literature 113
no details of the palace of Bar-rakkab are mentioned and hence we can
reasonably presume that all these statements are mainly a literary compo-
sition. Because many other ancient Near eastern royal inscriptions pres-
ent the king as a builder with similar expressions, it is probable that the
authors of these inscriptions are using a well-known literary motif.
another literary motif often included in royal inscriptions is the king as
“just” and “compassionate”. although it is not possible to find it in royal
inscriptions written in aramaic, this literary pattern is present in the Zin-
cirli inscription of the aramaean king Kulamuwa, written in the phoeni-
cian language (“i was a father to them, i was a mother to them, and i was
a brother to them”; Kai 24: 10–11).13
4.2 The EnemyNeo-assyrian royal inscriptions portray the king’s enemies with stereotyp-
ically negative features: they violate oaths, sin, lack good judgment, rebel,
and are wicked, hostile, and false, among other negative qualities.14 unfor-
tunately, no ancient aramaic royal inscription includes a long description
of a king’s enemies. even though we can suppose that aramaic inscrip-
tions would share a similar ideology as the assyrian inscriptions, only the
inscriptions of the kings Zakkur and panamuwa refer to hostile military
actions. in these inscriptions the enemy is not only a historical reality, but
also provides a narrative function: because he is always huge and hostile,
his defeat garners honor and glory to the inscription’s author.
the Zakkur inscription describes the defense against a coalition of
many Syrian kings who besieged hazrak. the Zakkur inscription’s descrip-
tion of the large Syrian coalition (at least sixteen kings) meets this literary
standard by making use of hyperbole, stating that the enemy kings “put
up a rampart higher than the wall of hazrak” and that they “dug a trench
deeper than its moat” (Kai 202: 9–10).
in the panamuwa inscription the usurper is called a “stone of destruc-
tion” (Kai 215: 7), a derogatory phrase that contrasts with the usual build-
ing activities of the ideal good king.
13 these idiomatic phrases are very similar to those found on the azitiwadda’s inscrip-
tion from Karatepe: “Baʿal made me a father and a mother to the Danunians... .” (Kai 26
a: 3–4) and on the bilingual inscription from Çineköy: “all the house of assur became for
me like a father and like a mother” (tekoğlu—Lemaire 2000: 994, lines 8–9). On this liter-
ary motif in the ugaritic and hebrew texts, cf. Whitelam 1979: 17–37.
14 cf. fales 1982 and Zaccagnini 1982.