A Dedicatory Inscription of the Urartian King Ispuini; Ein Mittelassyrischer ba'iru

The silver situla, here edited, is one of the few items of this type which are well known from the royal Assyrian reliefs connected with the ceremony of the tree. The inscription is a dedication of the ob ject by the Urartian king Ispuini (ca. 825-810 B.C.) for his grandson Inuspua who has here the otherwise unknown title of kib?ru (or kibarru). The language is Assyrian and this is the first case of a non monumental inscription of an Urartian king in this language. It is evident that an Assyrian scribal school existed at the Urartian capital Tuspa, at least at the time of Sarduri Ist, father of Ispuini, and now it is also probable that a sort of bilinguialism was present within the leading class of Urartu. The situla is to be dated around 810 B.C.