Synchronistic chronicle (ABC 21)
Synchronistic Chronicle
(British Museum, London)
For a very brief introduction to the literary genre of chronicles, go here. The translation on this webpage was adapted from A.K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (1975) and Jean-Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles (Atlanta, 2004).
The text, which has a strong pro-Assyrian bias, is preserved on three tablets from the library of king Aššurbanipal in Nineveh, and purports to render the text of a boundary stone between Assyria and Babylonia that stood somewhere on the east bank of the Tigris. This may be a literary fiction.
The text must have been composed after the accession
of Adad-nirari III in 810, but not much later, because there are
no references to later troubles.
Colors
Of the three tablets, tablet A (yellow) is the main text; B (pink) and C (blue) are fragments.Translation of Column 1
| B1 [...] for the god Aššur |
| B2 [...] his utterance |
| B3 [...] settlements |
| B4 [...] Meli-Šipak[?] |
| B5 [...] forever |
| B6 [...] he makes known the word |
| B7 [...] praise of strength |
| B8 [...] when he ruled all |
| B9 [...] former kings |
| B10 [...] they were seized |
| B11 [...] fall |
| Lacuna |
| A1' Karaindaš, king of Karduniaš [1] |
| A2' and Aššur-bêl-nišešu, king of Assyria, |
| A3' made a treaty[2] between them |
| A4' and took an oath together concerning this very boundary. |
|
|
| A5' Puzur-aššur, king of Assyria, and Burnaburiaš, |
| A6' king of Karduniaš, took an oath and |
| A7' fixed this very boundary-line. |
|
|
| A8' In the time of Aššur-uballit,[2] king of Assyria, Kassite troops[10] |
| A11' rebelled against and killed Karahardaš,[8] |
| A9' king of Karduniaš, son of Muballit-šerua, |
| A10' the daughter of Aššur-uballit. |
| A12' They appointed Nazibugaš,[11] a Kassite, son of a nobody, as sovereign over them. |
|
|
| A13' To avenge Karaindaš, his grandson,[14] Aššur-uballit |
| A14' marched to Karduniaš. |
| A15' He killed Nazibugaš, king of Karduniaš. |
| A16' Kurigalzu the Younger, son of Burnaburiaš, |
| A17' he appointed as king and put him on his father's throne.[3] |
|
|
| A18' In the time of Enlil-nirari,[4] king of Assyria, Kurigalzu the Younger, was king of Karduniaš. |
| A19' At Sugagi, which is on the Tigris, Enlil-nirari, king of Assyria, |
| A20' fought with Kurigalzu. He brought about his total defeat, slaughtered his troops and |
| A21' carried off his camp. They divided the districts[22] from Šasili of Subartu, |
| A22' to Karduniaš into two and |
| A23' fixed the boundary-line. |
|
|
| C24' Adad-nirari, king of Assyria, and Nazi-Marrutaš, king of Karduniaš,[5] |
| C25' fought with one another at Kar-Ištar of Ugarsallu. |
| C26' Adad-nirari brought about the total defeat of Nazi-Marrutaš and |
| C27' conquered him. He took away from him his camp and his standards. |
| C28' As for this very boundary-line, they fixed a division of[31] |
| C29' their confines from Pilasqu, |
| C30' which is on the other side of the Tigris, and Arman of Ugarsallu |
| C31' as far as Lullume. |
Babylonian Chronicles
A. Green, Gods, demons and
symbols of ancient
Mesopotamia, 1992; ©!!!)
