Historiography, ancientNear EastELENA DEVECCHI

Ancient Near Eastern civilizations had no

word for history, nor were there historians

comparable to a Herodotus or a Thucydides

with their methods and perspectives. Nonethe-

less, they wrote about the past in many genres

of texts that are regarded by modern scholars

as historiographic compositions. These are

attested from the second half of the third mil-

lennium until the demise of cuneiform culture

in the late first millennium BCE and were

inscribed on a number of media, such as clay

tablets, cones, cylinders, prisms, bricks, stone

slabs, stelae, statues, and rock reliefs.

The focus of most ancient Near Eastern his-

toriographic texts is the king and his relations

with the gods. Within this broad frame,

though, some themes are more prevalent in

some areas than in others (Liverani 1995:

2356–7; van Seters 1995: 2434). During the

late third millennium, the royal inscriptions

of the Akkadian kings defined the model of

“heroic” kingship that came to be adopted in

the following centuries, especially by the kings

of Upper Mesopotamia and Assyria, whose

historical texts highlight above all their mili-

tary deeds. The monarch’s building activities

are also reported, but not as prominently as in

the historiographic compositions of Babylonia,

which focusmainly on the king’s cultic and civic

achievements, only during the Late Periods

reporting also on military events. Royal build-

ing activity is almost completely absent from

Hittite historiographic texts, which concentrate

mainly on military and political history and

on fulfillment of religious duties (Hoffner

1980: 326); Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions

likewise emphasize this aspect.

Every ancient Near Eastern culture pro-

duced historical literature with its own pecu-

liar features and purposes, but in general one

can distinguish between two principal groups

of historiographic compositions exhibiting

two different approaches to the writing of

history. On the one side, there are works

of compilation, such as lists of kings, year

names, eponyms, historical predictions, or

astronomical observations. These texts, which

express the typically Mesopotamian tendency

to catalogue and organize the universe in lists,

are equally revealing as attempts to give the past

a chronological order. A good example of this

genre is the Sumerian King List, which lists

the rulers according to dynasties, giving only

the number of years each reigned and very

little information about their persons; kings

and dynasties are arranged sequentially with

no indication of any synchronisms among

them, according to the conception of kingship

descending in one line and residing in only

one city-state at any given time. Another inter-

esting attempt to organize the past is represen-

ted by the Synchronistic King List, which

juxtaposes Assyrian kings with their Babylonian

contemporaries, from the early second millen-

nium to Assurbanipal. The lists of year names

and eponyms served a practical purpose as

chronological aids, but they might also have

been used as sources for the composition of

more articulated historical narratives.

The second main group of ancient Near

Eastern historiographic texts comprises vari-

ous genres of compositions that give an

account of a king’s activities. To this group

belong for instance the annals, where events

are narrated in autobiographical style and

organized according to regnal years. Annals

appear for the first time in the late seventeenth

century as an innovation of the Hittites, whose

finest examples were produced in the late four-

teenth century. From the late thirteenth cen-

tury onward, the annalistic genre was adopted

by the Assyrian kings to celebrate and transmit

their deeds. It was never adopted by the

Babylonians, who preferred to write history

in the form of chronicles (Glassner 2004),

compositions characterized by third-person

prose narration, laconic reporting of events,

and notation of every event’s date. Chronicles

are attested from the Old Babylonian period

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,

and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 3250–3252.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah01089

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until the late first millennium BCE, the latest

ones being the so-called Persian and Seleucid

chronicles. Historical prologues, a typically

Hittite genre, are preambles to state treaties

and edicts that offer detailed narratives of the

events that brought about the issuing of

the documents they introduce. The narration

of past events is also the subject of historical

epics, lengthy poetic narratives where the

activities of the king are described in a tone

comparable to that used in myths (Grayson

1980: 184ff.). To date, the best-preserved his-

torical epics are the composition called “King

of Battle,” about Sargon of Akkad’s alleged

expedition to Anatolia, and the epic of the

Middle Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I,

which reports on the war between Assyria

and Babylonia.

In reading ancient Near Eastern historical

compositions one should remember that they

do not deliver a thorough and neutral descrip-

tion of events, but rather a partial and tenden-

tious one. Except in the case of the later

chronicles, their authors were usually scribes

in the service of the kings who commissioned

the texts. They selected and manipulated facts

in constructing narratives for the purpose of

celebrating the reigning king while he was alive

and perpetuating his fame after his death.

Several other reasons fuelled interest in the

past and writing of history in the ancient

Near East as well (Grayson 1980: 188ff.). Polit-

ical and religious justification played a great

role, to the point that one can detect in the

narration of both internal political strife and

external military encounters a “legalistic” atti-

tude, amounting to an attempt to prove one-

self right. The gods were among the primary

addressees of historical texts, as they had to be

informed about the achievements of the man

whom they had selected to be their represen-

tative on earth. Finally, a didactic purpose was

also present, as future kings could learn from

historiographic compositions how to behave

in difficult circumstances, and the past could

be used to explain the present and predict the

future.

SEE ALSO: Historiography, Greek and Roman;

Historiography, Late Antique; Kingship, ancient

Near East; Sumerian King List.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Del Monte, G. F. (1993) L’annalistica ittita. Brescia.

Frayne, D. R. (1990) Old Babylonian period

(2003–1595 BC) (RIMA 4). Toronto.

Glassner, J.-J. (2004) Mesopotamian chronicles.

Atlanta.

Grayson, A. K. (1980) “Histories and historians of

the ancient Near East: Assyria and Babylonia.”

Orientalia n.s. 49: 140–94.

Grayson, A. K. (1991) Assyrian rulers of the early

first millennium BC I (1114–859 BC) (RIMA 2).

Toronto.

Grayson, A. K. (1996) Assyrian rulers of the early

first millennium BC II (858–745 BC) (RIMA 3).

Toronto.

Guterbock, H. G. (1983) “Hittite historiography:

a survey.” In H. Tadmor and M. Weinfeld, eds.,

History, historiography, and interpretation. Studies

in biblical and cuneiform literatures: 21–35.

Jerusalem.

Hoffner, H. A. (1975) “Propaganda and political

justification in Hittite historiography.” In

H. Goedicke and J. M. M. Roberts, eds., Unity

and diversity. Essays in the history, literature,

and religion of the ancient Near East: 49–62.

Baltimore.

Hoffner, H. A. (1980) “Histories and historians of

the ancient Near East: the Hittites.” Orientalia

n.s. 49: 283–332.

Liverani, M. (1995) “The deeds of ancient

Mesopotamian kings.” In J. M. Sasson, ed.,

Civilizations of the ancient Near East, vol. 4:

2352–66. New York.

Van Seters, J. (1995) “The historiography of the

ancient Near East.” In J. M. Sasson, ed.,

Civilizations of the ancient Near East, vol. 4:

2433–44. New York.

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