Tiglath-pileser's Annalistic Text
Artifact: Clay prism
Provenience: Assur
Period: Middle Assyrian (ca. 1400-1000 BC)
Current location: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin
Text genre, language: Royal/Monumental; Akkadian
CDLI page
Description: In the early days of the decipherment of cuneiform specific texts were chosen to proof proposed readings. This annalistic text from the reign of the Middle Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser I. is but one manuscript among many. The text served the Royal Asiatic Society as test case for the successful decipherment of Babylonian-Assyrian cuneiform. The manuscript in Berlin is one of the few well-preserved octagonal prisms with this particular composition that contains besides an extensive titulature of the king a minute description of his campaigns. (Klaus Wagensonner, University of Oxford)
Editions: Grayson, A.K. 1991. The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia. Assyrian Period, 2: Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC I (1114-859 BC), Toronto, p. 7ff.
