Records of the Past, Volume IV

What It's About

The fourth volume in Sayce's five-volume Records of the Past series, this book presents English translations of primary source texts from ancient Egypt and Western Asia. The Egyptian material includes a hymn to Osiris and the official life of an Egyptian military officer. The bulk of the volume, however, is Assyrian and Babylonian: inscriptions of Shalmaneser II recording his military campaigns, administrative and votive inscriptions, Babylonian contract tablets with historical references, and the inscriptions of Argistis, king of Van — a ruler of the ancient Urartian kingdom whose rock-cut inscriptions are among the most significant non-cuneiform records of the region. The volume also includes the Synchronous History of Assyria and Babylonia, a Babylonian chronicle aligning the rulers of both kingdoms.

Key Concepts

Primary among the themes here is the use of monumental inscription as political record — Shalmaneser II's texts are essentially royal propaganda documenting conquest and divine favour. The Babylonian contract tablets offer a contrasting perspective: administrative and legal documents that ground the history in everyday transaction. The Urartian inscriptions of Argistis introduce a civilisation less familiar to general readers, expanding the volume's scope beyond the Mesopotamian mainstream. Taken together, these texts illustrate how different ancient cultures used writing to legitimise power, conduct commerce, and honour their gods.

About the Author

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845–1933) was a British Assyriologist and philologist who held the chair of Assyriology at Oxford for many years. He was a prominent figure in the early development of Near Eastern studies in Britain and was known for fieldwork as well as scholarship, spending much of his later life travelling by houseboat on the Nile.