La Stele di Daduša come documento storico dell’età paleobabilonese. Immagini e iscrizione a confronto

Abstract

The study re-examines the Stele of Daduša from Ešnunna: it presents a new interpretation of
the characters depicted in the upper register, and it suggests a reading of the narrative. The Stele
of Daduša, because of the subject (a victory stele with the king overwhelming the enemy), the
shape of the monument and the presence of the inscription, directly carved on the Stele, recalls
monuments of the Early Dynastic and Akkadian periods. The Stele of Daduša, one of the few Old
Babylonian examples of sculpture, testifies the continuation of such an iconographical and
celebrative tradition. Another contemporary monument, the Stele of Mardin, attributed to Samsî-Addu of Assyria, shows that the ancient Mesopotamian tradition was really continued in the II
Millennium BC. Moreover, both the Stele of Mardin and the Stele of Daduša bear the
representation of the same military event, the conquest of the north-eastern region of
Mesopotamia by Samsî-Addu: the Stele of Daduša gives the Ešnunna point of view of the event,
Daduša as a fundamental ally of Samsî-Addu in the final result of the expedition.