81

[

JNES

62 no. 2 (2003)]

ç

2003 by The University of Chicago.All rights reserved.0022–2968/2003/6202-0001$10.00.

A LAST-MINUTE REVISION TO SARGON’S LETTER TO THE GOD*

KATHRYN F. KRAVITZ, Brandeis University

I. I

NTRODUCTION

T

HE

purpose of the present essay is to continue the discussion of some of the

issues raised by A. Leo Oppenheim

1

and by Frederick M. Fales

2

in their studies of Sar-

gon’s report of his eighth campaign in 714

B.C.E.

, the Letter to the God A

ss

ur.

3

In particu-lar, I refer to Oppenheim’s conclusion that the Letter was written “to be actually read” toa contemporary audience, i.e., to “the city and its people” (line 4 of the Letter is addressedto

a

lu u ni

ses

u

), as part of a communal ceremony that marked the end of the annual cam-paign.

4

Oppenheim attributes the Letter’s literary style and some of its contents, includingits unusual detailed descriptions of a foreign civilization, to its

Sitz im Leben

in a publicoccasion in which the audience was expected to react to the Letter’s contents.

5

While Oppenheim postulated “an artist sure of himself ”

6

as the author of the Letter,Fales, in his study, has raised the possibility of a complex compositional history for thetext. He identi˜es two distinct sets of narrative elements, which occur in separate sectionsof the Letter and which express separate ideological themes; he leaves open the questionof whether the Letter’s narrative complexity re˘ects separate authors or diˆering histori-cal circumstances.

7

My essay focuses on the Letter’s ˜nal episode, the account of the sack of Mu

s

a

s

ir, andmy ˜rst objective is to demonstrate that a three-part set of additions was incorporated intothis episode when it was already essentially completed. The eˆect of the additions was toachieve a new, ˜nal outcome for the narrative of the eighth campaign. After presenting theevidence for a revision, I will address its “why” and “how,” that is, why was a new con-clusion for the Letter required? How did the additions accomplish the desired eˆect? And

* This essay is a revised version of one section ofchap. 3 of my dissertation, “Divine Trophies of War inAssyria and Ancient Israel: Case Studies in PoliticalTheology” (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1999), inwhich I studied texts from the Assyrian Royal Inscrip-tions and the Hebrew Bible that refer to the despo-liation of divine images. A version of the paper wasdelivered at the annual meeting of the American Ori-ental Society in Portland, Oregon, in 2000. I wouldlike to thank Tzvi Abusch for his helpful comments atthe diˆerent stages of writing.

1

A. Leo Oppenheim, “The City of Assur in 714B.C.,”

JNES

19 (1960): 133–47.

2

Frederick M. Fales, “Narrative and IdeologicalVariations in the Account of Sargon’s Eighth Cam-paign,” in M. Cogan and I. Ephçal, eds.,

Ah, Assyria . . . :Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near EasternHistoriography Presented to Hayim Tadmor

(Jerusalem,1991), pp. 129–47.

3

My analysis of the text is based on the mostrecent edition, by Walter Mayer, “Sargons Feldzuggegen Urartu—714 v. Chr.,”

Mitteilungen der Deut-schen Orient-Gesellschaft

115 (1983): 65–132.

4

Oppenheim, “City of Assur,” pp. 143 and 144.

5

Ibid., pp. 143 and 146.

6

Ibid., p. 144.

7

Fales, “Narrative and Ideological Variations,” pp.146–47.

J

OURNAL

OF

N

EAR

E

ASTERN

S

TUDIES

82

what were the ideological, historical, and literary factors that determined the structure ofthe revision?

Reconstructing the revision opens a window into the circumstances that—at least inpart—aˆected the ˜nal form of this text. The added material makes certain assertions;testing these statements against the available historical evidence allows a speci˜cation ofsome of the requirements and constraints under which the Letter’s author worked as wellas a consideration of the scope for creativity that was aˆorded him.

Before taking up the detailed examination of the Mu

s

a

s

ir episode, a glance at the his-torical background of the campaign and a brief survey of the Letter’s preceding episodeswill provide some necessary historical and literary context.

II. H

ISTORICAL

B

ACKGROUND OF THE

E

IGHTH

C

AMPAIGN AND

O

VERVIEW OF

S

ARGON’S

L

ETTER TO THE

G

OD

The kingdom of Mu

s

a

s

ir was one of several states in the northeastern Zagros thatconstituted a buˆer zone between Assyria and her powerful rival to the north, the king-dom of Urar

t

u. These small states had contrived to maintain an uneasy independence bychanging allegiances and paying tribute to one or both sides, depending upon circum-stances.

8

Sargon’s campaign of 714 took place against a background of increasing rivalrywith Urar

t

u for suzerainty over these small states; Sargon’s original objectives in theeighth campaign were the states of Andia and Zikirtu, whose kings had allied themselveswith the Urar

t

ian king, Rusa I.

9

The Letter is organized according to the campaign itinerary. Following its address to thegods and to the city and its inhabitants (lines 1–5), each of the 14 sections or episodes thatcomprise its main body (lines 6–414) corresponds to a change in geographical location.

10

The campaign falls into three geographic and chronological stages: (1) the journey throughthe Zagros toward Andia and Zikirtu, (2) Sargon’s incursion into Urar

t

u, and (3) the returnto Assyria.

11

The ˜rst phase (episodes 1–5, lines 6–166) recounts Sargon’s progress through theZagros, during which he collected tribute from submissive vassal kings and chieftains. Atthe request of his vassal, Ullusunu of Mannea, Sargon undertook to drive back Rusa ofUrar

t

u, who had encroached on Ullusunu’s territory. These episodes are characterized bythe literary device of describing direct encounters between Sargon and the foreign kings

8

See the discussion by K. Kessler, “Zu denBeziehungen zwischen Urar

t

u und Mesopotamien,”in V. Haas, ed.,

Das Reich Urar

t

u

(Constance, 1986),p. 65. Mario Salvini characterizes Mu

s

a

s

ir as “both asmall kingdom and an internationally recognized holycity” (“Mu

s

a

s

ir,”

RLA,

vol. 8 [1995], p. 445).

9

Sargon’s Annals for 716 and 715 report severalinstances of con˘ict with Rusa of Urar

t

u over controlof various districts of Mannea (A. Lie,

The Inscrip-tions of Sargon II, King of Assyria: Part 1, The Annals

[Paris, 1929], pp. 12 and 14, lines 78–90; pp. 16 and18, lines 101–2).

10

The episode divisions are marked by horizontallines drawn across the tablet by the scribe.

