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

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