The database "Babylonian Nineveh Texts" includes all texts from Nineveh that are written in Babylonian script, except for the Late Babylonian texts dated after the fall of Nineveh.
So far, the database is divided in the following 5 (database presented in the web version) or 6 (not available in the web version) fields:
| The diacritic signs are replaced as follows: | s° = sade | S° = Sade |
| t° = tet | T° = Tet | |
| s' = shin | S' = Shin | |
| h = het | H = Het | |
| The long vowels are marked by the sign " ¯ " placed right after the vowel. | ||
There are different systems of registration numbers within the "Kouyunjik collection" referring to the years and dates of registration of the tablets or to the different excavators of Nineveh.
Babylonian Nineveh texts can be found in the following groups :[1]:
| 48-7-20 | arrived at the BM on 20. July 1848; excavated by A.H. Layard in May - July 1847 and by H.J. Ross, who continued the excavations in July 1847. | |
| 48-11-4 | arrived at the BM on 4. November 1848; excavated by H.J. Ross, probably in the first half of the year 1848. | |
| 67-4-2 | arrived at the BM on 2. April 1867; acquired by purchase. | |
| 79-7-8 | arrived at the BM on 8. July 1879; excavated by H. Rassam probably in November 1878 - April 1879 (see also the Rm.II collection), some of them were acquired by purchase. | |
| 80-7-19 | arrived at the BM on 19. July 1880; excavated by H. Rassam, probably in June 1880. | |
| 81-2-4 | arrived at the BM on 4. February 1881; excavated by H. Rassam, probably in the second half of the year 1880. | |
| 81-7-27 | arrived at the BM on 27. July 1881; H. Rassam excavated most of them, probably during the first four months of the year 1881 (boxes were dispatched on 30 April 1881). | |
| 82-3-23 | said to have arrived at the BM on 23. March 1882 but these fragments must have intruded from elsewhere, probably from the 82-5-22 collection (see J.E. Reade in E. Leichty, Catalogue ... Sippar 1, 1986, xxxii). | |
| 82-5-22 | said to have arrived at the BM on 22. May 1882; excavated by H. Rassam, probably in the second half of the year 1881 - beginning of 1882; tablets of this group have BM numbers, as well. | |
| 82-9-18 | said to have arrived at the BM on 28. September 1882 (twelve cases and "two" parcels", dispatched on 20 July 1882 by Rassam); eleven cases came from Abu Habbah and one from Babylon (see J.E. Reade in E. Leichty, Catalogue ... Sippar 1, 1986, xxxiii). There is just one fragment joined to a K-text (82-9-18,7387) that must have been included in this collection by mistake. | |
| 83-1-18 | arrived at the BM on 18. January 1883; excavated by H. Rassam, probably in May (?) - July 1882 (arrived October 1882). | |
| BM | British Museum registration number; most of the tablets from Kouyunjik that have a BM number have a collection number according to the date of their arrival at the BM, as well. | |
| - | BM 30019: original collection number is unknown, joined to K.10468+14296; this Old Babylonian tablet might not come from Kouyunjik but from Babylonia and was mixed up with the Kouyunjik material (courtesy C.B.F. Walker). | |
| - | BM 054619: registered as 82-5-22,939 and joined to K.02077+. | |
| - | BM 065757: registered as 82-9-18,5747; the 1882-9-18 tablets are from Sippar (Abu Habbah) and from Babylon; see above for this group. | |
| - | BM 067391: registered as 82-9-18,7387 and joined to K.06163. | |
| - | BM 092683 (= DT 037), 092704 (= DT 15), and 092712 (= DT 034) are originally from the collection DT. | |