11

These geographical/chronological phases corre-spond to Fales’s division of the Letter into Parts A andB according to the distribution of separate clusters ofmotifs, each of which he associates with a theme or“ideological vein.” He designates the Mu

s

a

s

ir episodeas Part C but does not discuss in detail its relationshipto Parts A and B (“Narrative and Ideological Varia-tions,” pp. 134–35, 146–47).

SHORT

A L

AST

-M

INUTE

R

EVISION

TO

S

ARGON’S

L

ETTER TO THE

G

OD

83

whom he meets. All foreign kings are seen as potential rivals: if submissive, they aregroveling or terri˜ed;

12

if hostile, they are wicked, cowardly, and, of course, defeated.

13

The ˜rst phase of the campaign culminates in a confrontation with the allied forcesof Rusa of Urar

t

u and Metatti of Zikirtu on Mt. Uau

s

(episode 5, lines 91–166). The Lettermakes much of Sargon’s victory over Rusa in this lengthy episode, stressing Sargon’s pietyand heroism in contrast to Rusa’s utter and ignominious defeat. The description of Rusa’sundigni˜ed ˘ight from the battle˜eld ahead of his army

14

is further ampli˜ed by a pictur-esque scene in which Rusa, apparently having reached his royal city of Turu

s

pa, reportedlybecomes terri˜ed by the noise of Sargon’s “mighty weapons” and so abandons his city, hidesin the mountains, and in˘icts “an unrecoverable injury” upon himself (lines 148–51).

15

In the second phase of the campaign, Sargon took advantage of Rusa’s retreat andadvanced into Urar

t

ian territory. In this section of the text (episodes 6–12, lines 167–305), there are no confrontations with foreign kings; rather, it is here that the positivedescriptions of foreign civilizations, so unusual in Assyrian royal inscriptions, occur. Inthese episodes, Sargon’s approach to a new location is followed by a respectful, even ad-miring, description of the enemy’s palaces, fortresses, irrigation works, etc.—all of whichare abandoned by the inhabitants, who ˘ee into the mountains as soon as they learn of theAssyrian approach. Thereupon, the Assyrian troops destroy the city’s palaces, fortresses,irrigation works, etc., and devour its stores of food.

Episodes 13–14 constitute the third and last phase of the campaign. Following Sargon’sdeparture from Urar

t

ian territory, the text reports a brief stop to collect tribute from theking of Nairi (lines 306–8) before the long, concluding episode, in which Sargon veersaside from the return route in order to attack Mu

s

a

s

ir, whose king, Urzana, had failed topay tribute.

The ˜nal episode (lines 309–414) describes the plundering of Urzana’s palace and ofMu

s

a

s

ir’s wealthy and important temple of the god

{

aldi, whose cult image is included inthe booty that Sargon carried oˆ to Assyria.

16

The Mu

s

a

s

ir episode is followed by a brief

12

See, for example, lines 40 and 69, where thelocal o¯cials are said to have been struck with terror(

s

a

h

urratu,

h

attu

); in line 58, Ullusunu and his o¯-cials are described as crawling on all fours, like dogs(

eli erbe ritti

s

unu ipta

ss

il

¿

k

ÿ

ma kalb

ÿ

).

13

Each of the kings who resisted Sargon, i.e.,Metatti of Zikirtu, Rusa of Urar

t

u, and Urzana ofMu

s

a

s

ir, are introduced with a series of insulting epi-thets (lines 80–81, 92–95, 309–10); likewise, eachone is reported to have ˘ed his royal city before Sar-gon’s advance (lines 80–84, 148–51, 334).

14

That Rusa was “mounted on a mare” was appar-ently considered unheroic by the Assyrians. As bothOppenheim and Tadmor have observed, the same com-ment occurs in the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser IIIwith regard to the retreat of Sarduri, Rusa’s predecessor(Oppenheim, “City of Assur,” p. 139, n. 15; HayimTadmor,

The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, Kingof Assyria

[Jerusalem, 1994], p. 100, line 33

u

; pp. 132–34, lines 19

u

–21

u

).

15

It is unlikely that Sargon actually approachedTuru

s

pa. The localization of the campaign stops in

the recently published Helsinki Atlas (S. Parpola andM. Porter, eds.,

The Helsinki Atlas of the Near Eastin the Neo-Assyrian Period

[Helsinki, 2001], pp. 4–5)indicates that Sargon did not get as far west as Turu

s

pa.Louis Levine’s earlier (and diˆerent) reconstruction ofthe route also indicates that Sargon did not approachTuru

s

pa (“Sargon’s Eighth Campaign,” Louis D. Le-vine and T. Cuyler Young, Jr., eds.,

Mountains andLowlands: Essays in the Archaeology of Greater Meso-potamia

[Malibu, California, 1977], p. 145). It wouldseem that the text’s claim that Rusa, from his royalcity of Turu

s

pa, “feared the din” of Sargon’s marchand ˘ed to the mountains (lines 148–51) represents aliterary parallel to the behavior of Metatti of Zikirtu(lines 80–84) and Urzana of Mu

s

a

s

ir (line 334); bothkings retreated into the mountains upon seeing theapproach of the Assyrians (see nn. 13 and 19).

16

The entry in the Eponym Chronicle for 714reads; “to Urar

t

u, Mu

s

a

s

ir,

{

aldi” (

a-na Ur-a

]r-ti URUMu-sa-sir {al-di-a).” See Tadmor, “The Campaignsof Sargon II of Assur: A Chronological-HistoricalStudy,” JCS 12 (1958): 85.

JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES84

summary (lines 415–25) recapitulating the successes of the eighth campaign and notingSargon’s safe return to Assyria.

III. THE REVISION OF THE MUßAßIR EPISODE

The Musasir Narrative

Because the Letter is structured according to the campaign itinerary, the narrative’sliterary climax must coincide with the campaign’s ˜nal stop, at Musasir.17 This episode,which begins with abusive epithets for Urzana, three omens of divine support for Sargon,and Sargon’s heroic journey across mountainous terrain, seems to be building toward amighty confrontation with Urzana.18 Yet, at the episode’s close, Urzana has disappearedfrom the narrative, and it is Rusa, the king of Urartu, who is described as prostrate andpowerless upon hearing the news of Musasir’s despoliation.

