Position in chronology
Šamši-Adad IV 1
About this tablet
This is a royal building inscription of Šamši-Adad IV, a short-reigning Assyrian king of the mid-eleventh century BCE, recording his repair of a tower-gate structure attached to the temple of Ištar of Assur in the city of Aššur. He names his father Tiglath-pileser I and grandfather Aššur-rēša-iši I to advertise a legitimate royal line — a useful claim for a man who had seized the throne from a rival. The fragment photographed is part of the very object the text describes: an inscribed clay cone (sikkatu) of the kind kings buried in temple walls so future builders would find their names. The text is a composite reconstructed from several such witnesses, and it ends with the day and the eponym-year, the Assyrian equivalent of a dateline.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Šamši-Adad IV, strong king, king of the universe and of Assyria, son of Tiglath-pileser I and grandson of Aššur-rēša-iši I, both likewise kings of Assyria, states that the gate-tower of the temple of Ištar of Assur, his lady — a structure built by one of his predecessors — had come to need work, and that he restored the whole of it. He had stone monuments and inscribed clay cones made and set inside the building as a record. The text closes with a date: the eighth day of a month whose name is lost, in the year of the eponym officer, evidently the king himself. Several short passages are broken and have been restored from parallel copies.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineŠamši-Adad (IV), strong king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, son of Tiglath-pileser (I), king of the universe, king of Assyria, son of Aššur-rēša-iši (I), who was also king of the universe (and) king of Assyria: At that time, (as for) the tower-house [of the temple of the goddess Ištar] Aššurītu, my lady, which a ruler who preceded me [had built ... ] — I repaired [it] in its entirety. I inscribed stone [stelae and(?)] clay cones and [deposited] them within it. [Month ...,] the 8th day, eponymy of [Šamši-Adad, king of] Assyria.
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Engine notes
read from photo6 uncertain terms ↓
- É na-me-ri — 'House of the panther/leopard' — a cultic name for Ištar's temple at Aššur; 'nāmeru' can mean leopard, panther, or a fierce/shining creature; the precise animal intended is debated.
- NIN-ia — Literally 'my lady'; here referring to Ištar of Aššur as the divine lady of the inscription's author.
- MAN KIŠ (šar kiššati) — Conventionally 'king of the universe'; literally 'king of Kiš,' but by this period a purely honorific title.
- si-ḫír-ti-šu — 'Its entirety' / 'its full extent'; from siḫirtu, meaning the whole circuit or totality of a structure.
- NA₄.[NA.RÚ.A.MEŠ ù?] sik-ka-te.MEŠ — Restoration of 'stelae and boundary-stones (kudurru)'; the NA₄.NA.RÚ.A reading is partly broken and restored from parallel passages.
- li-mu [mšam-ši-dIŠKUR MAN KUR?] — The eponym name and title are largely broken and restored; Šamši-Adad IV is attested as eponym in his own reign but the specific year-line restoration is uncertain.
Reasoning ↓
Visually, the tablet is a fragmentary, roughly fan-shaped clay piece photographed from multiple angles (obverse, reverse, left and right edges, top and bottom edges). The surface of the obverse (top-centre image) shows horizontal rows of wedge impressions consistent with Neo-Assyrian or transitional Middle/Neo-Assyrian script, but the resolution and surface erosion are severe enough that individual signs cannot be securely identified from the photograph alone; the cuneiform is visible as shallow impressions but individual sign forms are not legible at this resolution. The museum label on the reverse reads 'Th 1932 12-10 453' with accession number '123510', consistent with a British Museum acquisition. The transliteration-based reading follows the standard Šamši-Adad IV (c. 1053–1050 BCE) building inscription (Q006001) recorded in ORACC/RIMA 2, A.0.82.1; the composite text is well attested across several manuscript witnesses. 'É na-me-ri' is a designation for a temple or precinct of Ištar of Aššur literally meaning 'house of the panther/leopard,' a known epithet in Assyrian cultic contexts. Lacunae in lines 4–7 are restored following parallel manuscripts as indicated in RIMA 2.
Generated by Claude Sonnet 4.6 · prompt 2026-05-11/v3-conventions · May 11, 2026 · 3311 in / 980 out tokens
Why it matters
Documents Šamšī-Adad IV's restoration of the Assyrian Ištar temple at Aššur, anchoring the reign's chronology to a specific eponymy date and establishing the dynastic continuity he claimed from Tiglath-pileser I.
Transliteration
mšam-ši-dIŠKUR MAN dan-nu MAN KIŠ MAN KUR aš-šur / DUMU GIŠ.tukul-ti-IBILA-é-šár-⸢ra⸣ MAN KIŠ MAN KUR aš-šur / DUMU aš-šur-SAG-i-ši MAN KIŠ MAN KUR aš-šur-ma / e-nu-ma É na-me-⸢ri⸣ [ša É diš₈-tár] áš-šu-ri-te NIN-ia / ša NUN-ú a-lik pa-ni-ia [... a-na] si-⸢ḫír⸣-ti-šu ak-še-er / ⸢NA₄⸣.[NA.RÚ.A.MEŠ ù?] ⸢sik⸣-ka-te.MEŠ al-ṭu-ur i-na qer-bi-šu [áš-ku-un] / [ITI....] ⸢u₄⸣-me 8.KÁM li-mu [mšam-ši-dIŠKUR MAN KUR?] aš-šur
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 Q006001.
Attribution
Image: BM 123510 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P422586). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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Related sources
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.