Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

Adad-narari I 11

~1300 BCE·Middle Assyrian·Q005748

Written in modern English

A section of the quay wall facing — originally built by Adad-narari's ancestor Aššur-uballiṭ I, running from the palace complex to the processional avenues — had been breached by a wadi cutting through its middle, up near the orchards of the Inner City. To stop the floodwaters, Adad-narari faced the breach with baked brick and bitumen, laid in three drains to carry the water off, and then redirected the water's course, holding it back with more baked brick and bitumen. What he did on the opposite bank is partially described, including some widening work, but the inscription breaks off before the account is complete.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — scholar edition

RIAo
High confidence
(1') [At that time], (as for) the facing (of the quay wall), [which (stretches) from] the palace complex [to] the processional avenues, [which] Aššur-uballiṭ (I), my ancestor, had previously built, a ... wadi had broken through and beyond it in the middle, at the top of the orchards of the Inner City. In order to quiet down the rage of the mighty waters, I faced (the area of) the ... wadi using baked brick and bitumen. I installed three drains to carry off the water. I altered (the course of) the water and kept (it) away with baked brick and bitumen ... On the opposite bank ... I widened ...…

Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online — scholar edition (ORACC / MOCCI).

Transliteration

[e-nu-ma? ki]-⸢si-ir-tu?⸣ [ša iš]-⸢tu?⸣ / É.GAL.⸢MEŠ⸣ [a]-⸢di⸣ ta-al-la-ka-[ti] / [ša i]-⸢na⸣ pa-na maš-šur-TI.LA / a-⸢bi⸣ e-pu-šu / i-na re-eš₁₅ GIŠ.KIRI₆.MEŠ šá URU.lìb-bi-URU / na-aḫ-lu na-ḫa-su1 / ⸢i⸣-na mi-iš-li-šá / ib-tu-qu-ši-ma e-ti-qu / ⸢a⸣-na uz-zi A.MEŠ dan-nu-te / nu-uḫ-ḫi na-aḫ-la na-ḫa-sa2 / i-na a-gur-ri ù ku-up-ri / lu ak-si-ir 3 na-ḫi-ri / ⸢a⸣-bi-lu-ut A.MEŠ aš-ku-⸢un⸣ / A…

Scholarly note

Royal inscription of an Assyrian king, published in the Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online project (RIAo). Translation reproduced from the ORACC edition. ORACC text Q005748.

Attribution

Image: Based on A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Second Millennia BC (to 1115 BC) (RIMA 1), Toronto, 1987. Adapted by Jamie Novotny (2015-16) and lemmatized and updated by Nathan Morello (2016) for the Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative (MOCCI), a corpus-building initiative funded by LMU Munich and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (through the establishment of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair for Ancient History of the Near and Middle East) and based at the Historisches Seminar - Abteilung Alte Geschichte of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/riao/Q005748/..
Translation excerpted from Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online (RIAo), Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative (MOCCI), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; in association with the RINAP Project, University of Pennsylvania. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/riao/Q005748/.

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