by
Damien F. Mackey
According to the Stele of Adad-guppi, this woman, the mother of King Nabonidus,
lived for 104 years, from the 20th year of Ashurbanipal until the 9th year of Nabonidus.
To say that this chronological data, if accurate, presents a slight problem to my revision of neo-Assyrian/Babylonian kings would be for me to make a huge understatement, considering that I have identified Ashurbanipal with Nabonidus. See e.g. my article:
Ashurbanipal and Nabonidus
That means that, if the Adad-guppi Stele were to be strictly accurate, the lady must have died (20th year) even before she was born (9th year).
The relevant part of the Stele reads:
….
29. From the 2oth year of Assurbanipal, king of Assyria, that I was born (in)
30. until the 42nd year of Assurbanipal, the 3rd year of Asur-etillu-ili,
31 .his son, the 2 I St year of Nabopolassar, the 43rd year of Nebuchadrezzar,
32. the 2nd year of Awel-Marduk, the 4th year of Neriglissar,
33. in 95 years of the god Sin, king of the gods of heaven and earth,
….
40. Nabu-na’id (my) only son, the issue of my womb, to the kingship
41. he called, and the kingship of Sumer and Akkad
….
26. From the time of Assurbanipal, king of Assyria, until the 9th year
27. of Nabu-na’id king of Babylon, the son, offspring of my womb
28. 104 years of happiness, with the reverence which Sin, king of the gods,
29. placed in me, he made me flourish, my own self : ….
Thankfully, there is much doubt about the date and authenticity of the document and of the chronological data that it supplies. (“Close examination, however, reveals that these compositions were written years—at times even centuries—after the death of the purported narrator– author”. See below)
Charles Ginenthal, for instance, in Pillars of the Past (Volume Two), tells:
Longman suggests that in order for a document to be regarded as historically authentic and true, it ought to be “supported by ... cases ... [of other] contemporary witnesses. But according to Paul-Alain Beaulieu there is no corroboration for the Adad-guppi stele from contemporary witnesses because, as he shows “this passage ... remains the sole source on Adad-guppi's life”. The evidence contained in the Adad-guppi stele has no contemporary witnesses for corroboration. It is its own sole source for its historic validity. Longman continues:
“The question arises, therefore, as to the relationship between the 'historical' and the 'literary' in these texts. To what extent do these compositions accurately reflect historical events? No precise answer to this question may be given.”….
Longman makes it quite clear that one cannot prove the events in such documents as that of Adad-guppi are part of a truly correct historical account rather than a literary, fictional one. The reason is that not only is there no eyewitness corroboration of this document but these texts were created as propaganda tracts to extol the king or others. As Longman further shows,
“Recent study by both Assyriologists and biblical scholars has exposed the political/propagandist function of many literary compositions. Frequently literature was composed in order to justify a political act that had taken place in the past.”[433]
With respect to the Adad-guppi stele in particular as it relates to propaganda, Longman adds:
“A dual function may be seen in Adad-guppi: on the one hand Adad-guppi's recounting of her life promotes the worship of the moon cult (her own example ... suggests that such a course of action leads to a prosperous and long life): on the other hand the text also ... glorifies her son Nabonidus. The text … was probably composed by a pro-Nabonidus group that supported his religious program” ….
He thus concludes: “the Adad-guppi autobiography is an example of a text that has a religious and a political [propaganda] function working side by side. …. While Jonsson suggests the stele was “evidently composed by Nabonidus”, Longman suggests that it was “probably composed by a pro-Nabonidus group”. Longman goes on to say that such texts were produced by an anonymous author who assumed Adad-guppi's name as a pseudonym:
“A pseudonym is 'a false or fictitious name, esp. one assumed by an author'. A pseudonymous literary work, therefore, is one written by someone other than that named in the text as author ... Further, autobiography [such as that of Adad-guppi] is a type of composition in which=h the narrator claims to be the author”. ….
….
In the main text itself, the main god, Sin, is made to say “Through you [Adad-guppi] I will bring about the return of the gods (to) the dwelling in Harran by means of Nabunaid [Nabonidus] your son”. …. All this shows that no one knows who wrote the stele and for what reason. But more important is the problem of when it was composed. Longman gives this general overview: “Close examination, however, reveals that these compositions were written years—at times even centuries—after the death of the purported narrator– author”. ….