Urzana’s fate is obscured by several lines of broken text, but it seems that he abandonedhis city and escaped into the mountains;19 when the text again becomes readable, thenarrative has come to a standstill, and we are in the midst of a description of the corona-tion of the king of Urartu. According to the Letter, this Urartian ceremony customarilytook place before the god {aldi in the god’s temple in Musasir.20 The narrative resumeswith the entry of the Assyrians into the city and Sargon’s decision regarding the fate of itscitizens. Urzana’s palace and {aldi’s temple are plundered and the god’s image carried oˆ.The detailed booty list that follows accounts for more than half of this episode’s 105 lines;in terms of literary structure, it appears to be bringing both the episode and the Letter toa close. But in a sudden shift, Rusa, king of Urartu, erupts onto the scene, reacting to thenews of the despoliation of Musasir by tearing oˆ his royal headband and collapsing inagony.

Disjunctions and digressions in this narrative are immediately apparent. The Urartiancoronation scene led Oppenheim to ask “what can possibly have prompted the author to

17 Musasir has been located in the area of modernRuwandiz, ca. 80 km northeast of Arbela (Helsinki At-las, p. 4). Although Oppenheim suggested that theMusasir episode was placed at the end of the text forits dramatic eˆect (“City of Assur,” p. 135), Levine’sresearch indicates that Musasir was, indeed, the laststop on the campaign; he notes: “ . . . the order ofplaces mentioned in the account of a campaign re˘ectsthe true course of that campaign” (Louis D. Levine,Geographical Studies in the Neo-Assyrian Zagros[Toronto and London, 1974]), p. 2.

18 Fales notes that two ideological themes, “Sar-gon the righteous vs. the treacherous enemy, and Sar-gon the more-than-human king in a less-than-humanlandscape,” which characterize the ˜rst phase of thecampaign narrative (his Part A), are resumed here, atthe beginning of the Musasir episode (“Narrative andIdeological Variations,” p. 142).

19 The disappearance of Urzana from the narrativemay be resolved by restoring line 334 as [a]-ka-mager-ri-ia e-mur-m[a . . .], “he saw the dustcloud of myexpedition and. . . .” The dustcloud raised by the ap-

proaching Assyrian army is a motif that had alreadyappeared in the Letter (lines 247–48), where it trig-gered the ˘ight of the inhabitants (line 252). The motifappears elsewhere in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptionsand is usually followed by the ˘ight of the enemy. Forfurther examples, see CAD, vol. A/1, s.v. akamu A.

The correctness of this restoration is supported bySargon’s later inscriptions, which state that Urzana“˘ed like a bird” to his mountains. See Lie, Annals,p. 26, line 153: [Urzana] . . . iss¿ris ipparisma sadûmarsu eli. For the Display Inscription, see A. Fuchs,Die Inschriften Sargons II. aus Khorsabad (Göttingen,1994), p. 214, line 74: s¿ ana s¿zub napistÿsu eden-n¿su ipparsidma sadâsu eli. . . .

20 {aldi was one of the principal gods of Urartu.Paul Zimansky notes: “The god Haldi is mentioned inevery moderately well preserved inscription speakingof military conquest, which suggests that he had somespeci˜c association with war.” See his Ecology andEmpire: The Structure of the Urartian State (Chicago,1985), p. 116, n. 52.

A LAST-MINUTE REVISION TO SARGON’S LETTER TO THE GOD 85

insert a digression of such a nature at the very point when his report is full of dramaticevents and drawing to a close.”21 Fales has observed the di¯culty created by the suddenreappearance in the text of Rusa, who had already been described as all but dead with ter-ror after his battle˜eld defeat.22 To these problems in the narrative, I would add the fol-lowing: what is the logical connection between the plundering of the small kingdom ofMusasir and the paralyzing despair of Rusa, king of Urartu?

In order to account for these digressions and di¯culties, I propose that a connected setof scenes, which may be called “the Urartu strand,” was woven into an existing accountof Sargon’s despoliation of King Urzana of Musasir. This revision, or set of scenes, wasdesigned to make the report of that conquest relevant to the fate of the much more polit-ically signi˜cant King Rusa of Urartu.

In a summary of the Musasir episode (table 1), I have indicated in boldface those scenesin the narrative that constitute the Urartu strand.23

21 Oppenheim, “City of Assur,” p. 141.22 Fales notes “the problem of Rusa’s reappearance

on the scene of the text . . . and the topos of his re-newed physical demise . . . ” (“Narrative and Ideolog-ical Variations,” p. 138, n. 38).

23 The Musasir episode represents an interestingexample of the author’s attention to literary struc-ture. Note that the themes that exalt Sargon over hisrivals in direct confrontations and that characterizethe Letter’s ˜rst ˜ve episodes (Fales’s Part A) are

TABLE 1

SUMMARY OF THE MUSASIR EPISODE (LINES 309–414)

Sargon extolled and contrasted to enemy king

309–333 Godless and rebellious Urzana withholds tribute. Sargonreceives three omens of divine support and leads a small troop of soldiers over the di¯cult landscape to Musasir

Musasir abandoned 334–335 [Urzana] sees the dustcloud of the approaching Assyrians and [˘ees]. . . .

Urartian achievement described Scene I336–342

Musasir named the abode of Urartian kingship; the Urartian coronation in the presence of {aldi is described

343–344 Assyrian army overruns the city

Victorious Sargon contrasted to Musasir’s people and god

345–347a The people crawl and plead; Sargon cites Urzana’s rebellion

Scene II347b–348a

Sargon commands {aldi, “the trust of Urartu,” to be brought out of the temple and seated in the city gate

348b–351 Urzana’s family deported

Enemy assets described and de-spoiled

352–409 Detailed list of booty from palace and temple

410 Musasir made an Assyrian province

Defeated Rusa contrasted to vic-torious Sargon

Scene III411–413

Rusa hears of the sack of Musasir and the deportation of {aldi; he tears oˆ his royal headband and throws him-self to the ground, crying out in pain

414 Sargon spreads eternal mourning and lamentation over Urartu

JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES86

The Urartu Strand

The Urartu strand runs throughout the Musasir episode.

Scene 1: The Coronation Scene. After Urzana’s abandonment of Musasir, Sargon’s en-try into the city and the account of its plundering are delayed by the ˜rst scene in theUrartu strand: the description of the Urartian coronation, in Musasir, in the presence ofthe god {aldi. The text reads:

336. [. . . U]rartima ana [Musasir su]bat sar-r¿tÿsu subat {aldia [ilÿsu. . . .]

. . . Urartu and to Musasir, the abode of hiskingship, the abode of {aldi his god. . . .

337. [. . . U]rarti ana pat gimrÿsu sa el sâsuina samê u qaqqare la ÿdû. . . .

. . . throughout Urartu none greater than he isknown in heaven and earth. . . .

