Neo-assyrian Sources in Context ― Thematic Studies of Texts, History and Culture

Since the 1980s, projects such as the State Archives of Assyria have made great strides in the philological study of Neo-Assyrian inscriptional sources, producing text editions and hand-copies of administrative and legal texts, letters, religious and literary works, and royal and private commemorative inscriptions with a high standard of accuracy. And yet, nearly thirty years later, we are only beginning to scratch the surface of what these texts have to offer. This volume advances the mission of the State Archives of Assyria project by bringing together fourteen essays that analyze the cultural production of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

The essays in this collection, born out of a seminar held at the University of Tsukuba in 2014, combine the study of multiple and varied sources with examination of specific corpuses and genres. They comprise historical studies of textual and pictographic sources; comparative literary studies concerning specific terms, concepts, and ideologies; and examinations of philological or historical problems of royal inscriptions that have some connection to archaeology.

In addition to the editor, the contributors include Sebastian Fink, Grant Frame, Andreas Fuchs, Shuichi Hasegawa, Sanae Ito, Mikko Luukko, Raija Mattila, Jamie Novotny, Karen Radner, Saana Svärd, Greta Van Buylaere, Chikako E. Watanabe, and Silvie Zamazalová.

Shigeo Yamada is Professor of History at the University of Tsukuba, author of The Construction of the Assyrian Empire: A Historical Study of the Inscriptions of Shalmaneser III (859–824 BC) Relating to His Campaigns to the West, and coauthor of The Royal Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III (744–727 BC) and Shalmaneser V (726–722 BC), Kings of Assyria, the latter published by Eisenbrauns.