Court, Poetry and Literary Miscellanea.

• Author: Porter, Barbara Nevling

The Assyrians borrowed so extensively from Babylonia in literature, religion, and art that, it is sometimes argued, they never succeeded in creating a truly Assyrian culture. In this volume Alasdair Livingstone undertakes to demonstrate that Neo-Assyrian writers sometimes broke free of their Babylonian heritage, creating works of literature which, although derivative, were nevertheless distinctively Assyrian in language or cultural viewpoint. The volume consists of new editions of fifty-one texts and fragmentary texts prepared by Livingstone, as well as a new edition of the historically important "Sin of Sargon" text prepared by Hayim Tadmor and Simo Parpola. The texts are presented in transliteration and in intelligent translations, perhaps more accurate than beautiful. They are separated by Livingstone into eight categories: hymns to gods, temples, cities, and kings; elegaic and other poetry; epical poetry praising Assyrian kings; literary letters; royal propaganda; mystical and cultic explanatory works; letters from gods; and assorted texts, ranging from childbirth incantations to verbal attacks. Twenty-six can be linked to specific kings, from Shalmaneser III (858-824 B.C.) to Assurbanipal (669-627 B.C.). Livingstone's proposal that the texts represent literature written "at or for the Sargonid court" (p. xxi) is appealing; confirming this hypothesis and identifying more precisely the authors, audience, institutional origin and function of each text will require extended study - brief notes on the physical appearance and findspot of each text, where known, would have been helpful here. An extensive glossary and index make the texts readily accessible for philological and historical research. The volume is enriched by illustrations of Neo-Assyrian art selected by Julian Reade as a counterpoint to the verbal imagery of the accompanying texts; his captions, as usual, are cogent and provocative. Altogether it is an intriguing and important collection of documents, representing, Livingstone asserts, the Neo-Assyrian contribution to literature - different and distinct from the Babylonian literature which shaped it.

Selecting texts for the volume raised questions which Livingstone addresses in his introduction. The first problem was to separate distinctively Assyrian texts from others written in Assyria but essentially Babylonian in character. The principal criterion he chose was language, giving priority to Assyrians' efforts to explore the...