338. . . . sa ullân¿su hattu u agû la innassûsimat re[åûti ]

. . . without him scepter and crown, the insigniaof shepherdship, are not borne.24

339. [. . .] malku reå i nisÿ Ur[arti ] . . . ub-bal¿s¿ma ayyumma ina libbi marÿsu sabitukussÿsu

. . . the prince, the shepherd of the people ofUrartu, . . . they would bring him and whicheverone among his sons holds (will succeed to) histhrone.

340. [ad]i hurasi u kaspi mimma aqr¿ nisirteekallÿsu ina Musasir mahar {aldia user-reb¿ma iqiss¿ qÿsassu

together with gold and silver (and) all kinds ofprecious things from his palace treasure toMusasir into the presence of {aldi they wouldbring and they would present his gifts.

341. [alpÿ] kabr¿ti immerÿ marûti ana la manimaharsu inaqqû ana gimer alÿsu isakkan¿ta[ku]ltu

They would sacri˜ce countless fat cattle andsheep before him. They would set a feast beforehis whole city.

342. [mahar] {aldia ilÿsu agi bel¿ti ippir¿-s¿ma usassûsu hatti sarr¿ti Urarti u nis¿suin[amb]û sumsu

In the presence of {aldi, his god, they would setthe crown of lordship on him, and the scepter ofthe kingship of Urartu they would give him tocarry and his people would call out his name.

343. [eli ] ali suati rigim ummanÿya galtukÿma Adad usasgimma asib¿t [. . . .]

Over that city I let the dreadful din of my armyroar like Adad, and the inhabitants. . . .25

alternated with the themes that focus on the Assyrianarmy’s destruction of enemy achievements, which ap-pear in the second part of the Letter (Fales’s Part B).This synthesis allows the Letter to conclude with thedesired outcome for both episode types: the humili-ation of the foreign king and the destruction of theenemy’s achievements. It should also be noted thatthe Urartu strand is integrated into this synthesis(see table 1).

24 Here, I follow Oppenheim’s understanding thatsâsu refers to the aforementioned {aldi: “. . . the ex-cursus turns to the god Haldia who alone, so we are

told, has the power to endow the king of the countrywith legitimate status” (“City of Assur,” pp. 140–41).

25 It should be noted that the verbs of lines 338–42are durative, appropriate to the description of a cus-tomary ceremony. I have transcribed ú-se-ri-bu-maand i-qi-su in line 340 as durative forms in conformitywith ub-ba-lu-su (line 339), i-naq-qu-ú, i-sak-ka-nu(line 341), and ip-pi-ru-su, ú-sa-as-su, i-n[am-bu]-ú(line 342). The forms change back to preterite in line343 as the narrative resumes with the arrival of theAssyrians.

A LAST-MINUTE REVISION TO SARGON’S LETTER TO THE GOD 87

The lines that introduce the coronation scene (lines 336–38), while fragmentary, do notallude to Musasir as Urzana’s capital but, rather, as the abode of the Urartian kingship, thedwelling-place of {aldi, who is here identi˜ed as the god of the Urartian king and the in-dispensable divine legitimator of Urartu’s kingship. The customary festivities—whichfeature gifts and sacri˜ces to {aldi—are described, and the scene concludes with the pub-lic acclamation of a new king.

Scene 2. {aldi in the Gate. The narrative then resumes with the entry of the Assyriansinto the city, but the second scene in the Urartu strand interrupts Sargon’s judgment re-garding the fate of the citizens of Musasir. Citing Urzana’s rebellion, Sargon decrees thatthe people shall be deported and {aldi, “the trust of Urartu,” shall be evicted from histemple. The lines read:

The di¯culty lies in line 348, where the immediately preceding referent for “his” of “hisgate” is {aldi, but “his” wife, sons, daughters, etc. refer to Urzana. The con˘icting refer-ents create an impossible sentence.27

Not only do lines 347b–348a, sa {aldi tukulti Urarti aqtabi s¿sasu mehret abullÿsusaltis usesibma, create confusion in the narrative, they also add something quite new to it;they create an image of {aldi as Sargon’s captive.28 The coronation scene and this scene,

345. assu eter napistÿsunu eli erbi rittÿsunuiptassil¿ma qatÿsunu [. . . .]

In order to save their lives, on all fours theycrawled around, with their hands [. . . .]

346. assu sa26 Urzana sarru maliksunu anazikir Assur la ishut¿ma nÿr bel¿tÿya islûmaimÿsu ard¿tÿ

Because Urzana, the king, their ruler, did not re-spect the command of Assur, threw oˆ the yokeof my lordship and neglected my service,

347. sa nisÿ ali suati salalsunu akpidma sa{aldi tukulti Urarti aqtabi s¿sasu

Regarding the people of that city, their deporta-tion I planned and regarding {aldi, the trust ofUrartu, I ordered that he be brought out.

348. mehret abullÿsu saltis usesibma assassumarÿsu maratÿsu nisÿsu zer bÿt abÿsu aslula

Before his gate, I victoriously sat him down andhis wife, his sons, his daughters, his people, theoˆspring of his father’s house, I carried away.

349. itti 6,110 nisÿ 12 imer k¿dinÿ 380 imerÿ525 alpÿ 1,235 immerÿ amnûma ana d¿r kara-sÿya userib

With 6,110 people, 12 mules, 380 asses, 525cattle, 1,235 sheep I counted (them) and Ibrought (them) inside the wall of my camp.

26 The subjunctive verbs in this line de˜ne theclause as subordinate; therefore assu sa, while some-what unusual, must be translated as a conjunction“because.”

27 The wife, sons, daughters, and slightly varyingversions of the booty list in line 349 are ascribed toUrzana in the Letter’s closing recapitulation of thecampaign (lines 423–24), in the Annals (Lie, Annals,p. 26, lines 152–55), and in the Display Inscription(Fuchs, Inschriften Sargons II, p. 215, lines 75–76).

28 Note that Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal exhibitedcaptive kings in the gate of Nineveh as part of the As-

syrian king’s triumph. See Rykle Borger, Die InschriftenAsarhaddons, Königs von Assyrien (Graz, 1956), s27,episode 14, lines 29–31; Maximilian Streck, Assurba-nipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige, vol. 2 (Leip-zig, 1916), p. 66, lines 11–14, and Borger, Beiträgezum Inschriftenswerk Assurbanipals (Wiesbaden, 1996),p. 62, A viii, lines 11–14. For a diˆerent interpretationof this scene, see Morton Cogan, Imperialism and Re-ligion: Assyria, Judah and Israel in the Eighth andSeventh Centuries B.C.E. (Missoula, Montana, 1974),p. 23.

JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES88

taken together, contrast {aldi’s status before and after the arrival of the Assyrians; afterSargon’s entry into Musasir, the god who had formerly presided over the Urartian corona-tion is dragged from his temple and exhibited, as a captive, to the public. Like the coro-nation scene, this vignette speci˜cally identi˜es {aldi as the god of Urartu, even thoughoutside of the Urartu strand, {aldi is referred to as “Urzana’s god.”29

Additional support for considering lines 347b–348a to be secondary is the narrative in-consistency that they generate. In lines 347b–348a, {aldi is brought out of his temple andset in front of his gate (s¿su, s¿subu), but in line 368, the Letter reports that Sargon,having plundered the palace, sent his o¯cers to the temple and {aldi was (again?) carriedout (salalu), this time in company with his consort Bagbartu and the vast temple spoil. Fi-nally, it should be noted that if these two half-lines are omitted, the narrative progressessmoothly from Sargon’s decision regarding the people of Musasir to the deportation of Ur-zana’s family and the looting of the city.

Scene 3. Rusa’s De-coronation. With the long and detailed booty list and the notice thatMusasir has been made an Assyrian province, the episode seems to be drawing to a close.But the narrative’s gradual diminuendo is interrupted by the last scene in the Urartustrand, the sudden reappearance of Rusa, king of Urartu.

The extreme oddity of Rusa’s reappearance should be stressed, for Rusa had disappearedfrom the narrative over 250 lines back in the Letter, after his defeat on Mt. Uaus. Yet herehe seems to have revived and is depicted responding to the news of Musasir’s despoliationby tearing oˆ his royal headband (kubsu)—in eˆect, uncrowning himself30—and collaps-ing once again.

Each of the three parts of the Urartu strand—the coronation, the humiliation of {aldi,and Rusa’s de-coronation—conjures up a visual image that links the Urartian king to{aldi and Musasir; each scene disrupts an otherwise coherent account of Urzana’s ˘ightand the despoliation of Musasir (see table 1).

The Letter ’s Recapitulation

There is further support for the secondary nature of the Urartu strand in the Letter’stightly structured summary of the campaign, for the summary re˘ects a text in which theUrartu strand is missing. The lines read:

411. ismema Rusa qaqqaris ippalsih nahla-patesu usarritma ussera idesu

Rusa heard and threw himself to the ground. Hetore his garments, and his arms hung slack.

412. ishut kubussu perassu ihsipma [. . .] lib-basu ina kilallesu buppanis issahip

He tore oˆ his headband. He pulled out his hairand . . . [pounded] his chest with both his(hands). He threw himself face down.

413. izzizma surrusu ihmuta kabattus ina pÿsuittaskun¿ qubbê mars¿te

His heart stood still and his liver burned. Hecontinually cried out in pain.

29 See lines 368 and 423 of the Letter and lines75–76 of the Display Inscription (Fuchs, InschriftenSargons II, p. 215).

30 Lexical texts indicate kubsu = agû (crown). SeeAHw., s.v. kubsu.

A LAST-MINUTE REVISION TO SARGON’S LETTER TO THE GOD 89

This brief recapitulation of the campaign accords equal weight to the defeat of Rusa ofUrartu and the despoliation of Urzana of Musasir; they are the two separate, but equal,highlights of the campaign. Most notable is the fact that {aldi is not linked to the Urartianking; as part of the huge booty from Musasir, the god’s deportation attests only to Sargon’shumiliation of Urzana.

The recapitulation’s balanced treatment of Rusa and Urzana implies a symmetricallystructured version of the Letter, its ˜rst part concluded by the glorious defeat of Rusa andthe second part concluded by the deportation of Urzana’s family and the long and dazzlinglist of booty from Musasir’s palace and temple.31 This symmetrical structure has, however,been knocked askew by the Urartu strand’s reintroduction of the Urartian king into thenarrative.

IV. RECONSTRUCTING THE REVISION

The eˆect of the incorporation of the Urartu strand was to replace the booty list as the˜nal word on the eighth campaign with the image of the Urartian king throwing oˆ hisroyal insignia and reduced to impotence. Evidently, the arbiter of the Letter’s ˜nal formrejected a conclusion to the campaign narrative that was focused on the riches carried oˆfrom a small state and preferred to refocus on Rusa, Sargon’s defeated Urartian rival. Amotive for altering the narrative’s conclusion springs from Oppenheim’s hypothesis of apublic reading for the Letter. Oppenheim’s proposal—which has been largely accepted byscholars32—requires that we evaluate the Letter as a script for a performance and that weweigh its likely impact on its audience. Considered from this point of view, it seems clearthat the image of Sargon as the hero of the narrative and the conqueror of Rusa wouldhave faded from the audience’s mind by the time that a reading of a 14-episode text ending

415–20 With the strength of [the gods] . . . I marched to and fro in Urartu, Zikirtu, the land of theManneans, Nairi, and Musasir . . . and found no one to turn me back.

421–22 Regarding Rusa the Urartian and Metatti the Zikirtian, I defeated their vast armies on thebattle˜eld. In all, I conquered 430 cities of 7 districts belonging to Rusa the Urartian andI devastated his land.

423–24 Regarding Urzana the Musasirian, I carried oˆ {aldi his god, Bagbartu his goddess,together with the great riches of his temple, along with 6,210 people, 12 mules, 380asses, 525 cattle, 1,285 sheep, his wife, his sons, and his daughters.

425 I departed . . . and returned safely to my land.

31 The fact that the recapitulation does not linkRusa to {aldi or Musasir suggests that the recapitula-tion was in place before the Urartu strand was incor-porated. It follows, therefore, that the Urartu strandrepresents a last-minute addition to the Letter.

32 See, for example, Tadmor, “Propaganda, Litera-ture, Historiography: Cracking the Code of the Assyr-ian Royal Inscriptions,” S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting,eds., Assyria 1995: Proceedings of the 10th Anniver-

sary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text CorpusProject, Helsinki, September 7–11, 1995 [Helsinki,1997], pp. 331–32; Mario Liverani, “The Deeds ofAncient Mesopotamian Kings,” Jack M. Sasson et al.,eds., Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (New York,1995), vol. 4, p. 2354; Fales, “The Enemy in AssyrianRoyal Inscriptions: ‘The Moral Judgment’,” in H.-J.Nissen and J. Renger, eds., Mesopotamien und seineNachbarn, part 2 (Berlin, 1982), p. 433, n. 1.

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with a long and detailed booty list had reached its conclusion. The heroic persona, whichhad been built up in the ˜rst ˜ve episodes of the Letter, would have been eclipsed by therecital of the beauties and destructions of enemy cities, in which the role of the Assyrianking was muted, and by the booty list, where he had no role at all. The rich booty wouldtestify to the marvels of the small state of Musasir, but not to a heroic Sargon, victor overUrartu.

