Position in chronology
Ashurbanipal 027
Written in modern English
A common soldier in Ashurbanipal's army cut off the head of Teumman, king of Elam, in the middle of the battle. It was sent swiftly to Assyria to bring Ashurbanipal the good news.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 5(1) The head of Teum[man, the king of the land Elam], which a common soldier in my army [had cut off] in the midst of bat[tle]. They dispatched (it) quickly to As[syria] to (give me) the good ne[ws].
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 5 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
SAG.DU mte-um-[man MAN KUR.ELAM.MA.KI] / ša ina MURUB₄ tam-⸢ḫa⸣-[ri ik-ki-su] / a-ḫu-ru-u ERIM.ḪI.A-ia a-na pu-⸢us⸣-[su-rat] / ḫa-de-e ú-šaḫ-ma-ṭu a-na KUR ⸢AN⸣.[ŠÁR.KI]
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Ashurbanipal or a late Sargonid successor, edited by Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers (RINAP 5, 2018–). ORACC text Q003726.
Attribution
Image: Created by Jamie Novotny and Joshua Jeffers, 2015-18. Lemmatized by Jamie Novotny, 2015–16, 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/rinap/Q003726/..
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/Q003726/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.