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ANNALS of SENNACHERIB Oi.Uchicago.Edu oi.uchicago.edu THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ORIENTAL INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS Edited By JAMES HENRY BREASTED oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu The ANNALS OF SENNACHERIB oi.uchicago.edu THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY New York THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS London THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Sendai THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY Shanghai oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE PRISM OF SENNACHERIB oi.uchicago.edu THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ORIENTAL INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS VOLUME II The ANNALS OF SENNACHERIB Bv DANIEL DAVID LUCKENBILL, Ph.D. Professor of the Semitic Languages and Literatures in The University of Chicago Internet publication of this work was made possible with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS oi.uchicago.edu COPYRIGHT 1924 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO All Rights Reserved Published August 1924 Composed and Printed By The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U.S A oi.uchicago.edu IN REMEMBRANCE OV GEORGE SMITH DECIPHERER, EXCAVATOR, AND FIRST EDITOR OF THE ANNALS OF SENNACHERIB oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu PREFACE In his Preface the author is, I believe, supposed to justify his infliction of another book upon a long-suffering world, and, having mollified the righteous wrath of his prospective reader, to pay some small tribute to those whose kindly aid and encourage­ ment have lightened his labors and made possible the adequate publication of their results. Any student of ancient oriental civilization who has conscientiously endeavored to make the Assyrian sources the basis of Assyrian history need not be told that the text of many of these sources was copied from the originals years before the study of the language had progressed far enough to make them even fairly intelligible; that such translations as have been made from time to time are found scattered through many books and journals; that most of the best translators seem to have had but a vague conception of what the historian expected of them (they were linguists)—in short, that there is a crying need for an up-to-date publication of the Assyrian sources, a publication in which the needs of the historian who is not a specialist in the ancient oriental languages are constantly kept in mind. (If that sentence does not mollify the prospective reader, nothing will.) Therefore, when the University of Chicago through its Oriental Institute came into possession of a splendid six-sided prism contain­ ing the final edition of Sennacherib's royal annals, in almost as perfect condition as when it left the hands of the ancient scribe, it seemed an opportune moment to make available in translation a complete body of Sennacherib's historical and building texts (these are almost always combined). The fact that many of these documents had already been edited for incorporation into the files of the Assyrian Dictionary was an additional incentive for pushing the work. Professor Olmstead in his penetrating Assyrian Historiography has adequately discussed the nature of the Assyrian historical sources and the royal vanity to which we owe their preservation. He deplored the growing tendency among the historians to use the final Assyrian edition of a given document, which was the result of perhaps a dozen editings during which there was a steady progression from the record of events as they occurred to an idealized account that would please the royal fancy. I have, therefore, arranged the documents chronologically, following in the footsteps of George Smith, the first editor of Sennacherib's annals, and the one in whose memory this work is sent out. Mr. F. W. Geers, Fellow in the Department of Oriental Languages, and assistant on the Assyrian Dictionary staff, has done me the great service of comparing all the transliterations with the texts and has read the proofs. Professors Price and ix oi.uchicago.edu PREFACE Maynard have read page proof. If this volume is fairly free from typographical errors the credit is due these good friends of mine. My colleagues, Professors Breasted and Smith, are hard men to live with. Every time I talk with the latter I come away with the titles of half a dozen articles and three or four books that I want to start writing at once, and every time I rise from a conference with the former I am convinced that the surface of the ancient Orient has hardly been scratched, and I want to be up and digging. In spite of the dilemma they plunge me into, they have my thanks for their unfailing kindness and constant support. The publication of this volume is part of the large program of the Oriental Insti­ tute, which owes its auspicious beginning to the generosity of Mr. John D. Rocke­ feller, Jr. For a brief statement as to the origin and purpose of the Institute the reader is referred to the Preface (pp. 5ff.) of Breasted's Oriental Forerunners of Byzantine Painting, which is the first volume in the series of Oriental Institute Publications. oi.uchicago.edu TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAQM I. INTRODUCTION. ON CERTAIN PHASES OF ASSYRIAN STATECRAFT .... 