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Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk

ancient Assyrian queen

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ110639878 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk (Akkadian: Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk or Ana-Tašmētu-taklak) was a queen of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. She is known only from a single fragmentary inscription and it has as of yet not been possible to confidently identify which king was her husband. She is the only Neo-Assyrian queen known by name whose husband and dates are unknown. Though various identifications have been proposed, the hypothesis with the least problems is that she was the wife of one of the last Assyrian kings, Aššur-etil-ilāni (r. 631 – 627 BC) or Sîn-šar-iškun (r. 627 – 612 BC).

Inscription

Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk is known only from an inscription on a burnt limestone vessel from either Nineveh or the nearby Tarbiṣu. An origin in Nineveh is more probable. The vessel, given the designation 55-12-5, 252, in the British Museum, is a shallow dish made for some specific, though unknown, purpose. The inscription runs around the top, on the flat edge of the rim. It is unclear if the inscription is complete (and thus only a mark of ownership of the vessel) or if it is only fragmentary and was previously longer since only about half of the circumference of the vessel is preserved. The inscription was first examined and identified as recording a previously unknown Assyrian queen by Irving Finkel in 2000 during a project of editing and compiling cuneiform inscriptions for a study on Assyrian stone vessels by Julian E. Reade and Ann Searight.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk” as ancient Assyrian queen. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk, ancient and Assyrian.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2000—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk, ancient and Assyrian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk”, the useful work is to connect “ancient Assyrian queen” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q110639878. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2000.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk primary sources, Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk archive and Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ana-Tašmētum-taklāk” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.