| - | BM 093014: registered as 82-5-22,1048 and joined to 82-3-23,101; this high BM number out of sequence had been given for exhibition (courtesy C.B.F. Walker); this tablet might not come from Kouyunjik but rather from Borsippa (see J.E. Reade in E. Leichty, Catalogue ... Sippar 1, 1986, xxxiii). | |
| - | BM 98495 - 098964: registered as Th.1905-4-9,001 - 488. | |
| - | BM 098972 - 099371: registered as Ki.1904-10-9,001- 470. | |
| - | BM 115039 = Ki.1902-5-10,37; this tablet might have been one of the finds L. W. King found at Nineveh during his survey in October 1901. | |
| - | BM 121005 - BM 121145 (registered as 1929-10-12, 1 - 154); excavated by R.C. Thompson, probably in October 1927 - February 1928. | |
| - | BM 122612 - BM 122687 (registered as 1930-5-8, 1 - 120); excavated by R.C. Thompson, probably in October 1929 - February 1930. | |
| - | BM 123356 - BM 12353.2A-C (registered as 1932-12-10, 299 - 475); excavated by R.C. Thompson, probably in October 1931 - February 1932. | |
| - | BM 127839 - BM 128213 (registered as 1929-10-12, 495 - 869); excavated by R.C. Thompson, probably in October 1927 - February 1928. | |
| - | BM 128219 - BM 128411 (1932-12-10, 476 - 668); excavated by R.C. Thompson, probably in October 1931 - February 1932. | |
| - | BM 134431 - BM 134607 (1932-12-12, 426 - 602); excavated by R.C. Thompson, probably in October 1931 - February 1932. | |
| - | BM 134533 - 134539, 134820, and 134825 (registered as 1932-12-12, 528-534, 615, 620); excavated in the Ishtar-Temple at Nineveh by R.C. Thompson, probably in October 1931 - February 1932. | |
| - | BM 134811 - BM 134833 (registered as 1932-12-12, 606 - 628); excavated by R.C. Thompson, probably in October 1931 - February 1932. | |
| Bu.89-4-26 | Budge, 1889, April 26; excavated in Nineveh by E.A.W. Budge in January - February 1889. | |
| Bu.91-5-9 | Budge, 1891, May 9. | |
| DT. | Daily Telegraph; excavated during the campaign by G. Smith in May - June 1873 that was sponsored by the newspaper Daily Telegraph; some tablets of this group have a BM number, as well. | |
| K. | Kouyunjik collection; excavated mainly by A.H. Layard and C. Rassam in July 1849 - April 1854. | |
| - | K.14231 - K.16794 had been excavated during the earlier excavations but remained unnumbered at the BM until 1899 (?) (see King, Catalogue ... Supplement, London 1914, Preface and XV). | |
| - | K.16801 - K.22202 had been excavated during the earlier excavations but remained unnumbered at the BM until 1970; some of the fragments once belonged to the Rm. and the 83-1-18 collections (see Lambert, Catalogue ... 3rd Supplement, London 1992, Foreword). | |
| Ki.1904-10-9 | King, 1904, October 9; excavated by L.W. King in March 1903 - June 1904 (nearly all tablets of this group have BM numbers, as well). | |
| Rm. | Rassam; purchased by H. Rassam in December 1877 and excavated by him in January - June 1878. | |
| Rm.II | Rassam II; in most cases excavated by Rassam, probably in November 1878 - April 1879. | |
| Sm. | Smith; excavated by G. Smith in January - March 1874. | |
| Th.1905-4-9 | Thompson, 1905, April 9; excavated by R.C. Thompson in June 1904 - February 1905 (nearly all of them have BM numbers as well). |
There are no Babylonian texts within the collections: 73-7-22 (excavated by Smith in May - June 1873 ?), 1901-10-12 (no. 89; purchased), 1909-2-13 (no. 1; purchased), 1909-3-13 (no. 1; purchased), 1910-10-8 (nos. 142 -148; purchased), 1912-5-13 (no. 2; purchased), 1913-4-16 (nos. 147 - 160E; purchased), and 1930-5-8 (47-90 = BM 134774 - BM 134810; purchased).
A tablet that is made up of two or more fragments, which have been rejoined, is arranged under its lowest registration number; in general, the K-number is considered as being the lowest number.
