Position in chronology
Ashurbanipal 001
Translation · reference
High confidenceCols. i–v completely missing (vi 1) they struck down his [warri]ors with the sword. They carried off [in]to Assyria [peopl]e, oxen, (and) sheep and goats, his substantial [boo]ty. (vi 5) They [captu]red alive [Akkud]āya, their herald, (and) brought (him) before me. I forcibly removed [the people li]ving in those cities, [took (them) and] settled (them) in Egypt. I made [the people, whom] my bow [plundered] in another land, live [in the city Q]irbit and its villages. (vi 11) [...] I [...] ... [...] sun [...] they [kiss]ed my feet [...] ... (vi 1') [...] his [mes]senger [...] to inquire about…
Source: Novotny, J. & Jeffers, J. 2018–. The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (668–631 BC), Aššur-etel-ilāni (630–627 BC) and Sîn-šarra-iškun (626–612 BC), Kings of Assyria. RINAP 5. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap5/Q003700/
Translation · AI engine
read from photo[His warri]ors I struck down with the sword; [the peo]ple, cattle, (and) flocks — [his] heavy [spoi]l they carried off; [into the midst of] the land of Aššur [the Maku]daean, their herald, alive with his own hand [they seiz]ed (him) and brought (him) before me; [the people] who dwell in those cities I uprooted, [and brought (them), settling (them)] in the midst of the land of Egypt; [the people, plunder of] my bow, who were of another land, [in the midst of …
5 uncertain terms ↓
- [ma-ku]-⸢da⸣-a-a — The Makudaean; restoration of the toponym/gentilic is plausible from context and parallel texts but the initial signs are broken. Some editions read differently.
- LÚ.NÍMGIR-šú-nu — NÍMGIR = 'herald/nagiru'; the precise function here (royal herald? town-crier?) is debated.
- bal-ṭu-su ina qa-ti — 'alive, with his hand' — the idiom 'captured alive by hand' is standard but the division of agency (whose hand — his captors'?) is syntactically ambiguous.
- GIŠ.PAN-ia ša KUR šá-ni-tim-ma — 'plunder of my bow, who were of another land' — the phrase 'people of another land, plunder of my bow' is a formulaic annalistic expression; 'šá-ni-tim-ma' could carry emphatic or contrastive nuance ('a foreign/different land indeed').
- [qé-reb… — Line 10 breaks off; the continuation is not supplied in the transliteration. The restoration would depend on which campaign episode and which manuscript witnesses are joined here.
Reasoning ↓
Visual examination of the photograph reveals a multi-fragment clay tablet (museum numbers A7920, A8138 visible on the reverse of the rightmost fragment), with dense Neo-Assyrian cuneiform script in two columns. The surface is pale buff clay; wedge impressions are clear in the upper and middle zones of the obverse fragments, but the lower left corner fragment is missing or heavily damaged, and the small detached chips at top and bottom carry only illegible trace wedges. The script density and column ruling are consistent with a Neo-Assyrian royal annalistic composition. Most individual signs cannot be read at this resolution — the photo confirms the general columnar layout and the presence of many lines but cannot verify individual sign readings against the transliteration. The transliteration (Q003700, Ashurbanipal 001) is well-matched to known passages from Ashurbanipal's annals describing the Egyptian campaigns, particularly the deportation of peoples and the role of the Makudaean herald; compare Streck, Assurbanipal (1916) II, and Luckenbill, ARAB II. Restorations in square brackets follow standard reconstructions from parallel manuscripts. The term 'GIŠ.PAN-ia ša KUR šá-ni-tim-ma' at line 9 is uncertain without the continuation.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-11/v2 · May 11, 2026 · 2680 in / 880 out tokens
Why it matters
Documents Ashurbanipal's forced resettlement of conquered populations into Egypt and the Levantine town of Qirbit — a concrete case of Assyrian demographic engineering as an instrument of imperial control.
Transliteration
[LÚ.qu-ra]-⸢di-šú⸣ ú-ra-si-bu ina GIŠ.TUKUL1 / [UN].MEŠ GU₄.MEŠ ṣe-e-ni2 / [šal]-⸢la⸣-su ka-bit-tu iš-lu-lu-u-ni / [a-na qé]-reb KUR aš-šur.KI / [ma-ku]-⸢da⸣-a-a LÚ.NÍMGIR-šú-nu bal-ṭu-su ina qa-ti / [iṣ-ba]-tu-ni ub-lu-u-ni a-di maḫ-ri-ia / [UN.MEŠ a]-⸢šib⸣-ut URU.MEŠ-ni šú-nu-ti as-suḫ / [ú-bil-ma] qé-reb KUR.mu-ṣur ú-šá-aṣ-bit / [UN.MEŠ ḫu-bu-ut] ⸢GIŠ⸣.PAN-ia ša KUR šá-ni-tim-ma / [qé-reb…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Ashurbanipal or a late Sargonid successor, edited by Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers (RINAP 5, 2018–). ORACC text Q003700.
Attribution
Image: OIM A07920 + OIM A08138 (Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P392144). source
Translation excerpted from Novotny, J. & Jeffers, J. 2018–. The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (668–631 BC), Aššur-etel-ilāni (630–627 BC) and Sîn-šarra-iškun (626–612 BC), Kings of Assyria. RINAP 5. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap5/Q003700/.
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