The grant documents of Aššur-etel-ilani (nos. 35-44), not surprisingly, continue the new physical characteristics of those of Assurbanipal, being written on large, thick tablets in clear script, but apparently without the framing line. The text, on the other hand, is almost entirely different so there is generally little difficulty, so long as some text is preserved, in distinguishing Aššur-etel-ilani's grants from those of his father. Not only are the provisions concerning the burial of the grantee completely missing, but the grant statement itself is subtly different leaving some doubt as to whether the fields, etc., are being given as part of the grant or are already owned by the grantee and just being exempted from taxation. Another difference from Assurbanipal's grants is the departure from the use of schedules. The list of exempted properties and personnel is included in the grant document itself, corning between the historical preamble and the grant statement. Unlike the schedules to Assurbanipal's grants, where each property and the personnel attached to it are are given together, in Aššur-etel-ilani's grants the list of properties is separated from the list of personnel, all of the property appearing at the beginning of the list followed by a list containing the name of each head of a household "and his people." Furthermore, whereas the Assurbanipal schedules list properties and personnel in a run-on list, the Aššur-etel-ilani grants tend to tabulate the repetitive information giving the text a regular, almost columnar appearance.
The preamble to these texts is a document of historical significance. Indeed, much of the history of Aššur-etel-ilani's poorly documented reign is based on the testimony of the introduction to these grants. This information has been thoroughly discussed,[[33]] and will not be analysed again here. There is, however, one new historical detail that is worthy of mention. The association of K 10815[[34]] with no. 35 identifies the eponym of these texts as a governor of Que. Among the post-canonical eponyms there are two names identified as governors of Que, Nabû-da''inanni and Marduk-šarru-uṣur. Nabû-da''inanni, however, occurs early in the post-canonical period, belonging with a high degree of certainty to the reign of Assurbanipal.[[35]] Therefore, unless there is another yet unidentified governor of Que to be found among the post-canonical eponyms, the most likely eponym for the Aššur-etel-ilani land grants is Marduk-šarru-uṣur. This marks the first eponym that, however tentatively, can be assigned to the reign of Aššur-etel-ilani. Furthermore, it makes more secure the attribution of the other pieces having the end of this date (nos. 41-43) to Aššur-etel-ilani.
The listing of exemptions granted is also expanded beyond that given by Assurbanipal in his grants and we point out again that these have been discussed in both NARGD and TCAE. However, it is worth noting in passing that some advances have been made here, particularly in the completion of the miksē clause as used by Aššur-etel-ilani (nos. 35-36, 39-40) and in the understanding of the harrānu clause (nos. 35, 40), which is not paralleled elsewhere.
In addition to the inclusion of abullē "city-gates" in the exemption clause for miksē "taxes, fees, dues," the Aššur-etel-ilani grants add at the end i-na KUR-e u ÍD.hi-ri-ti, literally "in mountains or canals," but taken to mean "on land or water," eliminating possible grounds for contention since kāru can refer to a harbour/quay or to a caravanserai and, while nēberu is normally a river or canal crossing it could conceivably refer to other types of crossings. We therefore reconstruct the entire clause as: miksē kārē nēberē abullē ina šadê u hirtītī zakû "they are exempt from harbour, crossing, and gate fees on land or water."
The advances in the understanding of the harrānu clause are a result of the joins made in nos. 35 and 40 which allow the entire text, except for the opening word or words, to be reconstructed, yielding: ... harrāni sahhurtušu mimma lā usahhar. The opening must be a preposition or prepositional phrase with the sense of "out of' or "after." Although harrānu is not the normal Assyrian word for "road, campaign," its use in a commercial sense does not seem precluded. With sahhurtu and sahhuru we are dealing with another verb and cognate complement pair characteristic of these exemption clauses, as in nusāhē nasāhu, šibšu šabāšu and ṣibtu ṣabātu. The difference is that all the other exemption clauses are passive in nature, accomplished either with an N-stern verb or a stative, while this one is active and transitive in nature using the D stern, which could only be construed as a passive by assuming an impersonal third person plural subject. The word sahhurtu is apparently a D-stem nomen actionis (Bab. suhhurtu) but no lexical meaning is associated with it. The entirely conjectural nature of our translation is indicated by italics in the text. Clearly a full understanding of the clause must await more documentation than the two broken examples provided here. It is interesting, although not necessarily significant, that the clause has been left out of no. 36, while otherwise the text of the various exemplars is identical except for the usual minor variants.
Nos. 43 and 44 are fragments that show a different set of titles and genealogy arranged in four lines rather than the normal three of the other Aššur-etel-ilani grant texts. Apart from the superscription, no text is preserved in either piece, but no. 43 has the end of a date that matches nos. 35 and 41-42. A number of factors point to their attribution to Aššur-etel-ilani, but it is possible, although unlikely, that they may have belonged to Assurbanipal.[[36]]
33 A recent summary of these discussions is provided by S. Zawadzki. The Fall of Assyria and Median-Babylonian Relations in light of the Nabopolassar Chronicle (Poznań 1988) 23-63.
34 Copy Or 42 (1973) 442b.
35 M. Falkner, AfO 17 (1954-56) 118, placed him at the beginning of her list, at 647. but in all probability he was slightly, although not much, later than this.
36 The fragmentary date of no. 43, which has been connected with nos. 35 and 41-42, could also be Amyanu (655) or Nabu-da''inanni (see preceding note).
Laura Kataja & Robert Whiting
Laura Kataja & Robert Whiting, 'Aššur-etel-ilani', Grants, Decres and Gifts of the Neo-Assyrian Period, SAA 12. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1995; online contents: SAAo/SAA12 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa12/grantsoflandandtaxexemption/ashuretelilani/]