Hi Joe and Michael,

Creating a royal limmu date when it lacks royal title can lead to even more chaos in the documentation. Since Aššur-nadin-apli was limmu before he became king, it is probable Tukutli-Ninurta, Aššur-reša-iši, and Tukulti-apil-Ešarra I were all limmus before they became kings. In any case, Aššur-nadin-apli as royal limmu without royal title in T 93-10 is very questionable.

Michael - Jakob in his "Mittelassyrische Sozialstruktur und Verwaltung" p. 108, associates UDbu as "Palastverwalter von Assur" not ohnly with Assur-nadin-apli but also with Assur-nirari III.

True, but Jakob draws a solid line connecting UDbu with AŠŠUR-NADIN-APLI on page 108 calling it a "secure synchronism", and yes limmu/mašennu UDbu may very well still have been occupying the office of mašennu in Aššur during AŠŠUR-NIRARI III. No problem here.

In the letter T 93-12 Ili-pada requested to send the news of Hatti, the (assyrian) districts and all other news without interruption. The reason is that Tamitte had not reported a while. That means it's about the continuous communication and the general situation throughout the West, not to specific events.

For Jakob (and me also) it means the requesting of this information by Ili-pada must have preceded his march to aid the Hittite king of Karkemiš. Your limmu arrangement should therefore be as follows:

 1 AŠŠUR-NADIN-APLI
 2 Erib-Sin
 3 Ubru
 4 Urad-Kube -------------- T 97-34. Buriya is mašennu at T. Sabi Abyad
 5 UDbu mašennu ----------- T 93-12. Tammitte is mašennu at T. Sabi Abyad
 1 AŠŠUR-NIRARI III ------- with UDbu probably still functioning as the mašennu IN AŠŠUR

And since you do not accept that a royal limmu in the MA-period can ever be anything other than a king's first official year on the throne you have to reckon with a minimum of 5 full years for AŠŠUR-NADIN-APLI against the 3 or 4 years in the Assyrian king-list tradition.

A context T 98-119 (war in Hatti) is not recognizable.

The war and the Assyrian assistance to the governors of Harran was the PREVIOUS year and now this year, the royal "limmu year of AŠŠUR-NIRARI uklu" (T 98-110), there is peace and Tammitte wants the governors of Harran to repay the loan of 164 sheep. War then peace then pay me. Peace talks continue the following year, limmu Šulmanu-aha-iddina (T 96-1), between Emar and Karkemiš.

Here is yet another "MYSTERY" -- sorry for causing all this trouble. Tammitte was evidently mašennu to the grand vizier Šulmanu-mušabši; this is according to document PIHANS Nr. 1:2 (Jakob 2003, p. 99) where Tammitte is attested functioning at T. Sabi Abyad during the limmu year of Šalmanu-šuma-usur (the same year Sulmanu-musabsi was grand vizier). This could mean Ili-pada succeeded his father directly (normally) and that Šulmanu-mušabši interrupted the father-son succession when he was made to succeed Ili-pada instead of the rightful heir Ninurta-apil-Ekur (who was forced to flee to Babylonia?).

Regards Tory