ABSTRACT
Historiography has always been a public and collective genre, expressing the sense of cohesion and common tradition of a community; it has traditionally served the interests of the ruling class, which has historically had the power to suppress alternative stories of the community’s past, and so has its primary roots in royal propaganda (or more neutrally in political propaganda); it is thus primarily ideological in purpose. It has even at times invented the past, constructing a historiographical programme out of a mythical foundation.2 These characteristics are reflected in the overwhelmingly political nature of all the historiographical material from the ancient Near East, where inscriptions sought to legitimize the dynastic claims and military or economic activity of kings and perhaps to a lesser extent the interests of powerful groups such as temple priesthoods3 and bureaucracies,4 generally acting in concert with rulers, since their fortunes were reciprocally interdependent. It is still largely true of history down to the rise of modern academic historical study that it is an account5 of the deeds of kings, and
1 This was written against the reign of Niqmaddu II as the presumed context for Ilimilku’s oeuvre. In chapter 14 I have adopted the new dating for Ilimilku in the reign of Niqmaddu III-IV, and provided an alternative context.
