Position in chronology
Eriba-Adad II 1
About this tablet
This is a royal inscription of Eriba-Adad II, a Middle Assyrian king who ruled around 1056–1054 BCE. It opens with the standard Assyrian royal titulary — grandiose claims to universal kingship, divine favor from Aššur and Ninurta, and martial prowess — before apparently moving into a narrative of military campaigns. Though small and fragmentary, such tablets were foundation deposits or display inscriptions placed in temples and palaces to glorify the king before the gods. They are historically valuable as fixed points for reconstructing the short and poorly documented reign of this king.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Eriba-Adad, king of the universe and mighty king of Assyria, ruler over all four corners of the world — beloved of Aššur, pure priest, chosen by the god Ninurta, hero in the sight of Enlil: a warrior who crushes all who defy him, who breaks up enemy alliances, a powerful force in battle whose troops storm mountain heights and defeat his enemies. The rest of the inscription is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineEriba-Adad, king of the universe, [mighty king, king of Assyria,] / king of all the four quarters, [heart's] desire [of Aššur, pure] priest, / chosen of the hand of Ninurta, [(king,) light] / of the eyes of Enlil, heroic warrior, van[quisher] / of the disobedient, dis[solver of hostile alliances, supremely proud,] / powerful onslaught of [...] / strong against those who [advance to mighty] battle, / whose [troops] continually scale the [heights, who overthrows] / mountains and those who [are his enemies ...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Engine notes
read from photo9 uncertain terms ↓
- mSU-dIŠKUR — Logographic writing of the royal name Eriba-Adad (literally 'Adad has replaced/compensated'); here Eriba-Adad II (king of Assyria, c. 1056–1054 BCE), distinguished from Eriba-Adad I (c. 1390–1364 BCE) by the regnal context.
- bi-⸢bíl⸣ [lìb-bi] — bībil libbi = 'heart's desire / beloved'; partially broken; restoration standard for Assyrian royal titulary.
- SANGA-ú — šangû = 'priest / temple administrator'; the restoration [SANGA-ú] here gives the epithet 'pure priest (of Aššur),' a common royal title; the sign is broken and the reading is restored.
- ti-ri-iṣ qa-at dMAŠ — tiriṣ qāt Ninurta = 'chosen/elect of the hand of Ninurta'; tiriṣ (also written tirṣu) means 'chosen, appointed'; dMAŠ = Ninurta.
- IGI.MEŠ dBAD — IGI.MEŠ = 'eyes'; dBAD = Enlil (logographic); 'pride/object-of-gaze of the eyes of Enlil' is a royal epithet attested in several Middle Assyrian texts.
- giš-gi-nu-⸢ú dan⸣-nu — giš-ginû dannu = 'strong/mighty giš-ginû'; giš-ginû (also gišginû) is a weapon type, possibly a type of spear or lance; the exact typology is debated in secondary literature.
- al-ṭu-te — alṭūtu (< alāṭu?) = 'fierce ones'; the word is used both as an epithet of the king and as a description of enemies; its precise morphological derivation is discussed but generally rendered 'fierce/ferocious.'
- UB.MEŠ ⸢ul-ta-nap⸣-ša-qa — UB.MEŠ = kibāru / ūbū = 'regions/corners (of the world)'; ul-ta-nap-ša-qa is the Gtn stem of našāqu 'to press / to kiss (the feet)'; alternatively 'to reach, to attain'; the reading of ⸢ul-ta-nap⸣ is partially broken and uncertain.
- [i-ḫi-il-lu] — iḫillu (< aḫālu?) = 'they quake/tremble'; fully restored from parallel; cannot be verified from the photograph.
Reasoning ↓
Visual examination of the photograph: The tablet (K.2693, British Museum) is photographed from multiple angles. The obverse (upper centre image) shows several lines of dense Neo-Assyrian cuneiform, largely legible in the upper portion but becoming more damaged and eroded toward the lower edges. The wedge impressions are moderately clear in the top half of the obverse; individual signs can be traced but not read at high confidence at this image resolution and scale. The reverse (lower centre) shows only faint traces of writing in a few lines near the top, with the remainder largely blank or too eroded to read; the surface appears considerably more damaged than the obverse. Side views show the tablet's thickness and minor chipping. The museum label 'K.2693' is visible on the left edge. Overall, the photo broadly corroborates the presence of multiple lines of royal titulary text on the obverse consistent with the transliteration, but individual sign verification is not possible at this resolution — especially for the heavily restored passages in square brackets. The transliteration is provided by ORACC (Q005998) and belongs to the corpus of Eriba-Adad II royal inscriptions; the titulary formulae are standard for Middle Assyrian royal building or dedicatory texts. Extensive restorations are required due to breakage along the right edge of the tablet, visible in the photo. The giš-ginû weapon epithet and the mountain-subduing topos are well paralleled in contemporary Assyrian royal inscriptions (cf. RIMA 1).
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-11/v3-conventions · May 11, 2026 · 3306 in / 1382 out tokens
Why it matters
Preserves the titulary of Erība-Adad II, attesting the full fourfold royal ideology — king of the world, Assyria, and the four quarters — at the dawn of the Middle Assyrian imperial self-conception.
Transliteration
mSU-dIŠKUR LUGAL ⸢KIŠ⸣ [MAN dan-nu MAN KUR aš-šur?] / MAN kúl-lat kib-rat 4 bi-⸢bíl⸣ [lìb-bi aš-šur SANGA-ú?] / el-lu ti-ri-iṣ qa-at dMAŠ [(MAN) ni-iš] / IGI.MEŠ dBAD eṭ-lu qar-[du mu-la-iṭ] / la ma-gi-⸢ri mu⸣-pa-ri-[ru KI.ṢIR.MEŠ mu-ul-tar-ḫi] / giš-gi-nu-⸢ú dan⸣-nu ša x [...] / al-ṭu-te ⸢ša⸣ a-⸢na⸣ ti-ib [MÈ-šú dan-ni] / UB.MEŠ ⸢ul-ta-nap⸣-ša-qa [i-ḫi-il-lu] / ḫur-ša-⸢ni⸣ ù al-ṭu-te [KÚR.MEŠ-šu…
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 Q005998.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P394609). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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