Mesopotamian Chronicles

Introduction

On this page, you will find

• links to translations of all known chronicles; they are meant as a first introduction and for ready reference, but it is advisable not to quote them without consulting a printed edition, because many readings are still uncertain;
• new editions of the chronicles of the Seleucid and Parthian period; several of them have not been published before.

The main editions are:

1. A.K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (1975 = ABC);
2. Jean-Jacques Glassner, Chroniques Mésopotamiennes (1993) (translated as Mesopotamian Chronicles, 2004) (= CM);
3. I.L. Finkel, R.J. van der Spek, R. Pirngruber, Babylonian Chronographic Texts from the Hellenistic Period (2020; = BCHP; Writings of the Ancient World)

The third of these books has not been published yet, but is being prepared by Irving Finkel of the British Museum (London) and Bert van der Spek of the Free University of Amsterdam (Holland).^note[This edition of the Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Period has been facilitated by a grant of a sabbatical year to Bert van der Spek funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).]

Below, you will find an overview of chronicles, more or less in their chronological order. For those who are unfamiliar with the subject but are interested, the "reader's editions" ought to be accessible. These are simplified translations. After reading a bit about the conventions of publication, the "scholarly editions" ought to be accessible too.

In the table below, yellow indicates a text written in Sumerian, pink stands for Assyrian, blue for Babylonian.

There are no scholarly editions of the non-BCHP-chronicles on this page. For the original (usually Akkadian) text and commentaries, you must consult Grayson's or Glassner's book. The translations offered here are free adaptations from ABC and CM; the spelling of personal names has been harmonized, variants have been ignored, explanatory notes have been added, uncertain readings have not been indicated. In short, these pages are no subsitute for ABC or CM.