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Royal Inscriptions. Text UR EXCAVATIONS ROYAL INSCRIPTIONS PUBLICATIONS OF THE JOINT EXPEDITION OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND OF THE MUSEUM OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 'PENNSYLVANIA TO MESOPOTAMIA UR EXCAVATIONS TEXTS I ROYAL INSCRIPTIONS By C. J. GADD, M.A., F.S.A., Assistant in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, and LEON LEGRAIN, D.D., Sc.D., Curator of the Babylonian Section of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania; with contributions by SIDNEY SMITH, M.A., F.S.A., of the British Museum, and E. R. BURROWS, s.J., M.A. PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE TWO MUSEUMS 1928 SOLD IN ENGLAND AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND BY BERNARD QUARITCH ii Grafton Street, London, W. I THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Amen House, London, E.C. 4 KEGAN PAUL & CO. 38 Great Russell Street London, W.C. I PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY HARRISON & SONS LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S LANE, LONDON, W.C. 2 PREFACE HE present volume inaugurates the series of texts emanating from the excavations of the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania at and in the neighbourhood of Ur, which, as stated in the Preface to the volume on al-'Ubaid (Oxford University Press, 1927), will accompany the series of volumes describing the excavations. This first volume contains the whole of the material of one particular class which has accrued from the excavations of the Joint Expedition in the seasons of 1922-7, together with some acquired by the British Museum alone in the season of 9 9. The nature of these texts is described in the Introduction which follows. The main body of these texts has been edited by Mr. C. J. Gadd of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum, and the Rev. Dr. Leon Legrain of the University Museum of Pennsylvania; of these, Mr. Gadd translated the texts obtained in the first three seasons (I919 and 1922-4) from copies made by Mr. Sidney Smith of the British Museum and himself, while Dr. Legrain worked upon the texts from the seasons of I924-5 and 1925-6, after his own copies. The Supplement containing Nos. 267 to 309, which was added after the results of 1926-7 were available, is mainly the work of the Rev. E. R. Burrows, S.J.; Nos. 274-276 were copied and translated by Mr. Sidney Smith. The general editing of the whole has been done by Mr. Gadd. FREDERIC G. KENYON. February, I 9 28. INTRODUCTION TH E class of inscriptions comprised in this volume may best be described by the title chosen as "royal inscriptions," which, although not strictly applicable to every one, is the most comprehensive. Their style, indeed, is already familiar to scholars, being common to all the official monuments of early and later Babylonia. It would be misleading to call such texts historical, for, in fact, they have extremely few historical allusions, but are concerned mostly with religious building, and dedications to the gods by princes or courtiers. The objects upon which they are inscribed are of stone, baked clay, or metal, in the forms of statues, gate-sockets, mace-heads, cylinder seals, stone vases, plaques, weights, bricks, clay cones, and tablets. Among the more notable of the inscriptions here published the following deserve special mention :- I, 2, 25-28. Inscriptions of Lagashite rulers, from Entemena and Enannatum to Ur-Bau and Gudea. These seem to reveal an intermittent ascendency of Lagash over Ur until the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur. 8-10, 22-24. Dedications, etc., of the kings of Agade, among which 23 gives evidence that Sargon already followed the custom of making his daughter high- priestess at Ur, and 24 is a double inscription upon a royal heirloom. Supplement 274-276 are later copies made from inscriptions of Manishtusu and Naram-Sin, which convey historical and geographical information of the highest interest. I97-2I2. New date-formulae of the long, but still very obscure, reign of Ibi-Sin, last king of the Third Dynasty of Ur. Four of these refer to military events which finally led up to the fall of Ur and the captivity of the king in Elam. It is evident from these new dates that Ibi-Sin was able to claim considerable, if only temporary, successes against his enemies both in the east and on the Euphrates front. In two separate years he boasts of victory over Elam and over the Amorites, and 203-205 represent his triumph as complete. A reversal of fortune is suggested by 207 ; the king is forced to repair the fortifications of the centres of his empire. Ioo mentions the recovery by Gimil-ilishu from Elam of a statue of the Moon- god, doubtless plundered from Ur at the destruction of the city when Ibi-Sin was defeated and taken prisoner. 213-224 are dates of the Isin Dynasty, conveying little information. iII has an incidental reference to a local rebellion at Ur under a certain Na'id- Shamash. It was successfully crushed by the reigning king, Nur-Adad of Larsa, and the usurper was dislodged from the city. I2I, bricks of Silli-Adad, a little-known member of the Larsa Dynasty. viii INTRODUCTION. I22-I45. A fine series of dedicatory inscriptions of the last kings of the Larsa Dynasty and of their father, Kudur-Mabug. Mostly written upon clay cones, they commemorate the building of a number of temples and chapels for various gods, and, though the historical information given is slight, they are notable examples of the language used in the official style of this period. I23 refers to a campaign of Kudur-Mabug, in which he expelled his enemies from Larsa, and took captive the inhabitants of Mashgan-shabrim and Kar-Shamash, and 138, repeating the date-formula for the i5th year of Rim-Sin, adds a detail concerning his victory over the king of Erech. 265, 266 and 292 are fragments of the date-lists of the Isin and Larsa Dynasties which furnish several additions to the versions already known. I46, a number of pieces broken from a great stele with bilingual inscription set up at Ur, apparently by Hammurabi, and afterwards destroyed, probably when his son Samsu-iluna lost control of the city. 172 has the curiosity of being an early example of a scholar's copy of an ancient cuneiform text, made in the 7th century B.C. from an original of the 23rd century. I94 is a brick-inscription of Cyrus the Great. A number of the smaller, or much damaged, inscriptions here included, though of little importance in themselves, will often serve as evidence for dating objects found associated with them in the excavations, and may be alluded to in later volumes which will concern themselves with the archaeological discoveries. It will be observed that the transliterations given in this volume make no attempt to distinguish the signs transcribed by the use of diacritical marks. Many systems of this kind have been devised, none is universally employed, and all suffer from the increased liability to error and the added cost of printing. Moreover, the necessity for diacritical marks is greatest when passages are quoted in isolation r from their original texts, and least in such places as the present, where texts and transliterations are directly associated, and can be conveniently used together. C. J. 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