The Composition of the Synchronistic King List

Chapter 4 The Composition of the Synchronistic King List

Several issues relating to the composition of the ScKL will be discussed in this chapter. These issues are concerned with the date of the ScKL (A.117 and A.118), the beginning entry in A.117, the number of the kings of both Assyria and Babylonia listed in A.117, the use of the ditto sign “MIN”, the meanings of ummânu and the implications of the Babylonian royal title “King of Akkad”. We will see later that the discussions about these issues are fundamental to our further analysis of the purpose of the ScKL.

1 The Date of the Synchronistic King List

The method we usually use to date a king list is to deduce the reign under which the list was composed, by the last entry listed in the document itself. For example, the NaKL (ending with Tiglath-pileser II) may date to the reign of Ashur-dan II,1 while the KhKL (ending with Ashur-nirari V) to the reign of Tiglath-pileser III and the SDAS (ending with Shalmaneser V) to the reign of Sargon II.2 The reason is that the number of the regnal years is added to almost every king, from which we know that the list must be composed after the reign of the last king, or to be precise, during the reign of a new king, whose reign is not yet listed in the document. However, this method cannot be applied directly to dating the ScKL, because the exemplars of the ScKL, except for A.117 and A.118, are all small fragments, or unknown parts of the original tablets, thus lacking the last entries of the original lists. Moreover, even in A.117 and A.118, the regnal years of kings are not recorded; that is to say, we cannot determine that the last reigns listed in the two exemplars had already ended when they were compiled. Nevertheless, the information from the last entries of A.117 and A.118 can offer the most valuable clue for our work and our dating of the ScKL will be limited to those two exemplars alone. Firstly, a strong signal can be perceived in the last entries of A.117 and A.118: the title of “King of Assyria and Babylon”, which is attributed to those Assyrian monarchs who ever conquered or ruled Babylonia (such as Sennacherib and

1 A dividing line is drawn under Tiglath-pileser II, with much space uninscribed on the tablet. See Poebel, JNES 1/3 (1942), 251. See also Hallo, EI 14 (1978), 3. 2 Grayson, RLA 6 (1980–1983), 101; Hagens, Or 74 (2005), 26.

Esarhaddon).3 Clearly, this reflects the great honor of the conquerors, since even Sennacherib, who had never assumed the Babylonian royal title in his own royal inscriptions, was also granted this title. Judging simply from this per- spective, the two exemplars are surely Assyrian documents, that is, they are produced from the standpoint of Assyria or for the benefit of Assyria. In con- trast, the Babylonians would have had no interest in or incentive for glorifying their suzerain or even enemy – such as Sennacherib, who cruelly destroyed Babylonia and left the land kingless for eight years – in an official king list. Additional evidence can be seen in the Assyrian royal genealogies, recorded not only for Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, but also for Erishum I, the first Assyrian king in A.117. The Babylonian monarchs, however, are not granted any specific filiation.4 Most importantly, the provenance of the two exemplars indicates that A.117 might have come from a library of a temple at Ashur (for a tablet recording instructions for the personnel of Ashur temple was also found in the same trench5) and A.118 might have belonged to the private house of an exorcist family of Ashur during the reign of Ashurbanipal or even later.6 Given that the tablet of the KhKL was produced by a temple scribe at Arbela and the SDAS was owned by an exorcist at Ashur,7 it is probable that A.117 and A.118 might have similar origins to those of the KhKL and the SDAS; that is, both lists can be ascribed – in broader terms – to the sources of the AKL in general.

1.1 The Date of A.118 We will turn our attentions to A.118 first, for the solution to dating A.118 will be, to some extent, conducive to dating A.117. A.118 was adduced by Naʾaman‌ as an important source when he was dis- cussing the chronological scheme for the last days of the Assyrian Empire.8 Na‌ʾaman argued that Ashur-etil-ilani (the last entry in A.118) would have died with Kandalanu (who might have been listed parallel with Ashur-etil-ilani, according to him) in the same year, and that the death of the two kings would have provided the incentive for the scribe to compose A.118. Later, this sug- gestion was echoed by Zawadzki,9 who accepted the chronological scheme

3 A.117, iv 10’, 12’; A.118, iv’ 1’, 4’. This title must also have been given to Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmanesr V, although both entries are lost at the end of Column III. 4 Although it is recorded that Nergal-ushezib is son of Gahul and Mushezib-Marduk is son of Dakkuru, such a description would indicate their tribal origins, but not their real filiation. 5 Pedersén, ALCA II, 83. 6 Pedersén, ALCA II, 58. 7 Gelb, JNES 13/4 (1954), 229–230. 8 Na‌ʾaman, ZA 81 (1991), 248–249. See the commentaries on iv 7’ of A.118. 9 Zawadzki, ZA 85 (1995), 69–70.