Position in chronology
Aššur-bel-kala 01
Translation · reference
High confidence(1') [...] of the land Ḫimme [...] against/upon ... [...] his city [...] ... [...] their fortresses, their [...], of the land Ḫimme, [I conquered and destroyed/plundered]. Men and [sheep] which, like the stars of heaven, [had no number, I carried off]. All of their cities, of the land Ḫimme, [I conquered and destroyed]. I did not leave [a single warrior alive]. I flayed the men, their vice-regent (of a god)s, [...]. Over against their numerous cities I built [into mounds the corpses of] their [warriors] that I had struck down with the sword in the battlefield [...]. Soldiers, armed troops,…
Source: 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/Q005982/
Translation · AI engine
read from photo[...] of the land of Ḫi?-[...] / [...] ... [...] ... my ... upon ... [...] / [...] ... his city [...] ... / [...] their fortresses [...] ... of the land of Ḫime / [...] humanity and [...] ... who are like the stars of heaven / [...] all their cities of the land of Ḫime / [...] I did not spare; the lords of their cities I cut down / [...] upon their many cities, [the vast army]-s of whom in ...
7 uncertain terms ↓
- KUR.ḫi-me / KUR.ḫi?-x-[x] — The toponym is partially broken; 'Ḫime' is a tentative reading. Could refer to several northwest or eastern lands attested in Assyrian sources. The second occurrence (KUR.ḫi-me, line 6) is the clearest attestation.
- a-mi-lu-ta — Akkadian amīlūta, 'humanity / the human population'; here likely referring to the inhabitants of the conquered land. Could also be read as an accusative of specification.
- ša ki-ma MUL.MEŠ AN-e — 'Who are like the stars of heaven' — stock hyperbolic simile for vast numbers in Assyrian royal annals; not unusual but the referent (armies, people, cities?) is broken away.
- ul e-zib — 'I did not spare/leave' — standard annalistic formula (ezēbu G preterite 1cs with negative); well attested.
- a-ku-⸢uṣ⸣ — From akāṣu or possibly nakāsu, 'to cut down / kill'; the sign is damaged (hence Winckelhaken notation ⸢⸣). Both verbs occur in annalistic slaughter contexts. nakāsu ('to cut off / behead') is equally plausible.
- [šal-mat? ERIM.MEŠ] — Restoration by editor: šalmāt ṣābē, 'the total of (his) troops'; bracketed as restoration from parallel annalistic formulae. Not visible in photo.
- ḫal-ṣa-ni-šu-nu — From ḫalṣu, 'fortress / fortified district'; plural with 3mp possessive. Standard annalistic term.
Reasoning ↓
Photo examined: the tablet is British Museum K.2817, a small fragment photographed from multiple angles. The obverse (upper centre image) shows approximately 7–8 lines of Neo-Assyrian cuneiform in generally fine wedge impressions, but the surface is significantly abraded and the fragment is broken on all edges. The right and left margins are lost. I can confirm the presence of multiple horizontal text lines and occasional vertical rulings, consistent with a royal annalistic or administrative document. At the photo resolution available, individual sign clusters are visible but too small and worn to read confidently against the transliteration sign by sign; however the general density and line count match the transliteration provided. The reverse and edges show no legible text — the reverse (K.2817 label visible) is heavily eroded. The transliteration-based translation is therefore the primary deliverable. The passage reads as a typical Neo-Assyrian royal annalistic excerpt describing campaigns against a land whose name begins Ḫi- (possibly Ḫime or a similar toponym), destruction of cities, and slaughter of their lords. The phrase 'like the stars of heaven' is a stock simile for vast numbers in Assyrian royal rhetoric (cf. CAD N/1 s.v. napḫaru; Luckenbill, ARAB).
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-11/v3-conventions · May 11, 2026 · 3227 in / 1007 out tokens
Why it matters
Attests Aššur-bel-kala's campaign against the land Ḫimme, preserving early Assyrian royal rhetoric of total destruction — flaying, mass deportation, corpse-mounds — that would define the empire's self-presentation for centuries.
Transliteration
[...] x ša KUR.ḫi?-x-[x] / [...] x [x x] x [...] x-ia UGU x ru na [x] / [...] x URU-šu [...] x li MEŠ a li tu / [...] ḫal-ṣa-ni-šu-nu [...]-a-nu-ti?-šu-nu ša KUR.ḫi-me / [...] a-mi-lu-ta ù [...] x ša ki-ma MUL.MEŠ AN-e / [...] nap-ḫar URU.MEŠ-šu-nu ša KUR.ḫi-me / [...] ul e-zib LÚ.MEŠ EN.MEŠ URU.MEŠ-šu-nu a-ku-⸢uṣ⸣ / [...] i-na UGU URU.MEŠ-šu-nu ma-[du-te? šal-mat? ERIM.MEŠ]-šu-nu ša i-na…
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 Q005982.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P394697). source
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/Q005982/.
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