In addition to the tablets of the Kouyunjik collection of the British Museum there are two fragments of Old Babylonian clay tablets from Nineveh in the Birmingham City Museum (BCM), one tablet in the collection of Lord Binning (Binning), that is suggested to come from Nineveh, and one fragment in the École pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), that is joined to a K-text. All four texts are included here, as well.
In general, the classification of the context of the fragment follows the entries used by Bezold in his four volumes of the Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection (I-IV, 1889-1896) and the entries used by King (1914), Lambert & Millard (1968), and Lambert (1992) in the three supplementary volumes. In the case of different entries used by the four authors of the catalogues for the same kind of text a standardized classification is chosen, and sometimes entries have been corrected without any further reference.
| ? | not classified text (see also: library text). | |
| adm | administrative text (see also "list -adm" and "memo adm"). | |
| archaic signs | text with archaic signs. | |
| archaizing signs | text with archaizing script (see also "hist - archaizing signs" and "inc; - archaizing signs"). | |
| Assyrian colophon | Babylonian written texts with an Assyrian colophon; refers to reports on liver omens (see "report - extispicy"), queries to the sungod (see "oracle enquiry"), and to the astronomical text (see "astronomical"). | |
| astr omens | astrological text with celestial omens; most of them belong to the omen series: enu¯ma anu enlil (EAE), some of them are excerpt texts of this series, forerunners or astrological texts following a tradition different from EAE. | |
| astr omens - colophon | astrological text with (at least one line of) a colophon. | |
| astr omens - commentary | commentary to astrological omens; if known, the kind of commentary (s°âtu or mukallimtu) is added in brackets. | |
| astr omens - copy | the scribe included the word he-pí to mark unreadable signs in the original tablet he copied. | |
| astr omens - excerpt | excerpt tablet of the omens series enu¯ma anu enlil; report shaped tablet. | |
| astrological | text referring to celestial events but not like a regular omen text; e.g. MUL.APIN, and others. | |
| astronomical | texts with description of the sky, etc. | |
| bil | bilingual text. | |
| bil hymn | bilingual hymns, e.g. hymn to Nergal; (see also "bil pr"). | |
| bil hymn - colophon | texts with (at least one line of) a colophon. | |
| bil hymn - copy | texts that have been copied from other texts; indicator is either the colophon or the word he-pí. | |
| bil hymn inc (-colophon) | e.g. lugale (see also "Sum hymn inc" for the Old Babylonian fragment). | |
| bil inc | bilingual incantations, e.g. against ma¯mi¯tu, sama¯na, the tablet referring to the "ordination of an Enlil-priest", utukku¯ lemnu¯tu incantations, or the like. | |
| bil inc rit (school tablet) | the series utukku¯ lemnu¯tu. | |
| bil lexical | lexical text. | |
| bil pr | bilingual prayer, balag, ers'emma, or ers'ahunga (see also "bil hymn"). | |
| bil rel | bilingual text that can be any of the above mentioned except for a lexical text. | |
| birth omens | texts from the series s'umma izbu and related omens (see also "rit inc - birth omens"). | |
| birth omens - commentary | commentaries to birth omen texts, s'umma izbu and related texts. | |
| catalogue | catalogue of the tablets of a series. | |
| colophon | fragment with part of a colophon. | |
| commentary | commentaries to not yet identified texts; if known, the type of commentary (mukallimtu and s°âtu) is added in brackets (fragments of s°âtu commentaries look very similar to those called explanatory texts in this catalogue). | |
| contract | private contracts. | |
| contract dated | date of the contract is (at least partly) preserved. | |
| contract (Babylonian - Aramaic) | contract written in Babylonian as well as in Aramaic script and language. | |
| contract (seal) | part of a contract with a seal impression. | |
| delivery note dated | note which accompanied an object on a journey (tablet is drilled for being tied to an object with a string). | |
| epic | epics like Gilgamesh, the epic of creation, and so on. | |
