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BACK TO SENNACHERIB'S AQUEDUCT AT JERWAN: A REASSESSMENT OF THE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2015

F. M. Fales  and
R. Del Fabbro
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Abstract

The aqueduct in limestone blocks at Jerwan in the present day Dohuk region of Iraqi Kurdistan is one of the most imposing monuments erected by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704–681 b.c.) as part of his vast hydraulic program for Nineveh. This aqueduct, subject of a precise and innovative, albeit brief, investigation by Thorkild Jacobsen and Seton Lloyd in 1933, was re-examined in September 2012 by the two authors with an eye to the cuneiform texts engraved on the stone surfaces. The present study is aimed at a survey of the various specimens of royal inscriptions A–C, in their various occurrences and in relation to the architectural features of the monument; specifically, a new geographical analysis of inscription B is suggested. An updated contextual overview is provided of the approximately 200 inscribed blocks bearing so-called “inscription D”, benefitting from new collations. Finally, working hypotheses are presented on the probable place of origin of this text, and on the historical phase in which the puzzling placement of its written components could have taken place.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 76 , December 2014 , pp. 65 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2015 

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Footnotes

1

Many thanks go to the Director of Antiquities of Dohuk, Dr. Hassan Ahmed Qasim, and to Mr. Abubakir Othman Zainadin (Mala Awat), General Director of Antiquities of the Kurdistan Regional Government, for their extremely generous and friendly support of the field activity which led to this article. The research work itself is to be framed within the “Land of Nineveh” Regional Archaeological Project, effected by the Italian Archaeological Expedition to Assyria (acronym: MAIA) of the University of Udine, directed by D. Morandi Bonacossi, of which the two authors represented the epigraphical team. The present text goes back to a fruitful and intense cooperation between them, both in Kurdistan and in Europe, which gave rise to a common manuscript, albeit divided into individual paragraphs. Specifically, §§1, 3–4 were authored by Fales, §2 by Del Fabbro, and §§5–6 jointly. A more richly illustrated version (with 35 plates) was first published in Italian (Fales—Del Fabbro 2012–13); the entire discussion in §4 and the technical assessment in §5 are, however, unique to the present text.

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