He further conjectures that the Adad-guppi text was composed “(10 years?)” after her death. …. The question mark added to the estimate makes it clear that the date of the text is purely conjectural and can in no way be known.
Related to this is the fact pointed out by Raymond Philip Dougherty [441] that the word used by the chronicler refers to the parent of Nabonidus not in the feminine but in the masculine form, as though Adad-guppi was a man. This indicates that the chronicler who copied the Nabonidus Chronicle did so long after the events recounted and edited it based on his incorrect understanding of the text. Dougherty further shows:
“An apparent quandary arises ... concerning Nabonidus' stay ... in Arabia [based on] available texts ... he was not in Babylonia in the ninth year of his reign when the death of his mother occurred. The intimation of the Nabonidus Chronicle is that he took part neither in the three-day period of mourning ... nor in the general mourning after her death during the month of Sivan of the same year. On the other hand the Eski-Harrân inscription column III, lines 19b-32, attributes to Nabonidus the performance of extensive burial rites which were common in antiquity”. ….
To explain this obvious contradiction, textual editing is employed by Dougherty. It is assumed that Nabonidus issued orders that “all appropriate rites should be performed in his name ... [therefore a]nything done at the behest of a distant sovereign was credited to him.”[443]
All of this editing and textual criticism cannot be tested; it is all assumed and then the assumptions are taken as valid historical chronology of this period.
Therefore, we have no idea who wrote the Adad-guppi inscription, when it was written, or if the work is a valid basis upon which one may depend as evidence for the established chronology. Herbert Butterfield discussed these foundation inscriptions
"in the Babylonia of the time of Nabonidus ... and indeed during the whole of what is called the Neo-Babylonian epoch. There was a sense for the past, and a great desire to restore ancient temples; but it was necessary to follow the rules that had been established in each case—to discover the temena which had authenticated the original building and had shown how the god had intended it to be constructed. A breach of this divine decree might bring tragedy, and there were occasions when a temple was pulled down because it was disclosed that it did not correspond with the basic document. If the text could not be found, some other document might be used to authenticate tradition at a given place; though it was liable to be superseded if something still more ancient emerged. The temena was attached to the original building and if the temple was in ruins it might be necessary to institute something like a dig [to find it]. Mention is made of specialized workers who took part in this investigation. In the process, varied kinds of texts were likely to be uncovered [such as the Adad-guppi stele]; they would be transcribed and studied and if they contained the name of a ruler he would be located in the king-lists and the date would be worked out”. ….
We thus have no idea if this stele was found tens or hundreds of years later in the area of a temple that was either destroyed or left in ruins. We have no idea if elements in it were missing and then replaced by scribes who attempted to give it the correct translation and meaning. A.K. Grayson describes what happened to these inscriptions:
"[Neo-]Assyrian royal inscriptions are one of the major sources of this period. The few extant Babylonian inscriptions of this era have little relevance to Assyrian history. Among the Assyrian royal inscriptions the commemorative texts [like that of Adad-guppi] are the largest and most important group. They consist of annals [etc.]. The annals were commonly re-edited many times during a reign and the historian should give priority to the earliest version for a given campaign. Even the modern scholar must be very critical, for most of the texts now extant are products of considerable editing, selecting and conflating of various sources. Moreover, the Assyrian royal inscriptions are notoriously biased and occasionally untruthful, and one must constantly watch for deliberate omission, distortions, and falsification”. ….
All these problems must also be involved in either small or large measure with the Adad-guppi stele. How can one know for certain that this is not the case with the Adad-guppi inscription, since there are no other corroborating eyewitness accounts to determine its validity? An example of how this falsification occurs is reported by Joan Oates and David Oates:
“The interest of ... historical [reality] for the archaeology of Nimrud is that Sargon later substituted his own 'improved' version of the events, as a blatant piece of propaganda in a document directly modeled after that of [the original one by] MerodachBaladan and [placed it] in the same temple in Warka. Indeed the final lines of the 'substitute' cylinder read 'copy of a foundation-text sent (?) to/from the palace in the land of Assur; copied and revised. Sargon retained the original in his archives where it was found by Mallowan in 1952, literally over a period of three days, the cylinder itself having been broken – deliberately? – into three pieces”.
In this case the archaeologists and historians were fortunate to discover the original and have the falsifier admit his revision. But we cannot depend on this being the case with other documents such as the Adad-guppi inscription.
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