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Statements of Time-Spans by Babylonian and Assyrian Kings and Mesopotamian Chronology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Nadav Na’Aman
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Extract

The statements of time-spans (Distanzangaben) were thoroughly investigated by scholars discussing the problem of Mesopotamian chronology in the second millennium B.C., and were recently the subject of a detailed article. Some of these statements are no more than approximate estimates (e.g. all the statements of time-spans in Nabonidus' inscriptions) and are of no help for the establishment of an exact chronological scheme. Other statements reflect the efforts of the scribes to base their calculations on available data, thus becoming an important source for the study of chronology.

The publication of the Assyrian King-Lists (henceforth AKL) accelerated the investigation and understanding of the statements of Distanzangaben of the Assyrian kings. Poebel, who believed that the AKL supplies all the necessary data for the establishment of an exact Assyrian chronology, tried to fit the statements of time-spans into his kinglists-based chronological scheme. Soon afterwards, Weidner took the same line of enquiry. Later on, Landsberger demonstrated that there is a major chronological gap in the tradition of the AKL following the reign of Išme-Dagan (son of Šamši-Addu I) and that it is impossible to establish an exact chronological scheme just by combining all the available numbers of regnal years. Landsberger proposed that in the time of the Middle Assyrian kingdom there had still existed an “ungekurzte Rezension der Königliste”, and that this recension had served as basis for the calculations of time-spans by Shalmaneser I and Tiglath-pileser I. By calculating these time-spans backwards he tried to overcome the gaps existing in the tradition of the AKL in its present form, and this approach was accepted by subsequent scholars.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1984 , pp. 115 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1984

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References

1 Hachmann, R., “Assyrische Abstandsdaten und Absolute Chronologie”, ZDPV 93 (1977), 97–130Google Scholar, with further bibliography. Cf. Na'aman, N., “Hebron was Built Seven Years before Zoan in Egypt”, VT 31 (1981), 489Google Scholar.

2 Langdon, S., Die Neubabylonischen Königsinschrift (Leipzig 1912), 226: 57–58Google Scholar; 228; 27–28; 238: 20–22; 244: 4–7; cf. Schmidtke, F., “Die Fehldatierung Naramsin durch Nabonid”, WdO 1 (1947), 51–56Google Scholar; Rowton, M. B., “The Date of Hammurabi”, JNES 17 (1958), 109Google Scholar.

3 Poebel, A., “The Assyrian King List from Khorsabad”, JNES 1 (1942), 290–306Google Scholar.

4 Weidner, E. F., “Bemerkungen zur Königsliste aus Chorsabad”, AfO 15 (1945–1951), 87–95Google Scholar.

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8 For the date of the five currently published examples of the AKL, see Brinkman, J. A., “Comments on the Nassouhi Kinglist and the Assyrian Kinglist Tradition”, Orientalia 42 (1973), 314 fGoogle Scholar.

9 Röllig, W., “Zur Typologie und Entstehung der babylonischen und assyrischen Königslisten”, Festschrift für W. von Soden (AOAT 1, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1969), 275Google Scholar.

10 Landsberger, , JCS 8, 110Google Scholar; Rowton, M. B., “Ṭuppu in the Assyrian King-Lists”, JNES 18 (1959), 220 f.Google Scholar; Röllig, ibid.

11 Landsberger, ibid., 111; Röllig, ibid., 275 f.; Larsen, M. T., The Old Assyrian City-State and its Colonies (Mesopotamia 4; Copenhagen, 1976). 209 f. 223Google Scholar.

12 For a good example of the use of the Distanzangaben for the clarification of the AKL's data, see Boese, J. and Wilhelm, G., “Assur-dān I, Ninurtaapil-ekur und die Mittelassyrische Chronologie”, WZKM 71 (1979), 19–38Google Scholar.

13 Borger, R., Einleitung in die assyrischen Königsinschriften, I (Handbuch der Orientalistik; Leiden, 1961), 105Google Scholar.

14 Boese, and Wilhelm, , WZKM 71, 29–33Google Scholar; cf. Rowton, M. B., “The Material from Western Asia and the Chronology of the Nineteenth Dynasty”, JNES 25 (1966), 254 fGoogle Scholar.

15 Boese and Wilhelm (ibid., 26–29) left the tenure of reign of Ninurta-apil-ekur and Aššur-dan I undecided. However, according to the earliest chronological testimony so far preserved—the time-span statement of Tiglath-pileser I (Boese and Wilhelm, ibid., 24 f; see below)—Aššur-dan I reigned for 36 years only. It should also be noted tnat the exchange of the number 3 into 13 is highly improbable graphically. If one has to decide between the reign tenures of 13 + 36 or 3 + 46 for kings Ninurta-apil-ekur and Assur-dan I respectively, the first possibility seems to be the more likely.

