Dynastic Chronicle
8th century BC Mesopotamian text
The Dynastic Chronicle, "Chronicle 18" in Grayson's Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles or the "Babylonian Royal Chronicle" in Glassner’s Mesopotamian Chronicles, is a fragmentary ancient Mesopotamian text extant in at least four known copies. It is actually a bilingual text written in 6 columns, representing a continuation of the Sumerian king list tradition through to the 8th century BC and is an important source for the reconstruction of the historical narrative for certain periods poorly preserved elsewhere.
01The text
From the extant pieces, the work apparently begins with a list of nine antediluvian kings from five cities, so much resembling that of the Sumerian King List that Thorkild Jacobsen considered it a variant, and an account of the flood before proceeding on with that of the successive Babylonian dynasties. Due to the poor state of preservation of the center of the text, there are a great many gaps (lacunae, or lacunas), and the narrative resumes with the post-Kassite king Simbar-Šipak (c. 1025-1008 BC), the final discernible king being Erība-Marduk (c. 769-761 BC) although it certainly would have continued, possibly until Nabû-šuma-iškun (c. 761-748 BC), leading William W. Hallo to suggest it to be a composition during Nabû-nāṣir's reign (747-732 BC).
The text dwells on the final resting place of the kings, leading some to propose that the legitimacy of rule determined the location of the burial.
Reconstruction
The following collation should be considered preliminary as small fragments continue to be identified, where 1A, 1B and 1C probably come from the same tablet although they do not actually join and others, such as 79-7-8, 333+ (copy 2 below) have their identification disputed.
| Copy | Museum Reference | Find Spot |
|---|---|---|
| 1A | K. 11261 + K. 11624 + K. 12054[link removed] | Nineveh |
| 1B | K. 8532 +[link removed] K. 8533 + K. 8534 + K. 16801 + K. 16930 + ? K. 19528[link removed] | Nineveh |
| 1C | 81-7-27, 117 | Nineveh |
| 2 | 79-7-8, 333 and 339 (unpublished duplicate) | Nineveh |
| 3 | BM 35572=Sp. III, 80 | Babylon |
| 4 | BM 40565=80-11-12, 1088 | Babylon |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Dynastic Chronicle”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Dynastic Chronicle.jpg by L. W. King, Public domain
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