A diˆerent conclusion was required, one more in keeping with the Assyrian royal ide-ology’s “heroic principle of royal omnipotence.”33 The task for the revisor was, therefore,to make clear to his audience that Sargon had prevailed over Rusa,34 his most signi˜cantadversary during the campaign and, moreover, one whom he had never before confrontedin battle (lines 123–24).

The requirement that the Letter conclude with the image of a defeated Rusa posed aproblem in narrative construction. The author’s presentation of events was constrained bythe itinerary form, which established the sequence of events in the Letter and required thatthe campaign narrative conclude with the sack of Musasir—and Rusa had had no part inMusasir’s conquest. Moreover, while in fact Rusa remained at large, the Letter had al-ready disposed of him earlier by declaring him virtually dead after Sargon had defeatedhim on Mt. Uaus.35 That vignette, which belongs to the conventional ridicule of the enemyking who had successfully eluded capture on the battle˜eld,36 belonged at that earlierpoint in the narrative, for Rusa had been present on Mt. Uaus. The problem confrontingthe Letter’s revisor was, therefore, to show that the despoliation of Musasir was of crucialimportance to the king of Urartu.

The author’s solution was to construct the Urartu strand. By describing Musasir as thesite of the Urartian coronation, the author de˜ned the Musasir temple as the locus of di-vine power on which the Urartian kingship was based and identi˜ed {aldi as Urartu’sunique divine legitimator. He then inserted the powerful visual image of {aldi as Sargon’scaptive, dragged out of his temple and exhibited in the gate. The concluding image of astricken Rusa, stripping himself of his crown, represents the logical outcome of the ˜rst

33 According to Tadmor: “This heroic principle ofroyal omnipotence is the leitmotif in the accounts ofcampaigns—which comprise the main bulk of theroyal inscriptions. . . . The self-proclamatory image ofthe Assyrian king as sole, supreme hero became themain signi˜er of the royal commemorative inscrip-tions” (“Propaganda, Literature, Historiography,” pp.326–27). Many scholars have commented on the cen-trality of the king in the Assyrian royal inscriptions;see, for example, Carlo Zaccagnini (“The Enemy inthe Neo-Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: The ‘Ethno-graphic’ Description,” Mesopotamien und seine Nach-barn, part 2, p. 411), where he notes the emphasis on“the defeated enemy, that best ˜ts the image of theking of Assyria, who is necessarily bound to triumphover his adversaries”; see also Fales (“Enemy in As-syrian Royal Inscriptions,” p. 425): “the ideologicalpattern applied by the authorship of the annalistictexts to the concept of enmity; . . . as its aim, thepropagandistic a¯rmation of the positivity of Assyr-ian kingship.”

34 The theme of “Sargon vs. Rusa,” while mostobvious in the elaborate description of the battle on

Mt. Uaus, does not entirely disappear in the secondsection of the Letter; it is re˘ected in the consistentreferences to Rusa as the builder and ruler of the Urar-tian cities that Sargon is destroying. Note, as well, themultiple references to Rusa’s humiliation: in line 140,he ˘ees “mounted on a mare”; in lines 148–51, heabandons Turuspa in terror; in lines 403–4, his statueis taken as booty; in lines 411–13, he collapses andtears oˆ his royal insignia.

35 “Rusa, their prince . . . feared the roar of mymighty weapons and his heart pounded like a bat ˘ee-ing before an eagle. Like one gushing blood, he aban-doned Turuspa, his royal city and like a roving fugitive,he hid in a crevice in his mountain. Like a woman inlabor, he threw himself on a bed. He refused food andwater. He in˘icted upon himself an unrecoverableinjury” (lines 148–51).

36 Tadmor comments that such hyperbolic elementsare “employed as a face-saving device to cover for afailure to take the enemy’s capital and punish the re-bellious king” (Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, p. 79,note to line 11u).

LONG

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two scenes. In ideological terms, Sargon’s sack of Musasir and capture of {aldi hadstripped the Urartian kingship of its divine legitimation. Though Rusa himself had es-caped, his kingship had been deprived of its eˆective existence.37

The Urartu strand’s ideological premise depends on its claim that Rusa could have at-tained his royal power only in the presence of the image of {aldi that stood in the Musasirtemple.38 That the speci˜c site of the coronation was of critical importance is borne outby Giorgio Buccellati’s study of an enthronement formula used in Mesopotamian andSyrian texts.39 Buccellati shows that the name of the city is an integral part of the for-mula; to become king is “to become king in a certain city”: ina (ali ) ina kussÿ wasabu. Heconcludes:

The city where the enthronement would take place (usually the capital city) was considered theobject of a special divine choice. It was, therefore, because of religious reasons that the act of theenthronement was strictly linked with the site of the enthronement.40

The Letter’s identi˜cation of Musasir as the unique site of the Urartian coronation, whichwas accomplished by the insertion of the Urartian coronation scene into the Musasir nar-rative, thus supplies the necessary ideological link between the despoliation of {aldi’stemple in Musasir and Rusa’s de-coronation.

But is there any historical basis for the Urartu strand’s assertion that the Urartian coro-nation took place in Musasir, a small state outside the boundaries of Urartu proper? This ismore than just a question of historical fact, for we must consider whether the assertion thatthe Urartian king was crowned in Musasir would have seemed reasonable to a contempo-rary Assyrian audience, since the Urartian capital of Turuspa would seem a more likely sitefor the Urartian coronation. As Oppenheim has noted: “Urartu was for Assyria no fabulousfar-away country, so that the poet’s licence must have been rather restricted.”41

Although documentation for the site of the Urartian coronation is lacking, external evi-dence supports both {aldi’s status as the principal god of the Urartian kings42 and thespecial importance to the Urartian dynasty of {aldi’s shrine in Musasir. Urartian stelae aswell as contemporary letters from Assyrian o¯cials record royal visits to Musasir to oˆersacri˜ces to {aldi.43 The Musasir booty itself, which includes statues of earlier Urartian

37 The link between {aldi’s capture and Rusa’selimination is made even more explicitly in Sargon’sDisplay Inscription, composed some seven years later:“Rusa, the king of Urartu, heard of the destruction ofMusasir (and) the capture of {aldi, his god, and by hisown hand, ended his life with his girdle dagger”(Fuchs, Inschriften Sargons II, p. 215, lines 76–77).

38 See lines 336–38: “. . . Urartu and to Musasir, theabode of his kingship, the abode of {aldi his god . . .throughout Urartu none greater than he is known inheaven and earth . . . without him scepter and crown,the insignia of shepherdship, are not borne.”

39 Buccellati, “The Enthronement of the King andthe Capital City in Texts from Ancient Mesopotamiaand Syria,” Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim(Chicago, 1964), pp. 54–61.

40 Ibid., p. 61.41 Oppenheim, “City of Assur,” p. 135.42 Zimansky observes: “[{aldi was] . . . by far the

most exalted [god] in [Urartian] royal records . . . the

conquests of Urartian kings are portrayed as his vic-tories, accomplished through his intervention and forhis glory” (“The Kingdom of Urartu in Eastern Ana-tolia,” Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. 2,p. 1144).

43 The Kelisin stele recounts the visit of a ninthcentury Urartian king and his crown prince to Musasirin order to worship at the {aldi temple (W. C. Bene-dict, “The Urartian-Assyrian Inscription of Kelishin,”JAOS 81 [1961]: 359–85). See also the Topzawa stele,Rusa’s bilingual Urartian-Assyrian inscription, whichrecords his visit to Musasir, his entry into {aldi’s tem-ple despite Urzana’s resistance, and his sacri˜ces to{aldi (Mario Salvini,” La bilingue Urarteo-Assira diRusa I,” in P. Pecorella and M. Salvini, eds., Tra loZagros e l’Urmia [Rome, 1984], pp. 84–95). For theletters, see G. B. Lanfranchi and S. Parpola, The Cor-respondence of Sargon II, Part II: Letters from theNorthern and Northeastern Provinces (Helsinki, 1990),pp. xiii–xx and citations there.

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kings (lines 400, 402–3), their votive gifts (line 401), and cultic equipment reserved fortheir use (line 398), testi˜es “to the 100 year-long relationship of the Urartian dynasty tothis shrine of {aldi.”44 With regard to the religious importance of the Musasir shrine to theUrartian kings, therefore, the author’s claim was valid, and we need not suppose that aknowledgeable Assyrian audience would have dismissed the link that the Urartu strandmade between the sack of Musasir and Rusa’s collapse.

V. THE URARˇU STRAND AND THE DESTRUCTION OF URARˇIAN CITIES

The structure of the Urartu strand appears to have been modeled on the episodes in theLetter that describe Sargon’s foray into Urartian territory and his destruction of Urartiancities. These episodes exhibit a distinct before-and-after narrative pattern in which thestatus of the enemy’s city before the arrival of the Assyrians is contrasted to its conditionafter the Assyrian destruction.45 The enemy’s cultural achievements—their palaces, for-tresses, irrigation works, etc.—are ˜rst described in positive terms, but after the inhabit-ants’ ˘ight, it is precisely those achievements that are destroyed by the Assyrian armyupon its arrival in the abandoned city.46

These unusual positive descriptions of an enemy civilization—the “before” sections ofthe Urartian city-destructions—have occasioned con˘icting scholarly interpretations. Onthe one hand, Oppenheim relates the descriptions of Urartian cultural achievements to“an audience really interested in hearing about foreign peoples, their way of life, their re-ligion and customs,”47 that is, to the author’s “intention to keep the interest of an audiencearoused.”48 Zaccagnini reads the purpose of the positive descriptions rather diˆerently;he comments, “the more extolled is the enemy, the more praised is the counteraction ofthe king of Assyria.”49 Fales expands on Zaccagnini’s interpretation and concludes that thepraise of the abandoned Urartian cities is part of a narrative strategy whose purpose, in theabsence of a direct confrontation with the enemy, was to maintain the ideological opposi-tion between Assyria and foreign cultures.50 In other words, the narrative sets up the Urar-tian achievements in order for the Assyrians to wipe them out.

The Urartu strand is structured on the same lines as the city-destruction episodes. Thecoronation scene corresponds to the “before” stage; it describes an Urartian politicalachievement, the divinely sanctioned coronation of a king. Since King Rusa had escapedfrom Sargon, the narrative must accomplish the destruction of the Urartian kingship by˜gurative means. Hence, the “after” stage describes {aldi, Rusa’s divine legitimator, as anAssyrian captive; ˜nally, the narrative nulli˜es the image of the coronation ceremony with

44 Salvini, “Musasir,” RLA, vol. 8 (1995), p. 445.45 The pattern is described by Carlo Zaccagnini

in his study of the Ulhu episode of the Letter, “AnUrartean Royal Inscription in the Report of Sargon’sEighth Campaign,” in Fales, ed., Assyrian Royal In-scriptions: New Horizons (Rome, 1981), pp. 264–76.Fales, in his study of the Letter, notes that all of theepisodes of Urartian city destruction follow the samepattern described by Zaccagnini (“Narrative and Ideo-logical Variations,” pp. 131 and 142).

46 Emphasizing the correspondence between the

“before” and “after” sections, Zaccagnini points outthat the “after” section of the episode “not only re-produces the scheme of the previous section, but alsoinglobes a lot of expressions that had already beenemployed . . .” (“Urartean Royal Inscription,” p. 270).

47 Oppenheim, “City of Assur,” p. 146.48 Ibid., p. 143.49 Zaccagnini, “Urartean Royal Inscription,” p. 275.50 Fales summarizes the theme of these episodes as

“the bigger they are, the harder they fall” (“Narrativeand Ideological Variations,” p. 144).

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the image of Rusa uncrowning himself. The author has, in eˆect, translated the narrativepattern of before-and-after descriptions of Musasir into an ideology of kingship.

The overall eˆect of the Urartu strand is to imply that Rusa’s kingship was essentiallydisabled by Sargon’s eighth campaign; its purpose, then, was to shift attention away fromthe embarrassing circumstance of the enemy king’s successful escape and to substitute amore ideologically palatable conclusion.

In light of the manner in which the pattern functions in the Urartu strand, we may won-der whether its purpose in the narratives of Urartian city-destructions was similar, that is,whether it was intended to suggest military successes for events that did not support thepreferred model for Assyrian victories. For according to the Letter, the Urartian cities hadbeen emptied of their inhabitants and were destroyed without a battle; there was practi-cally no carnage,51 and, more important, there was no enemy king to serve as a foil to setoˆ Sargon’s image as a heroic warrior. These accounts of the destruction of unresistingcities are in marked contrast to the lengthy narrative of the battle with the Urartian andZikirtian troops on Mt. Uaus, which is replete with the heroic topoi that frequently appearin the Assyrian royal inscriptions.52 The author of the Letter preferred the conventional,heroic style to recount a battle, but it would seem that if no battle had occurred, an alter-native form of narration was required in order to lend signi˜cance to the destruction ofabandoned cities.

The pattern of detailed praise of enemy achievements in order to lend signi˜cance totheir destruction may be seen as an example of what Mario Liverani has referred to asnarrative remedies:

Models of behavior determine what an event should be . . . The narrative of a battle is a culturalproduct . . . When the cultural models are not respected in the action, the narrative can remedy bysupplementing the cultural values which were in fact missing.53

In Liverani’s terms, the Letter’s unusual positive descriptions compensate for the success-ful escape of the Urartians, that is, for the failure of the city-destructions to match theheroic model for Assyrian battles. Similarly, the Urartu strand’s use of the same patternachieved Rusa’s symbolic de-coronation and compensated for Sargon’s failure to captureRusa.

The last-minute revision of the Musasir episode, by incorporating the Urartu strand,restored, at least in part, the focus on the heroic Assyrian king, which was missing in thenarrative of the second phase of the campaign and which Urzana’s ˘ight in the Musasirepisode could only partly provide. The revision was driven by Assyrian royal ideology,which required a new, ideologically correct, conclusion for the Letter that would bring theAssyrian king’s defeat of his enemy into the foreground of the audience’s consciousness.Even so, it did not violate the limits imposed by the itinerary form, which required that the

51 Of the destroyed Urartian cities, the text reportsthat only the fortress of Uaisi (lines 301–2) was notabandoned and that Sargon slaughtered its defendingwarriors.

52 For example, Rusa’s godless behavior is con-trasted to Sargon’s piety; Sargon’s heroic, single-handed charge decimates the massive forces of Urartu;

rivers of enemy blood dye the landscape; the survivorsare killed by a god-sent hailstorm; the enemy kingretreats in panic (lines 91–151).

53 Liverani, Prestige and Interest: InternationalRelations in the Near East ca. 1600–1100 B.C.(Padua, 1990), p. 293.

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54 Referring to the Kelisin inscription, Salvini hassuggested that while we would expect the Urartianking to be crowned in his capital of Turuspa, the cor-onation described in the Letter may have been thatof the Urartian crown prince, an explanation thatwould account for the references in the Letter to thepresence of both the Urartian king and “whicheverof his sons holds the throne” at the coronation cere-mony. See his “Bemerkungen über die Thronfolge inUrartu,” in H. Klengel, ed., Gesellschaft und Kulturim alten Vorderasien (Berlin, 1982), pp. 226–27 andn. 40.

55 “Rusa heard and threw himself to the ground.He tore his garments and his arms hung slack. Hetore oˆ his (royal) headband. He pulled out his hairand . . . [pounded] his chest with both his (hands).He lay ˘at on his face. His heart stood still and hisliver burned. He continually cried out in pain” (lines411–13).

56 Lie, Annals, p. 32, lines 199–200.57 Lanfranchi and Parpola, Correspondence of Sar-

gon II, pp. xvii and xx.58 Letters written by Assyrian o¯cials report a

disastrous defeat by the Cimmerians, a revolt against

Rusa, and the assassination of an unnamed Urartianking, but the events are di¯cult to date precisely. Forvarious reconstructions of the order of events, seeLanfranchi, “Some New Texts about a Revolt againstthe Urartian King Rusa I,” Oriens Antiquus 22 (1983):123–35; Lanfranchi and Parpola, Correspondence ofSargon II, pp. xix–xx; A. Kammenhuber, “Kimme-rier,” RLA, vol. 5 (1980), p. 594.

59 The report of Rusa’s suicide appears in severalof Sargon’s later inscriptions: the Annals, the DisplayInscription, and the Cylinder Inscription, all fromKhorsabad and dated by Tadmor to 707 (“The Cam-paigns of Sargon II,” p. 97); the Nimrud stele, whichGadd places very late in Sargon’s reign (C. J. Gadd,“Inscribed Prisms of Sargon II from Nimrud,” Iraq 16[1954]: 176); the Cyprus stele, erected after the kingsof Cyprus submitted in 707.

60 See also Cogan’s comment: “the basic factualsubstratum underlying the inscriptions [should not be]denied . . . simply because standard literary motifswere in use” (“A Plaidoyer on Behalf of the RoyalScribes,” Ah, Assyria . . . , p. 128, n. 31).

conclusion coincide with the sack of Musasir; neither should we suppose that a ceremonyin Musasir that legitimized an Urartian king represented an outright ˜ction.54

In this context, we should also examine what is actually stated with regard to the fateof Rusa. Although the Urartu strand’s ˜nal image shows him uncrowned and immobilized,it should be noted that the Letter stops just short of declaring him absolutely and de˜ni-tively dead.55 In fact, Sargon’s Annals for the following year mention Rusa, king ofUrartu, as a potential participant in an anti-Assyrian plot.56 Other evidence to supportRusa’s continued presence on the scene, at least for a time, is cited by Giovanni Lanfran-chi and Simo Parpola, who note that the events referred to in Rusa’s Topzawa stele and ina letter from Urzana to the Assyrian nagir ekalli could suggest that Rusa retook Musasirafter the 714 campaign.57 Urartu was in a state of political and military disarray at thetime,58 and exactly how soon Rusa died after the eighth campaign is unknown; our only˜rm date is six years later, in 708, when Rusa’s successor is mentioned in Assyrianrecords. Although the Letter’s graphic actualization of Rusa’s anguish and impotencestrongly implies Rusa’s death, his death is reported unambiguously only in Sargon’s laterinscriptions. These more explicit accounts state that at the close of the eighth campaign,Rusa stabbed himself with his own dagger; while these texts maintain the literary link thatthe Letter created between the eighth campaign and Rusa’s elimination, they are dated tolater in the reign, when Rusa probably really was dead.59 Thus, while the Letter’s accountof the eighth campaign was driven by ideology, it was also limited by historical events.60

VI. CONCLUSION

The Urartu strand provided a new narrative and ideological context for Sargon’s cap-ture of the {aldi image from the Musasir temple; the incorporation of its three scenesshifted the ultimate outcome of the episode from the punitive plundering of the rebellious

A LAST-MINUTE REVISION TO SARGON’S LETTER TO THE GOD 95

Musasirian vassal to the symbolic disempowerment of the Urartian king. The politicaland theological assumptions that underlay the Urartu strand allowed the author to makeuse of the literary convention of the distraught, defeated king and to show his audiencean image of Rusa uncrowned and helpless—in fact, no longer a king. But this solutionwas in the context of the historical importance of the Musasir shrine to the Urartian dy-nasty and of Sargon’s actual possession of the {aldi image; the structure of the revisionwas determined by a convergence of concerns for political ideology, literary structure,and historical circumstances.