THE PROCESS OF PRODUCING THE STANDARD INSCRIPTION OF ASHURNASIRPAL II AT NIMRUD/KALḪU by J. Caleb Howard A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Baltimore, Maryland October, 2017 © 2017 J. Caleb Howard All rights reserved Abstract The thousands of royal inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian (934-612 BCE) kings have been studied by Assyriologists for the past one hundred fifty years, but much about how they were produced remains unknown. A relatively unexamined body of evidence, namely, textual varia- tion between the manuscripts of individual compositions, provides new insights into the produc- tion of Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions. However, the study of textual variation in these manu- scripts has previously been hampered by inadequate publication of the manuscripts, preventing analysis of such levels of textuality as format and script density, as well as paleographic, ortho- graphic, grammatical, and lexical variants. With the help of the technological developments of the past two decades, especially the application of digital humanities to this corpus of texts, as well as through first-hand examination of manuscripts and better publication of them, it is now possible to investigate this aspect of the corpus of Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions, with a view to clarifying the scribal processes which produced them. This dissertation examines textual variation in manuscripts of a single composition, the Standard Inscription of Ashurnasirpal II from Nimrud (ancient Kalḫu), as well as evidence from other cuneiform documents as necessary, in order to reconstruct the process of producing the Standard Inscription. Two hundred thirty-one manuscripts of the Standard Inscription were transliterated and such information as their variants and formats were analyzed and cataloged, and patterns of shared variants were noted. In addition to these data, references to the production of Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions in Neo-Assyrian letters, as well as likely examples of drafts and master copies of Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions, were brought to bear. On the basis of these data, this dissertation argues that the Standard Inscription of Ashurnasirpal II from Nimrud was produced in three stages. First, a master copy was created, ii presumably being perfected through an unknown number of drafts, in a cooperative effort of the king and his counsellors, especially the royal scholars. Over time, the text of the Standard In- scription was edited, producing at least one more recension, which was represented in its own master copy. The use of the earlier recension was discontinued and the new recension replaced it. Second, a master copy was used to produce an unknown number of intermediate copies. Nei- ther the master copies nor the intermediate copies are extant, but their existence is detected on the basis of patterns of shared variants in the extant manuscripts, which attest to these two previ- ous stages. Third, these intermediate copies were used to transmit the text of the Standard In- scription to the extant manuscripts, which were mainly the faces of hundreds of stone orthostats that lined the walls of the Northwest Palace at Nimrud. This stage was likely accomplished through visual copying of exemplars, i.e., the intermediate copies. In this final stage, the inscrip- tions were incised into the stone orthostats of the Northwest Palace by stonemasons, who caused unique errors, which are illustrated in this dissertation. Advisor: Paul Delnero Second Reader: Jacob Lauinger Committee Chair: Brice Ménard Readers: Theodore J. Lewis, Joshua Smith iii Acknowledgments I am grateful to many for their support in the course of this project. First, I thank my ad- visor, Paul Delnero, whose strict insistence on thoroughness and attention to detail, especially in philological matters, have been the keystone of my scholarly development while at Johns Hop- kins. His ability to rigorously synthesize matters philological, archaeological, art-historical, and theoretical in the study of ancient Mesopotamia are an inspiration to me as I embark on my own career in the study of the ancient Near East. I am also grateful to Jacob Lauinger, who helped me to see both the trees and the forest in reading cuneiform texts, and who helped me discover inter- ests in aspects of the ancient Near East that I never knew I could have. His methodological con- scientiousness has forced me to think harder about what I am doing when I write about the past, and this dissertation would have been greatly impoverished without him. The other faculty of the Department of Near Eastern Studies of Johns Hopkins University have been instrumental in developing my ability to synthesize the diverse data relevant to the study of the ancient Near