1 II. THE REIGN OF SENNACHERIB 9 III. THE SOURCES 20 IV. THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE PRISM INSCRIPTION 23 V. THE HISTORICAL RECORDS ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY 48 VI. "THE PALACE WITHOUT A RIVAL" . 94 VII. THE" BIT-KUTALLI" OR ARMORY 128 VIII. "THE TEMPLE OF THE NEW YEAR'S FEAST" . 135 IX. MISCELLANEOUS BUILDING INSCRIPTIONS AND EPIGRAPHS ...... 144 X. EXCERPTS FROM THE BABYLONIAN CHRONICLE AND THE HELLENISTIC SOURCES . 158 AUTOGRAPHED TEXT OF THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE PRISM OF SENNACHERIB • 163 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 191 xi oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION. ON CERTAIN PHASES OF ASSYRIAN STATECRAFT When the prophet, endeavoring to discourage the people who were clamoring for a change of government, described "the manner of the king" that should reign over them (I Sam. 8:16 f.), he became the author of what is perhaps at once the briefest and most accurate word picture of an oriental despotism that we possess. Had he added a sentence to the effect that the ruler would keep at his side a number of obsequious scribes who would magnify his smallest military success into a stupendous victory; who would demonstrate their mathematical ability by multiplying—by ten or twenty —the number of the enemy dead and captured, or the amount of tribute received from those who had warded off the royal wrath by speedy and abject submission; and who would, in balanced prose periods or in vague but ringing verse, transform a defeat which could not be passed over in silence, or a lucky escape from complete disaster in some foolish venture, into a dignified retreat before, say, the winter's bitter cold or the floods of springtime—had the prophet done this he would have given us not only the picture, but the gilded frame as well But he would have spoiled the small chance he had of making any impression upon his audience. The vanity of kings has always been gently dealt with, in the East and in the West, if for no other reason than that it often adds a touch of humor (in the Orient grim humor) to what would otherwise be a dull and dreary tale. The historian of David's reign, as keenly aware of "what the public wants" as our modern editor, clinches the hold of his already popular hero upon the imagination of his readers with that marvelously well-told story of the encounter with the giant. Who was interested in the fact that "Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim the Beth-lehemite slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam " (II Sam. 21:19) ? Would any Egyptian have cared, even if he had dared, to suggest that his Pharaoh, Ramses II, protested too much about that victory of his at Kadesh on the Orontes?1 Could one have found an Assyrian who would not have been outraged by the Babylonian chronicler's report of the defeat of Sennacherib and the Assyrian army at HaluM ? History begins with the vanity of kings. (Will it end with the vanity of the demos ?) In the earliest records that we possess from the Nile Valley We see the king on ceremonious occasions appearing in some state, preceded by four standard-bearers and accompanied by his chancellor, personal attendants, or a scribe, and two i A Chinese student in a term paper, using English which was more meaningful than idiomatic, put it thus: "Ramses greatly claimed vietory." 1 oi.uchicago.edu 2 THE ANNALS OF SENNACHERIB fan-bearers. He wore the white crown of Upper or the red crown of Lower Egypt, or even a curious combination of the crowns of both kingdoms, and a simple garment suspended by a strap over one shoulder, to which a lion's tail was appended behind. So dressed and so attended he conducted triumphant celebrations of his victories or led the ceremonies at the opening of canals or the inauguration of public works He was a mighty hunter, and recorded with pride an achievement like the slaying of a hippopotamus.1 From the Wadi Maghara (Sinai) relief of King Semerkhet, picturing that monarch smiting the Beduin enemies of Egypt's earliest progress Asiaward, to the walls of the temple of Amon at Thebes, where the long annals of Thutmose Ill's victories in Syria were written down for the eye of god and man, and copiously illustrated, it was kingly pride that gave the artist his cue. Similarly the history of Babylonia must be built up about, and largely from, the records of royal achievement, whether these are the simple sculptured placque with brief inscription of Ur-Nina, the detailed accounts of Gudea's pious deeds, the grim records of AssurnasirpaFs "calculated frightMness," or the plagiarizing annals of the flabby Assurbanipal.
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