20. After effects

Following the sack of the capital Nineveh, documents from the Assyrian provinces reflect the authority of the Babylonian conquerors. The documents are dated by regnal year rather than by eponym.

A study of four Seh Hamad texts from the time of Nebuchadnezzar II (c. 600 BC) discloses that the switch from Assyrian to Babylonian practices was uneven. In noting the regnal year, the scribe confused ordinal and cardinal years of the Babylonian king, writing year 2 in one document and 2 years in another. Still, the local Assyrian idiom prevailed in the language and the writing style.