Translation of Column 2
| Lacuna |
| C1'* [Tukulti-Ninurta, king of Assyria, and] Kaštiliašu, king of Karduniaš [6] |
| C2'* [...] in open battle. |
| Lacuna |
| B1' his servants, he made [...] |
| B2' to Mount Kullar [...] |
|
|
| B3' Enlil-kudurri-usur, king of Assyria, and Adad-šuma-usur, king of Karduniaš,[7] with another |
| B4' did battle. As Enlil-kudurri-usur and Adad-šuma-usur |
| B5' were engaged in battle, Ninurta-apil-ekur |
| B6' went home. He mustered his numerous troops and |
| B7' marched to conquer Libbi-ali (the city of Aššur). |
| B8' But [...] arrived unexpectedly, so he turned and went home. |
|
|
| B9' In the time of Zababa-šuma-iddina, king of Karduniaš, |
| B10' Aššur-dan, king of Assyria, went down to Karduniaš.[8] |
| B11' Zaban, Irriya, Ugarsallu and [...] |
| B12' he captured. He took their vast booty to Assyria. |
| Lacuna |
| A1' [...] together they made an entente cordiale. |
| A2' [...] he went home. After he had gone, Nebuchadnezzar [9] |
| A3' took his siege engines and Zanqi, a fortress in Assyria, |
| A4' he went to conquer. Aššur-reš-iši, king of Assyria, |
| A5' mustered his chariots to go against him. |
| A6' To prevent the siege engines being taken from him, Nebuchadnezzar burnt them. |
| A7' He turned and went home. |
| A8' This same Nebuchadnezzar with chariots and infantry, |
| A9' went to conquer Idi, a fortress[8] of Assyria. Assur-reš-iši |
| A10' sent chariots and infantry to help the fortress. |
| A11' He fought with Nebuchadnezzar, brought about his total defeat, slaughtered his troops and |
| A12' carried off his camp. Forty of his chariots with harness were taken away and |
| A13' Karaštu[?], Nebuchadnezzar's field-marshal, was captured. |
|
|
| A14' Tiglath-pileser I, king of Assyria, and Marduk-nadin-ahhe, king of Karduniaš.[10] |
| A15' Twice Tiglath-pileser drew up[16] a battle array of chariots, as many as were by the Lower Zab, |
| A16' opposite Ahizûhina, and |
| A17' in the second year he defeated Marduk-nadin-ahhe at Gurmarritu, which is upstream from Akkad. |
| A18' Dur-Kurigalzu, Sippar-ša-Šamaš |
| A19' Sippar-ša-Anunitu, |
| A20' Babylon, and Upû, the great urban centers, |
| A21' he captured together with their forts. |
| A22' At that time, Ugarsallu |
| A23' he plundered as far as Lubda. |
| A24' He ruled every part of Suhu as far as Rapiqu. |
|
|
| A25' In the time of Aššur-bêl-kala, king of Assyria, |
| A26' Marduk-šapik-zeri was the king of Karduniaš. |
| A27' An entente cordiale |
| A28' they together made. |
| A29' At the time of Aššur-bêl-kala, king of Assyria, |
| A30' Marduk-šapik-zeri, king of Karduniaš, passed away. |
| A31' Aššur-bêl-kala appointed Adad-apla-iddina, son of Esagil-šaduni, son of a nobody, |
| A32' as sovereign over the Babylonians. |
| A33' Aššur-bêl-kala, king of Assyria, |
| A34' married the daughter of Adad-apla-iddina, king of Karduniaš, and |
| A35' took her with a vast dowry to Assyria. |
| A36' The peoples of Assyria and Karduniaš |
| A37' were joined together. |
>> To columns 3 and 4 >>
The first seven lines of table A contain a serious chronological problem. King Aššur-Bêl-nišešu ruled from 1407 to 1399. Puzur-aššur, who ruled in c.1500, was the eighth king preceding him, and can therefore not be presented after Aššur-Bêl-nišešu. The other two kings were Kassites ruling in Babylonia.
Note 2:
King Aššur-uballit ruled from 1353 to 1318. The revolt of Nazibugaš
took place in 1323. The events that are described over here are also mentioned
in Chronicle
P (ABC 22), which offers different names.
Note 3:
Kurigalzu II ruled until 1298.
Note 4:
Enlil-nirari succeeded Aššur-uballit as king of Assyria in 1317 and
remained on the throne until 1308.
Note 5:
Adad-nirari I was king of Assyria from 1295 to 1264; Nazi-Marrutaš
was king Babylonia from 1297 to 1272.
Note 6:
Only the name Kaštiliašu (1222-1215) is legible. The name of his opponent
is a conjecture, and the identification with the fourth king called Kaštiliašu
is hypothetical.
Note 7:
Enlil-kudurri-usur was king of Assyria from 1186 to 1182; he was succeeded
by Ninurta-apil-ekur (1181-1179). Adad-šuma-usur was king of Babylonia
between 1206 and 1177.
Note 8:
Zababa-šuma-iddina briefly was king of Babylonia in 1158; Aššur-dan
ruled Assyria from 1178 to 1133.
Note 9:
The rule of Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylonia lasted from 1125 to 1104;
his Assyrian contemporary Aššur-reš-iši ruled from 1132 to 1114.
Note 10:
Tiglath-pileser I became king of Assyria in 1114 and ruled to 1176.
Marduk-nadin-ahhe was ruler of Babylonia from 1099 to 1082.
Note 11:
The Assyrian Aššur-bêl-kala's rule lasted from 1073 to 1056;
his contemporary Marduk-šapik-zeri became king of Babylonia in 1081 and
passed away in 1069.
Latest revision: 1 April 2006
Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles