Misidentified Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: Šamaš-šumu-ukin Instead of Esarhaddon?

Four prism fragments bearing at least two different royal inscriptions written in contemporary Neo-Babylonian script were tentatively attributed to Esarhaddon (680–669 BCE) by P. Gerardi (1993), although they were not immediately identifiable as exactly duplicating the style or contents of any other presently attested inscriptions of a late Neo-Assyrian king (721–612 BCE). E. Leichty (2011) accepted that one of these pieces (BM 56617), the largest of the four, was indeed an inscription of Esarhaddon from Babylonia since that king’s name, titles, and genealogy were partially preserved. He regarded the attribution of other three frag-ments as uncertain, editing them as “1000-number” texts, implying that an assignment to Esarhaddon was possible, but not certain. A re-examination of these four fragments, the texts on which seem to be closely related, might suggest that none of the fragments should be attributed to Esarhaddon. Instead, these texts, which do not match the style and contents of Esarhaddon’s “Babylon Inscriptions” (Leichty 2011, Esar. 104–111), might prove to be hitherto unidentified inscriptions of Šamaš-šumu-ukin (667–648 BCE), his son and successor on the throne of Babylon. This short paper examines this possibility.