| epic - historical | e.g. the epic of Assurbanipal. | |
| epical text | epical narrative relating to Assurbanipal's Elamite wars. | |
| explanatory (-colophon) | lexical lists, e.g. ALAM =
la¯nu, Hh, igi-duh-a = ta¯martu, LÙ
= s'a, malku = s'arru, SIG7.ALAN
= nabni¯tu, and others. - fragments of these lists look very similar to those of s°âtu commentaries and the grammatical texts! See also sub "list"). |
|
| explanatory - list of plants | series URU.AN.NA. | |
| explanatory list (- archaic signs) | syllabaries Sa, SbA, and SbB. | |
| grammatical | texts with Sumerian grammatical entries explained
in Akkadian. - fragments of these lists look very similar to those of s°âtu commentaries and the explanatory texts! See also sub "list"). |
|
| hem | hemerological text (see also "report hem"). | |
| hist | historical texts, royal inscriptions. | |
| hist - archaic signs | inscription of an ancient Babylonian king. | |
| hist - archaizing signs | nA royal inscriptions using archaizing sign forms. | |
| hist - cylinder | royal inscription: cylinder ("Tonfäßchen"). | |
| hist - cylinder (archaic signs) | royal inscription: cylinder ("Tonfäßchen") written in archaic sign forms. | |
| hist - prism | royal inscription: prism. | |
| hist - treaty (stone) | treaty between S'ams'i-Adad V and Marduk-za¯kir-s'umi I written on a stone tablet. | |
| hist - treaty (letter) | Assurbanipal's treaty with Babylonian allies. | |
| hymn | hymns to various gods. | |
| hymn - colophon | tablet with a hymn and (at least part of) a colophon. | |
| inc; | incantation (see also "inc pr" and "rit inc"). | |
| inc - archaizing signs | late copy of an e-nu-ru-incantation written in archaizing sign form. | |
| inc - colophon | tablet with an incantation that has (at least one line of) a colophon. | |
| inc pr | incantation prayer to various gods; e.g. s'uilla (see also "inc", "pr", and "rit inc"). | |
| iqqur ipus' | texts belonging to this omen series in most cases are classified as "astr omens" or "terr omens" as well. | |
| Late Babylonian | Late babylonian texts; these texts most probably come from a site in Babylonia and not from Kouyunjik. | |
| Late Babylonian - adm | administrative text. | |
| Late Babylonian - contract | contract dated to the time after the fall of Nineveh. | |
| Late Babylonian - economic | economic text. | |
| Late Babylonian - legal (or adm) | legal or administrative text. | |
| laws | fragment of the Middle Assyrian Laws. | |
| legal | legal document, might be a contract, a letter, a report, or the like. | |
| letter; | fragment of a letter with indication of the addressee or the sender. | |
| letter (from the king) | |
|
| letter (from the crown prince) | |
|
| letter (to the king) | |
|
| letter (to the crown prince) | |
|
| letter (to the daughter of the king) | |
|
| letter (to the king's mother) | |
|
| letter (to the king's son) | |
|
| letter (to officials) | |
|
| letter (to an official) | |
|
| letter (private letter) | |
|
| (lexical see explanatory) | ||
| library text | not classified text (this term is used by Lambert in his catalogue of the so-called higher K-numbers; one text, Lambert classified as "scholarly", is reclassified as library text) (see also "?", "literary" and most of the other categories). | |
| list | list of personal names or objects (some of these fragments could also belong to a lexical series, see "explanatory" as well). | |
| list- adm (names) | list of personal names, probably for administrative purposes (see also "adm"). | |
| list- adm (objects) | list of objects, probably for administrative purposes (see also "adm"). | |
| list- adm (professions) | list of professions, probably for administrative purposes (see also "adm"). | |
| list- geographical | list of geographical names. | |
| list of gods | list of gods. | |
| list of stones | list of stones; these texts can be administrative (see "list- adm (objects)") or "medical texts". | |
| list of temples | list of various temples and their gods. | |
| literary | literary text (see also "epic", "myth", "rel", and most of the other categories). | |
| literary: rel - epic | Sennacherib's "tablet of destinies" (t°uppi s'i¯ma¯ti). | |
| liver omens | extispicy. | |
| liver omens - colophon | text on liver omens with (at least one line of) a colophon. | |
