Sultantepe

The ancient temple-complex, perhaps of Huzirina, ["Huzirina" is indirectly attested in cuneiform tablets at the site, and in the annals of Tukulti-Ninurta II, but O. R. Gurney pointed out that Huzirina in the royal annals was situated not more than a day's march west of Nisibis, whereas Sultantepe is some 130 miles farther west (Gurney, in "Anatolian Studies" 2 p. 30f).] now represented by the tell of Sultantepe, is a Late Assyrian archeological site at the edge of the Neo-Assyrian empire, now in Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. Sultantepe is about 15km (9 mi) south of Urfa on the road to Harran. Excavations have revealed an Assyrian city, with eighth to seventh century levels that were rebuilt after ca 648 BCE, [Based on eponymous datings by "limmu" officials after the "Canon" that ends in 648 BCE. (Lloyd and Gokçe 1953:42).] containing a hoard of cuneiform tablets, including versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh and school texts including exercise tablets of literary compositions full of misspellings. The complete library of some 600 unfired clay tablets was found outside a priestly family house. Contracts also found at the site consistently record Aramaean names, J. J. Finkelstein has remarked [J. J. Finkelstein, "Assyrian Contracts from Sultantepe" "Anatolian Studies" 7 (1957:137-145) p. 138, notes that Tell Halaf records also consistently bear Aramaean names at this period.] The writings end suddenly simultaneously with the fall of nearby Harran in 610 BCE, two years after the fall of Nineveh. The tablets from Sultantepe now form the Assyrian library in the Archaeological Museum at Ankara. The site remained unoccupied during the subsequent Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid periods, to be lightly occupied by Hellenistic times. The modern village lies in an arc round the base of the mound on the north and east.

The site

Sultantepe is a steep-sided mound over 50 m. high, with a flat top measuring 100 by 50 m.. Erosion on one side had exposed giant basalt column-bases, apparently belonging to a monumental gateway, which established the Assyrian level, at which, on another face of the mound, massive wall-ends projected, standing on the same level, some 7 m. below the top surface of the mound. [The description of Sultantepe as it was in 1952 is Seton Lloyd's, in "Anatolian Studies" 24 (1974):197-220) p. 203.] . The temple was eventually identified as dedicated to Sin by a well-carved stele bearing his symbol of a crescent moon with its horns upwards on a pedestal in relief. [Illustrated in Seton Lloyd and Nurı Gokçe, "Sultantepe: Anglo-Turkish Joint Excavations, 1952" "Anatolian Studies" 3 (1953:27-47) p. 40 fig. 6.]

A brief preliminary campaign at Sultantepe in May-June 1951 was followed by a series of soundings made in 1952 by Seton Lloyd of the British Institute at Ankara with Nuri Gökçe, of the Archaeological Museum, Ankara. [Lloyd, in "Anatolian Studies" 24 (1974):197-220) p. 203.]

The Sultantepe Tablets

A series of publications of "The Sultantepe Tablets " have been edited and published in "Anatolian Studies" (British Institute at Ankara) from 1953 onwards by O. R. Gurney and others. The texts range widely. Some of the highlights are:
*A series of tablets record the eponyms, or "limmu" officials, whose names were used by the Assyrians for dating their years, and so provide support for the standard Assyrian chronology during the period 911—648 BCE in the "Eponym Canon".

*Forty lines of the Creation Epic, "Enuma Elish", which were missing from the texts recovered in Assyria proper.

*A long section of the "Epic of Gilgamesh" apparently copied by a schoolboy from dictation, full of errors. There is also a fragmentary abraded and bent unfired tablet of the feverish dream of Enkidu. [O. R. Gurney, "Two Fragments of the Epic of Gilgamesh from Sultantepe" "Journal of Cuneiform Studies" 8.3 (1954: 87-95). ]

*Sections of the composition called "The Righteous Sufferer" or by its incipit "Ludul bêl nêmeqi", with strong parallels in the Book of Job. The Sultantepe library furnished for the first time text of Tablet I, narrating the Righteous Sufferer's tribulations at the hands of men, [W. G. Lambert and O. R. Gurney, '"The Sultantepe Tablets (Continued). III. The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer" "Anatolian Studies" 4 (1954:65-99). ]

*The "narû" text (complete in 175 lines), a literary genre composed as if it were a transcription from an engraved royal stele, introducing the king by his titles, followed by a first-person narrative of his reign, concluding with imprecations against defacing the inscription and blessings for preserving it; in this case the "narû" text is the "Legend of Naram-Sin", associated to the famous Akkadian king's name but in no degree historical; the Sultantepe text completes and revises the interpretation of long-known fragmentary texts from Assurbanipal's library at Nineveh and Hittite archives at Hattusa and includes the fragment [In the fragment Naram-Sin's name does not occur.] previously known as "The Legend of the King of Cuthah". [O. R. Gurney, "The Sultantepe Tablets (Continued). IV. The Cuthaean Legend of Naram-Sin' "Anatolian Studies" 5 (1955:93-113).]

*The complete text of a new Akkadian literary text, an example of a new genre, "The Poor Man of Nippur" (complete in 160 lines), a tale which originated no doubt at Nippur and in the mid-second millennium BCE, represented in a seventh-century recension that was published in "Anatolian Studies" 6 (145ff) and 7 (135f). [O. R. Gurney, "The Tale of the Poor Man of Nippur and Its Folktale Parallels' "Anatolian Studies" 22, Special Number in Honour of the Seventieth Birthday of Professor Seton Lloyd (1972:149-158).]

Other texts were of more specialised interest to the Assyriologist: rituals, incantations, omen readings, contracts [Finkelstein 1957:137-145.] and vocabulary lists.

Notes