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Why are Ashurbanipal’s royal inscriptions not always arranged in chronological order?
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Ashurbanipal
Ashurbanipal depicted in a lion hunt in an Assyrian relief from his northern palace in Nineveh; now in the British Museum.
Ashurbanipal’s royal inscriptions are not always arranged in chronological order because they were often clustered in groups based on their specific purpose rather than the sequence in which the events occurred. Additionally, these accounts were highly subjective, reflecting the king's intent to emphasize certain achievements or themes over a strict historical timeline.1