| liver omens - commentary | commentary on extispicy. | |
| mathematical text | just 1 text. | |
| (medical text see "list of stones", "rit inc - medical text", and "rit - medical text") | ||
| memo adm | memorandum concerning the transport of objects. | |
| myth | myths like the anzû-myth. | |
| Old Babylonian | the classification of the Old Babylonian texts is added in round brackets. | |
| omens; | an omen text without identification of the kind of omens. | |
| omens; - excerpt - colophon | fragment of a not yet identified omen text with the colophon of an extract of an omen series. | |
| omens; - colophon | omen text with (at least one line of a) colophon. | |
| omens; - copy | fragment of a text with not yet identified kind omens that have been copied from other texts; indicator is either the colophon or the word he-pí. | |
| omens; - copy - commentary | omens text with not yet identified kind of omens and commentary; the text has been have been copied from other texts. | |
| omens - iqqur ipus' | omens of the series iqqur i¯pus', series mensuelles. | |
| oracle enquiry | queries to the sungod. | |
| oracle enquiry - Assyrian colophon | some of the Babylonian written queries to the sungod have a colophon written by Assyrian scribes. | |
| ownership label |
from the 11th year of Marduk-apla-iddina, king of Babylonia (710 BC). | |
| physiogn omens | omens from the physiognomic omen series that refers to the appearance of human beings. | |
| pr | prayer; the distinction between ikribu and tami¯tu is given in the field "Text", if it is known (see also "rel pr"). | |
| pr - colophon | tablet of a prayer with (at least one line of a) colophon. | |
| prophecies ? | classification according to Lambert (just 1 text). | |
| rel | religious text without any further classification (see also "inc", "pr", and "rit" with all their sub categories). | |
| rel - colophon | religious text with (at least one line of) a colophon. | |
| rel ? - commentary | commentary to a religious text (just 1 text). | |
| rel - copy | copy of a religious text. | |
| rel pr | prayer (see also "pr"). | |
| report; | reports on other subjects than the below mentioned or reports with not yet identified content. | |
| report astr | reports on celestial phenomena. | |
| report astr - date | report on celestial phenomena that is dated according to the year of a king's reign. | |
| report astr - Assyrian colophon | report on celestial phenomena that is dated by an Assyrian scribe. | |
| report extispicy | reports on extispicy describing the omens of the liver. | |
| report extispicy - Assyrian colophon | reports on liver omens that are dated (and sort of signed) by Assyrian scribes. | |
| report extispicy - date | report on liver omens that is dated according to an eponym. | |
| report hem | report with or excerpt of a hemerology. | |
| report omens | report on not yet classified omens (just 1 text). | |
| report terr | report referring to omens from the terrestrial omen series s'umma a¯lu ina me¯lê s'akin. | |
| rit; (- colophon) | ritual that is not identified. | |
| rit - colophon | ritual that is identified by the colophon of the text. | |
| rit inc | ritual and incantation, e.g. against bad dreams or namburbi, maqlû, S'À.ZI.GA, Lamas'tu-ritual; .and so on. | |
| rit inc - birth omens | a ritual with incantation for an izbu. | |
| rit inc - copy | ritual and incantation; texts has been copied (see e.g. he-pí) from another tablet. | |
| rit inc - colophon | ritual and incantation; tablet has (at least one line of) a colophon. | |
| rit inc - list of inc | text with a list of incantations' incipits on obverse. and ritual instructions on rev. | |
| rit inc - medical text (- colophon) | medical texts with ritual and incantation. | |
| rit inc pr (- copy) | ritual with incantation and prayer, e.g. mi¯s pî. | |
| rit inc - terr omens | ritual and incantation referring to an event that happened on earth like those of the terrestrial omen series s'umma a¯lu ina me¯lê s'akin. | |
| rit - medical text | medical text with description of the ritual. | |
| rit pr | ritual and prayer (see also "rit inc"). | |
| rit - royal | royal ritual (according to Lambert). | |
| SA.GIG | diagnostic and prognostic series SA.GIG. | |
