Peter Hulin's Hand Copies of Shalmaneser III's Inscriptions

Abstract

The late Peter Hulin devoted much of his scholarly life to the study of the inscriptions of Shalmaneser III, king of Assyria (859–824 BC). He copied and studied a number of texts of this monarch excavated at Nimrud. Among them, the inscriptions on the throne base (ND 11000) were published in 1963. Unfortunately, however, his death in 1993 prevented him from publishing the further fruits of his effort. After Hulin's death his file of Shalmaneser III texts was placed at the disposal of Professor A. K. Grayson for use in his third volume of the series Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Periods: Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC II (858–745 BC), Toronto, 1996 (RIMA 3). Thus Hulin's study of several new texts from Nimrud, as well as some others, was effectively utilized and incorporated in RIMA 3, with full respect being paid to his contribution. The purpose of this paper is to supplement RIMA 3 by publishing Hulin's hand copies of Shalmaneser texts found among his papers in a publishable state, together with several photographs, and to add some philological notes on them. Among Hulin's copies, those of the lengthy texts on the large stone tablet ND 6237 (below, No. 1) and on the broken statue N D 5500 (below, No. 2) are of primary importance. These texts were originally assigned to Hulin by Professors M. E. L. Mallowan and D. J. Wiseman for publication in the journal Iraq. His copies were entrusted to Dr Jeremy Black of the Oriental Institute, Oxford University, by Mrs Mary Hulin and are gratefully used in this publication by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq.