The Royal Inscriptions of Amēl-Marduk (561–560 BC), Neriglissar (559–556 BC), and Nabonidus (555–539 BC), Kings of Babylon

Abstract

With this volume of The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian Empire publication series (RINBE 2), Frauke Weiershäuser and Jamie Novotny present the complete corpus of known inscriptions of the kings Amēl-Marduk, Neriglissar, and Nabonidus. Through the series' clear structure and inclusion of metadata, RINBE sets the publishing standard for the modern presentation of such ancient inscriptions and, therefore, is an invaluable scholarly resource.A considerable number of examples of Akkadian inscriptions of these three Babylonian kings are preserved on clay tablets and other inscribed objects (especially mud bricks and barrel-shaped clay cylinders) found during the excavations by Robert Koldewey from 1899 to 1917 in Babylon. The numerous artifacts from the Babylon excavations were divided between Germany and the Ottoman Empire. The share of the finds from Babylon allocated to Germany, including close to 5,000 inscribed objects, is now kept in the collections of the Vorderasiatisches Museum SMB SPK in Berlin. Many text archives from Babylon have previously been collated and published, but a full and comprehensive study of the Babylon collections in Berlin is still on-going. In this regard, the Vorderasiatisches Museum acknowledges and highly welcomes the work that has made the present volume (RINBE 2) possible. This study helps place the Babylon collections in Berlin into a wider historical and cultural context, as well as offers new perspectives of and interconnections between this rich source material. The book also highlights some of the special objects in Berlin that were discovered during Koldewey's excavations. For example, clay cylinder VA Bab 2971 (Nabonidus 2 ex. 1) is an exquisitely-inscribed object that records Nabonidus' rebuilding of the temple of the goddess Ištar; that cylinder is the only complete copy of that text. Therefore, the Vorderasiatisches Museum would like to express its sincere gratitude to the authors of this book for their diligent and careful work.The Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin, as one of the many research institutions united under the umbrella of the Staatliche Museen Berlin -Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, represents a unique archive of world knowledge and, thus, making these archives available to scholars is one of the museum's most important tasks. This has successfully happened here, with the publication of the present book, and the start of the RINBE series marks a promising step towards further research collaboration between the Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative (MOCCI) and the Vorderasiatisches Museum.

An archaeomagnetic study of the Ishtar Gate, Babylon

“…The Ishtar Gate was constructed by order of King Nebuchadnezzar II (605 to 562 BCE), who claimed to have decorated the Ishtar Gate "with baked bricks (colored with) shining blue glaze that have (representations of) wild bulls (and) mus ˇhus ˇs ˇu-dragon(s) fashioned upon them" [30]. The excavated remains of the gate complex reveal that he had the Ishtar Gate built several times during his reign.…”

“…The various rebuilding projects are basically related to the new construction of the city fortifications and the remodeling of the adjacent palace area under Nebuchadnezzar II. In the process, the street level had to be significantly raised several times, which resulted in the gate having to be adapted as well, as the passage would otherwise have become too low, according to Nebuchadnezzar's II inscription (p 160-178 in [28], p 71-80 in PLOS ONE [29,30]). Due to their poor state of preservation, dating the individual construction phases of the Ishtar Gate is very difficult.…”

A Cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar II from Uruk in the Collection of David and Cindy Sofer, London, Displayed in the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem

“…This passage is also included in C34 ii 50-55. Ištar's return is also recorded in Nabonidus 3 iii 11´-39´ (Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020).12 For example, see Nabonidus 3 iii 11´-29´(Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020), which states: "(As for) the goddess Ištar of Uruk, the exalted princess who resides in an inner sanctum (which is clad) in gold, who harnesses seven lions, whose purification rites the people of Uruk had overturned, whose inner sanctum they had removed, and whose yoked team they had dismantled during the reign of the king Erība-Marduk, who in anger had gone out from Eanna and who had dwelt (in a place) that was not her residence, (and) in whose shrine they had made a protective goddess who did not befit Eanna dwell. "…”