Position in chronology
Arik-din-ili 4
Written in modern English
Arik-dīn-ili, vice-regent of the god Aššur and son of Enlil-nārārī — who was also vice-regent of Aššur — and grandson of Aššur-uballiṭ I, likewise vice-regent of Aššur, built something from its foundations to its crenellations. The middle section is too damaged to identify what was built, and the final surviving lines, which apparently referred to Arik-dīn-ili in the first person, are almost entirely lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
RIAo(1) [Ar]ik-dīn-[ili, vice-regent of the god Aššur], son of Enlil-nārārī, vice-regent [of the god Aššur], son of Aššur-uballiṭ (I), [(who was) also vice-regent of the god Aššur]. (4) [...] ... [... b]uilt fr]om [its] foundation[s to its crenellations]. (6b) [...] my [...]
Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online — scholar edition (ORACC / MOCCI).
Transliteration
⸢ma-ri-ik⸣-DI-[DINGIR ŠID da-šur] / ⸢DUMU⸣ dEN.LÍL-ERIM.TÁḪ ⸢ŠID⸣ [da-šur] / ⸢DUMU⸣ da-šur-ú-TI [ŠID da-šur-ma] / [...] x ša mu-ni-[...] / [iš]-tu uš-⸢še⸣-[šu a-di ...] / [... e]-⸢pu⸣-uš [...] / [...]-⸢ia⸣ [...]
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 Q005733.
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/Q005733/..
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/Q005733/.
Related tablets
Related sources
The earliest historical document in human history.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.
The oldest surviving law code in human history. The principle that the state — not the wronged family — defines and enforces justice begins here.
Not the first law code, but the most complete and the most famous. Inscribed on a black diorite stele over two meters tall, displayed in a public place — law made visible, law made monumental.