This database comprises four fields:
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.
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. | |
| 73-7-22 | arrived at the BM on 22. July 1879; excavated by G. Smith in May - June 1873 (?). | |
| 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). | |
| 1901-10-12 | arrived at the BM on 12. October 1901; no. 89 is from Nineveh; purchased. | |
| 1909-2-13 | arrived at the BM on 13. February 1909; no. 1 is from Nineveh; purchased. | |
| 1909-3-13 | arrived at the BM on 13. March 1909; no 1 is from Nineveh; purchased. | |
| 1910-10-8 | arrived at the BM on 8. October 1910; nos. 142-148 are from Nineveh; purchased. | |
| 1912-5-13 | arrived at the BM on 13. May 1912; no. 2 is from Nineveh; purchased. | |
| 1913-4-16 | arrived at the BM on 16. April 1913; nos. 147-160E are from Nineveh; purchased. | |
| 1930-5-8 | arrived at the BM on 8. May 1930; nos. 47-90 = BM 134774 - BM 134810; purchased. | |
| 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). |
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 this field, the number of the join's lowest registration number is given. A physical join is referred to as "joined to ..."; a non-physical join is indicated by "joined (+) to ...".
Here, the script of the fragments is given according to the following abbreviations:
| Aramaic | |
| Elamite | |
| OB | Old Babylonian |
| MA | Middle Assyrian |
| NA | Neo-Assyrian |
| NB | Neo-Babylonian |
This section gives the registration numbers of the joined fragments followed by the name of the scholar, who made the join, and the date of registration at the BM in round brackets.
| - | The date of the join is given by "dd/mm/yyyy" (d =day; m = month; y =year). Whenever the day is unknown the date is given as: "--/mm/yyy". |
| - | If one text consists of several fragments this section tries to reconstruct the history of the joins, first, listing, the oldest join and adding later joins in the sequence of dates. A semicolon after one reference indicates that these joined fragments form a group that is joined to another group of joined fragments later. Later, these groups are cited in brackets with the lowest registration number followed by a plus sign, e.g. "(K. 02025+...) + K. 05012". |
| - | In general, the complete reference is given in the field of the lowest registration number (the order is: K., Sm., DT., Rm., Rm.II, 82-5-22, 82-9-18, 83-1-18, ...,Th. 1905-4-9, BM). The reference in the other fields refers to the given number in relation to the lowest number, only. |
In general, the file-cards of the BM ANE department, and the British Museum's database "Merlin" serve as basis for this field. Additional information were taken from the following sources:
There are BM join-books for the following years:
As for the joins made before 1895, in each volume of Bezold's Catalogue there is a list of joins made since the previous volume had been published (Vol. II: joins between 1889-1891 for K. 00001- K. 02191, joins made in 1891 for numbers K. 02192- K. 08162; Vol. III: joins between 1891-1893; Vol. IV: joins between 1893-1896 - because of the overlap with the first join-book these joins must have been made between 1893-1894); these lists are given in one of the first pages of the volumes without naming the scholar who made the join. In addition, the overview on joins given on pp. 265-285 of the (First) Supplement to Bezold Catalogues, published 1914 by L. W. King, is vital to check the completeness of the Department's join-book for joins made between 1896-1914.
For the joins made between February 1935 and October 1978 the situation is more difficult:
| - | First of all, the publication of the joined fragments give a terminus ante quem. |
| - | There are records to joins on the file-cards of the BM ANE Department, in most cases; in some cases the joining number is just given without reference to the date or the scholar who made the join. More often, these file-card records give the name of the scholar who made the join and refer to the month and the year (not to the day). |
| - | The "List of Fragments Rejoined in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum", published in 1960, gives the joins made between 1915 and 1960 without reference to the exact date or the scholar who made the join. Because of the overlap with the join-books the new joins of this list must have been made between 1935-1960. |
| - | The joins made after 1960 are recorded by the staff of the BM ANE Department in an interleaved copy of the "List of Fragments Rejoined in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum" without reference to the exact date or the scholar who made the join. |
| - | R. Borger published a list of tablet-numbers with joins and bibliography in his HKL II, 1975, 332-295. This list updates Leichty's Bibliography (1960) and Lambert & Millard's Catalogue ... Second Suppl. (1968) until 1975. Borger does not give the exact date when the join had been made nor the name of the scholar in question, except for his own joins. Otherwise not recorded joins must have been made between 1968-1972. |
| - | The ANE-department owns lists of new joins for each year from 1973 until 1983 made by Mr. C. A. Bateman. In general, these lists are organised according to the sequence of the date (except for the years 1980-1982) but only give the name of the scholar who made the join. The largest part of the joins made between 1973 and 1978 has also been recorded in the department's file-cards (here, with given date according to month and year); this helps to trace out the month of the remaining joins, in most cases. For the joins made during the period October 1978 until 1883 there is an overlap with one of the department's join-books. |
| - | R. Borger published a list of joins made between October 1974 and 31. December 1975 in AfO 25 (1974-1977) 411 - 431. Bateman's join lists (see above) cover this period of time. |
| - | R. Borger, AfO 31 (1984) 331 - 33, published a list of joins made between 1982-1983 with some joins made in 1984, as well. The department's join-book no. 2 covers this period of time. |
| - | If neither the date of the registration of the join nor the scholar in question is known or can be traced out by comparison with the other joins of the tablet in question or the publication, this join is referred to as having been made between February 1961 and 1967 - assuming that the published lists recorded ALL of the joins and did not forget any, which, unfortunately, is not true in every case. |
Additionally, data for the joins made between May 2004 and July 2005 were taken from the books of the BM conservation department.
Jeanette C. Fincke, February 2006
Additional data for the joins made after February 2006 were taken from the department's join-books.
Jeanette C. Fincke, February 2008
[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.