After an interval of eleven years, here is the book that completes the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia's project to publish the formal inscriptions of south Mesopotamian rulers of the third and early second millennia bc (RIME). Douglas Frayne has played the leading role as the editor of four of the five volumes of “early periods”: RIME 4 (1990), 2 (1993), 3/2 (1997) and now RIME 1. Collected within the customary blue boards are the votive and building inscriptions of rulers and officials who flourished during the middle of the third millennium bc. These are the oldest such documents in human history, and present a picture of the evolution of the genre of formal, commemorative inscriptions from very simple labels comprising a single phrase to highly complex texts of many dozens of lines.
Frayne's newest contribution to the RIME series competes in the market place with the German edition of third-millennium formal inscriptions by Horst Steible, Die altsumerische Bau- und Weihinschriften (2 vols, Stuttgart, 1982) and a less comprehensive anthology of English translations by Jerrold S. Cooper, Sumerian and Akkadian Royal Inscriptions: Presargonic Inscriptions (New Haven, 1986). I. J. Gelb and B. Kienast's Die altakkadische Königsinschriften des dritten Jahrtausends vor Chr. (Stuttgart, 1990) mostly comprises Sargonic inscriptions, dealt with in RIME 2, but also includes a few older texts that therefore feature in RIME 1. It is a feature of Assyriology that new primary sources are continually becoming available and it is thus inevitable that books published twenty years ago have been overtaken by recent discoveries. This review flags up what Frayne includes that was not treated in any of the three volumes cited above.
The largest corpus of pre-Sargonic inscriptions comes from Girsu and neighbouring sites, where late nineteenth-century excavations laid bare the remains of third-millennium buildings built by rulers of Lagaš. The written legacy of this dynasty occupies a large part of the book (pp. 77–291). A few scraps have been added to the corpus in the last quarter century: E1.9.1.30b is a short brick inscription of Ur-Nanše of Lagaš published in 1984. E1.9.3.18, on an alabaster fragment in the Louvre, is a hitherto unpublished text including royal titulary of Eannatum of Lagaš. E1.9.5.30 is a cone-fragment of Enmetena published in 1984. E1.9.10.2 is the remains of the titulary of a ruler of Lagaš preserved on a piece of alabaster bowl, previously published in 1991.
The excavations led by Leonard Woolley at Ur in the 1920s and ’30s produced a good many third-millennium inscriptions, but some minor texts have escaped inclusion in previous anthologies. Four cylinder seals found in the celebrated royal tombs and first published in 1934 are identified as the property of members of the royal family of Ur, and thus their inscriptions take a place in the book as texts E1.13.1 (A-anzu), E1.13.2.1001 (Gankugsig), E1.13.3.1 (king Meskalamdug), E1.13.3.3 (Pū-abum), E1.13.4 (Ašusikilam, wife of Akalamdug). Two spearheads, one inscribed with a short dedication of Meskalamdug, were also found at Ur but published only in 1994, and accompany his seal as E1.13.3.2. Texts E1.13.5.2–4 are labels of king Mesannepadda and his queen, Nintur, inscribed on seals from disturbed contexts near the royal tombs. A bowl bearing the label of Nintur is considered to belong to the same lady, although it was found in the grave of Meskalamdug (E1.13.5.4 ex. 1). As explained on p. 401, many scholars doubt that this Meskalamdug is the same person as king Meskalamdug.
From sites other than Lagaš-Girsu and Ur there is less to report. Text E1.7.43, incised on a stone fragment from Khafaje, has been known since its excavation in the 1930s but in its very damaged state escaped edition until 1991. E1.8.3.2 is an Akkadian text inscribed on a statue fragment from Nippur that was first transliterated in 1977 but is nevertheless absent from RIME 1's competitors. A limestone disk from Nippur, long kept in the University Museum, Philadelphia, but overlooked until 1991, bears a dedication of Lugalkiginnedudu of Uruk (E1.14.14.3b). A stone foundation peg from Uruk, kept for almost as long in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin and much discussed in the art-historical literature, seems to have escaped a philological treatment until now; its inscription, a dedication by Lugal-KISAL-si, is E1.14.15.2. Finally, texts E1.10.15 and E1.10.17.2–3 derive from the unpublished impressions of royal seals found at Mari in 2000.
The new material reported in the preceding paragraphs is rather a modest haul for the passage of more than two decades. But certainly the process of accretion will continue. The Schøyen Collection is known to hold many unpublished third-millennium inscriptions, some of them new to knowledge, others duplicates of known inscriptions. One piece, a cone fragment of Giššakidu of Umma, is already included in the present book (E1.12.6 ex. 3).
An innovation of this book is the inclusion under kings of Mari of narrative passages of the well-known letter sent by Enna-Dagan of Mari to the ruler of Ebla, first published in 1980 and definitively edited in 2003; these passages are not royal inscriptions of kings of Mari but short reports of military events embedded in a later review of historical relations between Mari and Ebla. One desideratum noted by reviewers of previous volumes is here supplied: an index of divine, personal and geographical names. This will be a substantial aid to the book's users. Another departure from the usual RIME style of presentation is the occasional extended passage of commentary, for example on Urukagina's reform inscription (pp. 249–58). There is much in Frayne's commentaries for scholars to assimilate, a process that can only deepen understanding and refine current knowledge.
The RIME volumes are standard resources in Assyriology and ancient history. Douglas Frayne deserves both fields’ gratitude for bringing to completion the volumes on the early periods. It was a blow when the project in Toronto closed for want of funds; its revival in Philadelphia is splendid news and we look forward to the continuing appearance of these big blue books.
