Position in chronology
Ashurbanipal 068
Written in modern English
This is the palace of Ashurbanipal — great king, mighty king, king of the world, king of Assyria, son of Esarhaddon, who was likewise king of the world and king of Assyria.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 5(1) The palace of Ashurbanipal, great king, strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, son of Esarhaddon, king of the world, king of Assyria.
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 5 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Why it matters
One of the standard royal titulary inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (RINAP 5, Q003767), attesting the Sargonid formula — great king, strong king, king of the world — as a fixed ideological claim to universal sovereignty.
Transliteration
KUR mAN.ŠÁR-DÙ-A MAN GAL MAN dan-nu MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR AN.ŠÁR.KI A mAN.ŠÁR-PAP-AŠ MAN ŠÚ MAN 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 Q003767.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P464971). 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/Q003767/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.