16 Weidner, , AfO 15, 93 fGoogle Scholar; Hachmann, , ZDPV 93, 118 fGoogle Scholar.

17 Boese, and Wilhelm, , WZKM 71, 23–26Google Scholar.

18 The revised chronological tablet published by Boese and Wilhelm (ibid., 38) was taken as a basis for this dating. One single year was assigned to the six ṭuppišu kings nos. 42–47. Since the dates of Šamši-Addu I as computed by Esarhaddon's scribe are ten years higher than those calculated by the scribe of Tiglath-pileser I (see below) it was assumed that the latter has had before him a copy of the AKL where 14 years were assigned to Puzur-Aššur III (no. 61) while the former's copy of the AKL assigned Puzur-Aššur 24 years of reign (see Brinkman, , Orientalia 42, 311, 313Google Scholar). In the total of 1718 years computed above Puzur-Aššur III was assigned 14 years of reign (cf. note 21 below).

19 Boese, and Wilhelm, , WZKM 71, 33–35Google Scholar.

20 Landsberger, , JCS 8, 40 fGoogle Scholar.

21 In the total of 1728 years Puzur-Aššur III was assigned 24 years of reign (see note 18 above).

22 See Landsberger, , JCS 8, 40 n. 50Google Scholar; Rowton, , JNES 17, 102 fGoogle Scholar.

23 Boese, and Wilhelm, , WZKM 71, 30Google Scholar.

24 Rowton, , JNES 17, 109Google Scholar; cf. Brinkman, , A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia (An. Or. 43; Rome, 1968), 83 fGoogle Scholar.

25 Thureau-Dangin, F., “La chronologie des trois premières dynasties babyloniennes”, RA 24 (1927), 186Google Scholar; Poebel, A., The Second Dynasty of Isin according to a Mew Kinglist Tablet (AS 15; Chicago, 1955), 30 n. 15Google Scholar; Brinkman, ibid., 83 f.

26 By assigning 120 years to the Sealand Dynasty I am following the commonly held view, assuming that Gulkišar's 55 years were not included within the time-span of the 696 years. Admittedly, this is contrary to most of the computations of the Distanzangaben by the Assyrian kings (apart from Shalmaneser I). But I can offer no chronological solution for a time-span of 696 years, which is based on the 175 years of the last six kings of the Sealand Dynasty, including the 55 years of Gulkišar.

27 Brinkman, J. A., Materials and Studies for Kassite History, I (Chicago, 1976)Google Scholar. In the light of the article of Boese and Wilhelm (note 12 above) all Kassites dates should be lowered by ten years (Brinkman, ibid., 32 n. 89; cf. his chronological chart on p. 31).

28 Brinkman, ibid., 27 f.

29 The reduction of the 576 years assigned to the Kassite Dynasty in the BKL by 60 years had already been proposed by Albright, (“A Revolution in the Chronology of Ancient Western Asia”, BASOR 69 (1938), 19Google Scholar; “New Light on the History of Western Asia in the Second Millennium B.C.”, BASOR 77 (1940), 28)Google Scholar, though without any supporting arguments (see Landsberger, , JCS 8, 65 n. 161Google Scholar).

30 Reiner, E. and Pingree, D., The Venus Tablet of Ammiṣaduqa (Bibliotheca Mesopotamica II/1; Malibu, 1975), 21Google Scholar.

31 Goetze, A., “On the Chronology of the Second Millennium B.C.”, JCS 11 (1957), 65 f.Google Scholar, with further bibliography in note 126; Borger, R., “Gott Marduk und Gott-König Šulgi als Propheten. Zwei prophetische Texte”, BiOr 28 (1971), 5, 16, 21Google Scholar.

32 Brinkman, op. cit. (above, n. 27), 10 f., 95.

33 Brinkman, ibid., 11, 129, 327.

34 Weidner, E. F., “Die grosse Königsliste aus Assur”, AfO 3 (1926), 67 fGoogle Scholar.

35 Brinkman, ibid., 11, 13, 98.

36 Landsberger, B., “Das gute Wort”, MAOG 4 (1928/1929), 312Google Scholar; idem, JCS 8 (1954), 67; Gelb, I.J., “The Date of the Cuneiform Monument of Maništušu”, JNES 8 (1949), 348 n. 12Google Scholar; Grayson, A. K., “Assyrian and Babylonian King Lists. Collations and Comments”, Festschrift für W. von Soden (AOAT i; Neukirchen—Vluyn, 1969), 108Google Scholar.

37 See Brinkman, ibid., 9 f.

38 Rowton, , JNES 17, 100 f.Google Scholar; idem, “Chronology. Ancient Western Asia”, CAH I/1 (3 ed., Cambridge 1970), 207. See however, Brinkman, ibid., 27 n. 77, 30 f. n. 87, with further bibliography.

39 Išme-Dagan held the throne of Ekallatum for many years during the days of his father, Šamši-Addu I, and the 40 years period assigned to him in the AKL seems to be too long (for the presumed higher number of 50 years in one of the late copies, see Grayson, op. cit. (above, n. 36), 109 n. 15). Unless there occurred a mistake in the tradition of the AKL (Landsberger, , JCS 8, 110Google Scholar) or even an overlap in the counting of both father's and son's regnal years, the high number of 40 years may be explained by assuming that the scribe had assigned to Išme-Dagan the throne tenure of his heirs.

40 I am grateful to Prof. H. Tadmor, who read this article in manuscript and made numerous useful suggestions throughout.