming majority of the tablets making up the Nineveh legal corpus were documents of court officials associated with the North and SW palaces of Kuyunjik and kept in the central archives of these palaces.



10 Cf. J. Reade, "Archeology and the Kuyunjik Archives," CRRAI 30 (1986), p. 212ff and Parpola, "The Royal Archives of Nineveh," ibid. 223ff.

11 See G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries (London 1875), p. 417.

12 See A. H. Layard, Discoveries in Nineveh and Babylon (New York 1853), p. 345f (with copy of the tablet on p. 346).

13 See W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Catalogue ofthe Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection. Second Supplement (London 1968), pp. 93 and xi.

14 See G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries (London 1875), p. 424.

15 "Many [of the tablets found in the chambers] are sealed with seals, and may prove to be legal contracts or conveyances of land. Others bear rolled impressions of ... engraved cylinders" (Layard, Discoveries in Nineveh and Babylon (New York 1853), p. 346).

16 Cf. the harem archive discovered in the Review Palace ofNimrud (CTN 3, nos. 33-40), with documents recording transactions by several royal women (including the queen and the harem governess), all found in the same room (S 10).

17 Baḫianu is defined as the "village manager of the stewardess," and thus in all probability was affiliated with the royal harem just discussed.

18 See Parpola, CRRAI 30 (1986), p. 231ff.

19 See ibid. for tablets retrieved from the neighbouring mound of Nebi Yunus (the site of the "Review Palace" of Nineveh) and the near-by town of Tarbiṣu.

20 For details see the two articles referred to in n. 10.

Simo Parpola

Simo Parpola, 'The Archival Background ofthe Texts', Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part I: Tiglath-Pileser III through Esarhaddon, SAA 6. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1991; online contents: SAAo/SAA06 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa06/natureoftheninevehlegalarchive/archivalbackgroundofthetexts/]

 
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