| Sammeltafel : omens - ... | Sammeltafel with omens and epigraphs for sculptures. | |
| school tablet | school tablets. | |
| star names (list ?) | text with the names of stars; this text could as well belong to the astrological (see "astr omens" or "astrological") or astronomical texts (see "astronomical"), or to an incantation (see "inc;" and "rit inc") or prayer (see "pr" or "rit pr"). | |
| Sum. | not identified or even classified Sumerian text. | |
| Sum hymn | according to Bezold (just 1 text). | |
| Sum inc | Sumerian incantation. | |
| Sum inc pr | Sumerian s'uilla and ers'ahunga compositions. | |
| Sum hymn inc: lugal-e | see Old Babylonian. | |
| Sum pr | Sumerian balag compositions. | |
| Sum rel | religious texts written in Sumerian. | |
| temple adm. | texts from the temple administration (see also "adm" and "list- adm"). | |
| terr omens | omens from the terrestrial omen series s'umma a¯lu ina me¯lê s'akin and related omen texts. | |
| terr omens - colophon | omens from the terrestrial omen series s'umma a¯lu ina me¯lê s'akin with (at least one line of) a colophon. | |
| terr omens - iqqur ipus' | text of the omen series iqqur i¯pus' with omens referring to terrestrial events. | |
This field includes the bibliographical reference for the text referring to its publication in copy or photo (in this case "photo" is added in round brackets).
The following description of the method of citation refers to the field "Translation" as well.
In this field the bibliography of the text in question referring to transliteration and / or translation is given; the references include the pages of comments to the text, as well. References to the (content of the) text without transliteration or translation are marked by "cf.". The references are given in chronological order.
For the method of citation see the description for the field "Publication".
If the text in question is a "literary" or "library" text, the first entry in this field is the identification or classification of the composition of the text, followed by a short description of the text or fragment, like the shape (missing parts of the tablet or, in case of a fragment, its position on the tablet with reference to the preserved edges, etc.), the colour (differentiating the core and the slip), size of the script (coarse, large, tiny), preserved lines ("+" between numbers of lines refers to a dividing line; ".." refers to the unknown number of missing lines; even the slightest indication of a line is taken into account). In the entries for the legal documents (e.g. letters, reports, oracle enquiries, contracts, etc.), in general, the description of the fragmentary tablet is added in round brackets after the statement "fragmentary".
In some cases, a transliteration of one or a few lines is added, for later identification of the texts. in the transliteration "*" replaces the half square bracket. For the signs replacing the diacritic sign see above.
Notes and remarks by scholars are added at the end of the field, introduced by the sign "->" for easier identification within the field.
The information on the find spots of the fragments is taken from the British Museum's database "Merlin", the Catalogues of the Kouyunjik Collection, and, mostly, from the article on "Ninive (Nineveh)" written by Julian Reade for the Reallexikon der Assyriologie (RlA 9, 1998-2001, 388b-433a, esp. 421-427).
Jeanette C. Fincke, October 2003
[1] See K. Bezold, Catalogue of the Kouyunjik Collection Vol. I - V, London 1889 - 1899, as well as the three supplementary volumes by L.W. King (1914), W.G. Lambert & A.R. Millard (1968), and W.G. Lambert (1992), and E. Leichty, Catalogue of the Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum Volume VI: Tablets from Sippar 1, London 1986 (with an introduction by J.E. Reade). See further e.g. G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, London 1875; H. Rassam, Asshur and the Land of Nimrod, New York • Cincinnati 1897; S. Parpola "The Royal Archives of Nineveh" in: K. Veenhof (ed.), Cuneiform Archives and Libraries, CRRAI 30 (PIHANS LVII), Leiden 1986, 223 - 236; J.E. Reade, "Ninive (Nineveh)", RlA 9, Berlin • New York 1998 - 2001, 388b - 433b. Of course, the BM database "Merlin" (not yet available on the web) is another very important source of information.