Position in chronology
Aššur-reša-iši I 01
Translation — scholar edition
RIAo(1) Aššur-rēša-iši (I), appointee of the god Enlil, vice-regent of (the god) Aššur, (the one) whom the gods Anu, Enlil, and Ea, the great gods, faithfully claimed in his mother’s womb, (the one) whose dominion they designated for the proper administration of Assyria, the presentation of whose offerings the gods of heaven and netherworld love and they (therefore) blessed his priesthood, the attentive ruler who provides offerings for the great gods, exalted sage, warrior among overseers, [...] of the goddess Irnina, merciless hero in battle, crusher of the enemies of (the god) Aššur, strong…
Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online — scholar edition (ORACC / MOCCI).
Why it matters
Asserts divine election from the womb by Anu, Enlil, and Ea: an early Assyrian articulation of the theological framework that would anchor royal legitimacy for the next six centuries.
Transliteration
maš-šur-SAG-i-ši šá-ak-ni dAB ŠID aš-šur / ša da-nu dBAD u dDIŠ DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ i-na ŠÀ AGARIN₄-šu ke-niš iḫ-šu-ḫu-šu-ma / ⸢a⸣-na šu-te-šur KUR aš-šur EN-su ib-bu-ú ⸢ù⸣ na-dan zi-be-šu DINGIR.MEŠ šá AN-e u KI-⸢ti⸣ / [i]-⸢ra⸣-mu-ma ŠÙD SANGA-su NUN na-aʾ-du za-nin NIDBA ana DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ er-šu ṣi-i-ru qar-rad par-ri-⸢ki⸣ [(...)] / [x x] dir-ni-na ur-šá-an MURUB₄ la pa-du-ú da-iš…
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 Q005899.
Attribution
Image: BM 122671 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P422444). 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/Q005899/.
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One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.