The display of Esarhaddon's succesion treaty at Kalhu as a means of internal political control

Abstract: In 672 B.C. Esarhaddon made the citizens of Assyria swear a loyalty oath to his chosen heir, Ashurbanipal, in the Nabû Temple of Kalḫu. This is known through three letters belonging to the royal archives of Nineveh. This oath and its related stipulations were written in unusually big tablets and left on display in the Throne Room of the Temple. However, the identity of those pledging their loyalty to Ashurbanipal in the tablets that preserve the relevant lines (city-lords from the Eastern periphery of the empire) is at odds with the letters’ information. The identical oath-tablet recently excavated in a temple at Tell Ta’yinat (South-West Turkey), sworn by the provincial governor and “apparat” of Kullania, forces a reassessment of the reasons behind the display of the tablets seemingly intended for the Eastern chieftains. The religious nature of Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty by reason of the visual, textual and findspot aspects of the tablets, extensively analyzed by previous scholarship, should not obscure the fact that Esarhaddon may have taken advantage of those aspects, and earlier practices concerning the display of vassal-treaties, to hide his fears of treason from his intended target audience: Assyrian officials of high-rank.