East. I thank them all. I am grateful also to Theodore J. Lewis, Brice Ménard, and Joshua Smith, who served as committee members. I also wish to thank past teachers, especially Richard Averbeck, Dennis Magary, and K. Lawson Younger, Jr. These three introduced me to the languages, texts, and history of the an- cient Near East, starting me on my journey toward Assyriology and this dissertation. They have continued to encourage me throughout my program at Johns Hopkins, and I am grateful for their perseverance in helping a former student. My student cohort at Johns Hopkins has meant a great deal to me. Chief among them is Josh Bowen, whose friendship in both Assyriology and life was essential to my sanity and devel- iv opment at Johns Hopkins. Ioana Dumitru, Justin Estrada, Anna Glenn, Megan Lewis, and William Reed were wonderful comrades on our academic journey, even in disagreement. In ad- dition, friends from other institutions have supported me along the way, especially Scott Booth and A. D. Riddle. The future of our field is bright with such people working in it, and I am grateful to them all. Other people and institutions are due thanks for their help in the course of this disserta- tion. I thank the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq for their financial support for photographing and collating most of the manuscripts of the Standard Inscription that are now in Europe. The Department of Near Eastern Studies of Johns Hopkins University also provided financial assistance for this work. I am grateful to Jonathan Taylor, assistant keeper of the cuneiform collections in the British Museum, for his hospitality and patience with me as I photographed orthostats, tablets, and the hand copies of A. H. Layard in the tablet room and in storage in the British Museum. Campbell Price, curator of Egypt and Sudan in the Manchester Museum, was kind enough to allow me to photograph a stone slab bearing an inscription of Ashurnasirpal II in storage in the Manchester Museum, in spite of the fact that my request to do so was impromptu. I also thank Scott Booth, Chandler Collins, Anna Glenn, and A. D. Riddle, who provided me with photographs of inscriptions in the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Glencairn Museum, Bryn Athyn, PA; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, Istanbul; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT; and the Oriental Institute, Chicago. I also thank my family and non-academic friends for their love and support. I am grateful to the people of Grace Community Church, especially Steve Bickel and Dave Noske, without whom my soul and my family would be withered and dead. My parents, Edward and Teresa v Howard, and my brother-in-law and sister, Jordan and Meagan Walley, have provided my family and me with moral and financial support throughout my education. My parents-in-law, Gary and Marty Crawford, and my brothers- and sisters-in-law (you know who you are) have supported us unstintingly. You have all probably wondered if my education would ever end. It has and it hasn’t. To my three children, Alexis, Mariah, and Adele, thank you for your patience and love for me. It is one of the great undeserved privileges of my life to be your dad. Last and most, I am grateful to my wife, Erin, who is my faithful companion, and to my God, who is my hope. vi Contents Acknowledgments iv Contents vii List of Figures xiv List of Tables xvi 1 Introduction 1 1.1. History of Research on the Production of Neo-Assyrian Royal Inscriptions . 1 1.2. Research Design . 15 1.2.1. Data-Set . 15 1.2.2. Organization and Presentation of the Data . 18 1.3. Argument of the Dissertation . .21 2 The Archaeological and Architectural Context of the Standard Inscription 26 2.1. Introduction . .26 2.2. Reconstruction of Kalḫu during the Reign of Ashurnasirpal II according to the Inscriptions . .27 2.2.1. The Canal Patti-ḫegalli . 28 2.2.2. The Citadel Platform . .29 2.2.3. The Northwest Palace . 30 2.2.4. The Temples . 34 2.3. The History of Excavations at Nimrud (Ancient Kalḫu) . 36 vii 2.3.1. The Nineteenth Century Excavations . 37 2.3.2. The British Excavations of the 1950s and 1960s . 43 2.3.3. The Excavations Organized by the Iraqi Directorate-General of Antiquities . .45 2.4. Reconstruction of the Primary Contexts of Inscriptions from the Northwest Palace and Other Buildings at Kalḫu . 48 2.4.1. History of Research on the Reconstruction of the Primary Contexts of Architectural Components from the Northwest Palace and Other Buildings at Kalḫu . .48 2.4.2. Methods of Reconstruction of the Primary Contexts of Architectural Components from the Northwest Palace and Other Buildings at Kalḫu . 51 2.5. Conclusion . .58 3 The Literary Context of the Standard Inscription 61 3.1. Introduction . .61 3.2. The Shared Literary Development of the Royal Inscriptions of Ashurnasirpal II from Kalḫu . .62 3.3.