From the first, the value of the Eponym Lists for historical research has been obvious, although the fragmentary state of the texts and a few small uncertainties have resulted in considerable debate over details. One significant matter arises from the layout of the texts.
Apart from showing the end of a text, some scribes divided the entries by horizontal rulings at selected points. Texts A5, A6, B5, B7, B 9 are not ruled in this way; all other copies usually have a ruling before the eponymate of a king. A8 adds a ruling after each royal name except one (at 772), A3 adds this once (after 781) and B10 once (after 827). Thus each section presents a list starting with a king, a sequence which A7 and B10 close with the number of years contained.
From 746 onwards the manuscripts vary.[[33]] The sections of A1, B1, B2 contain eponyms from one king's accession, which is specified, to the next. A2, A3, A7 continue to divide by royal eponymates, except for A2 at 706, where the accession of Sennacherib follows, and A7 at 669, where the accession of Aššurbanipal followed, but is not mentioned. A4 has rulings after 745, noting Tiglath-pileser, and after 705, noting S ennacherib, that is, marking the first year of each reign by ruling off the previous one and heading the new one. (The text of B1 is unique in dividing 763, the year of the solar eclipse, from 764; in ruling off 734, the copyist may be accused of an error, for the same eponym, Bēl-dān, should have had a ruling after his previous term, 744, not here.) The rulings in A7 offer a further explanation, for each section concludes with a sum of years in it, that is, the years from the eponymate of one king to the year prior to the eponymate of the next.
The number of years contained within each of the sections commencing with a royal eponym in A1, B1, B2 should give the length of each reign. That this is the case was proved when the Assyrian King List was restored completely for the period.[[34]] There the length of each reign is stated and the figures agree with the years allotted by the Eponym Lists as described above in every case. Although the King Lists and the Eponym Lists may be generically related, that still serves to confirm the figures as handed down from one generation of scribes to another, and so indicates the reliability of these sources for the Neo-Assyrian period, when correctly understood. In presenting information from the Khorsabad copy of the Assyrian King List, Arno Poebel discussed the divisions of the Eponym Lists in detail.[[35]] He reinforced the understanding, already argued by George Smith, that a king held office as eponym in the second full year of his reign, until Shalmaneser V and his successors broke the pattern. This position gains support if the suggestions about the selection of eponyms (p. 8) are correct. Thus the specific record for Tiglath-pileser III supplies the model for the previous reigns as far back as Adad-nērārī II, 910 BC: 745 accession noted, 744 last eponym of the predecessor's reign, 743 eponymate of Tiglath-pileser III. No alternative interpretation seems to be so well founded. Nevertheless, although occasional claims for a royal eponymate in a king's first year lack supporting evidence at present, the possibility of undetectable changes in the pattern cannot be excluded completely.
The alteration in the method of reckoning used by some texts from Tiglath-pileser III onwards (A1, B1, B2), counting the king's accession year as his first, was employed also in the date-lines of some documents of Sennacherib's reign (see below, p. 71).
When a reign reached thirty years, the king was eligible to become eponym for a second time, with the officers of state following in order as if the reign had begun again. Thus Shalmaneser III held the office for 857 and for 827, the king explaining ina 31 palê-ia šá-nu-te-šú pu-ú-r[u] ina pān aš-šur dadad ak-ru-ru 'In my thirty-first regnal year, I cast the lot for the second time before Aššur and Adad.' The practice is likely to have applied earlier, in the reign of Tiglath-pileser II. A reference in a royal letter to what may be the eponymate of Aššurbanipal could indicate that, although he had not been eponym at the start of his rule, he likewise might have held the office late in his reign (ina lim-me mdaššur-bāni-apli abi-ka ABL 469 r.1).[[36]] Thirty years evidently marked a cycle, which we may, speculatively, consider a generation, requiring some renewal or reaffirmation of the old king's authority. Egypt presents a striking parallel with the ḥeb-sed festival which was celebrated, theoretically, on the thirtieth anniversary of a king's accession.[[37]]
33 S. Zawadzki, SAAB 7 (1993), has argued that placing the line before the year of accession for Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser V, Sargon II and Sennacherib, or after the accession year (only in A4, after 745 and 705) were innovations introduced to stress the rule of Tiglath-pileser in in the first place. The variations between the lists and the poor state of preservation of several leave the significance of the differences in ruling practice open to discussion.
34 I. J. Gelb, loc. cit.
35 A. Poebel, JNES 2 (1943) 71-78, 88, 89.
36 It is equally likely, however, that ina IGI.ME in this letter is to be interpreted as ina pānī 'in the presence' of Aššurbanipal, rather than ina lim-me 'in the līmu' of Aššurbanipal. Although this writing of ina pānī is without parallels, the normal form being lGI rather than IGI.ME, an eponymate of Aššurbanipal is otherwise unattested. [RMW]
37 See D. J. Wiseman, CAH2 II 477; E. Hornung, E. Staehelin, Studien zum Sedfest, Aegyptiaca helvetica 1 (1974).
Alan Millard
Alan Millard, 'The Eponym Lists and Chronology', The Eponyms of the Assyrian Empire 910-612 BC, SAAS 2. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1994; online contents: SAAo/SAAS2 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saas2/thetexts/eponymlistsandchronology/]