«Цари, мои праотцы»: формуляр сообщений ассирийских правителей XVII–XI вв. до н.э. о строительных работах и селективное отношение к некоторым правителям прошлого

Восток. Афро-азиатские общества: история и современность. 2022. № 3. С. 31–40.

Nemirovsky A.

The paper deals with the reports on construction activities in the inscriptions of
Assyrian rulers of the Transitional and Middle Assyrian periods. Such reports often mention
previous rulers engaged in the construction works on the same place. In most cases, these reports
are shaped in a standard way. However, there are some deviations from this standard pattern,
that indicate a special attitude of the ruling king to one or another ruler of the past: 1) the appeal
to future rulers to protect the inscriptions of the ruling king can be supplemented with appeal
to protect the inscriptions of his certain predecessor as well or includes a reference to such a
predecessor; 2) after mentioning a number of predecessors engaged in work on the same object,
one of them can be additionally distinguished further (outside of the appeal to future rulers);
3) when describing works on a certain object, another object is unnecessarily mentioned just
in order to name some ruler associated with the latter; 4) some predecessor is provided with
a laudatory epithet. These methods are applied, on the one hand, to the father of the king who
left the inscription, on the other hand, regardless of kinship, to Ashuruballit I (1353–1318 BC)
and Ashurnadinahhe II (1390–1381 BC). This fact indicates an advanced reverence for them,
associated primarily with the perception of them as the initiators of new stages of successes in
foreign policy.

Keywords: строительные надписи, Ассирия, Среднеассирийский период, Ашшурубаллит I

Publication based on the results of: Anthropology and History: Evolution of Social Institutions, their Systems and Systemic Functions (2022)