Position in chronology
Ashurbanipal 004
Written in modern English
Ashurbanipal identifies himself: great king, strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters, son of Esarhaddon, governor of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, and grandson of Sennacherib. The great gods, meeting in assembly, assigned him a favorable destiny and gave him a keen intellect and full mastery of the scribal arts. They also elevated his name among the princes and made his kingship — the text breaks off here before the thought is completed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 5(i 1) I, Ashurbani[pal], great [king], strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, [king of the fou]r [quarters (of the world)], offspring of Esarh[addon, king of Assyria], governor of Babylon, ki[ng of the land of Sumer and Akkad], descendant of Sennacher[ib, king of the world, king of Assyria] — (i 6) The great gods in their assembly [determined] a favo[rable] destiny [as my lot] (and) they granted me a broad mind (and) [allowed] my mind [to learn] all of the scr[ibal arts. They glorified] the mention of [my] na[me] in the assembly of princes (lit. “stags”) (and) made my kingship…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 5 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Why it matters
Claims divine sanction not just for Ashurbanipal's military power but for his scribal learning — one of the clearest royal assertions that literacy itself was a gift of the gods and a mark of legitimate kingship.
Transliteration
a-na-ku m⸢AN.ŠÁR-DÙ⸣-[A LUGAL] ⸢GAL LUGAL dan-nu⸣1 / LUGAL ŠÚ LUGAL ⸢KUR AN⸣.ŠÁR.⸢KI⸣ [LUGAL kib-rat LÍMMU]-⸢tim⸣ / ⸢ṣi-it⸣ lìb-bi mAN.ŠÁR-⸢PAP⸣-[AŠ LUGAL KUR aš-šur.KI] / GÌR.NÍTA KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI ⸢LUGAL⸣ [KUR EME.GI₇ u URI.KI] / ŠÀ.BAL.BAL md30-PAP.MEŠ-⸢SU⸣ [LUGAL ŠÚ LUGAL KUR aš-šur.KI] / DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ ina UKKIN-šú-nu ši-mat ⸢SIG₅⸣-[tim i-šim-mu šim-ti] / uz-nu ra-pa-áš-tú iš-ru-ku-u-ni…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Ashurbanipal or a late Sargonid successor, edited by Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers (RINAP 5, 2018–). ORACC text Q003703.
Attribution
Image: OIM A07937 (Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P392161). 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/Q003703/.
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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.