This volume is the first in a series (called ‘Supplements’) meant to complement the publication of the corpus of Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia. The Supplements will be devoted to the full publication of coherent groups of unpublished royal inscriptions and related texts. These inscriptions will be incorporated in the relevant volumes of the Corpus as well, where they will appear in standard format (transliteration, translation, and brief commentary). The Supplements will also offer special studies on particular aspects or problems of royal inscriptions so as not to burden the Corpus volumes unduly.

The editors wish to stress that the ‘Supplements’...

Clay cones are certainly the most unusual of the variety of objects upon which Assyrian royal inscriptions were inscribed. Unlike bricks, statues, reliefs, steles, and even clay tablets, the form and function of which are immediately recognizable, the clay cones do not fit any pattern familiar to our modern minds. Not until the early part of this century did the function of the clay cone become known with the discovery of some of them in situ in the Old Palace at Ashur; a similar find in the palace at Khorsabad some years later verified the solution to the old question....