Position in chronology
Esarhaddon 035
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 4(1) [...] whose country is remote, [... I be]sieged and plundered it. (3) [... the] chieftain of the city Partukka, [... Med]es whose country is remote, [...] large [thoroughbreds] (and blocks of) lapis lazuli, hewn from its [mountain, ... they] kissed my feet [... I imposed ...] upon them. (8) [... b]orders Mount Bikni [...] mighty chieftains [...] I counted as [booty. I ...] the[m]. (r 1') [...] ... water channels [...] ... like ... [...] ..., horses, he constantly [...] Kush, black Meluḫḫians, [...] ... with whom he formed a confederation [...] a difficult place [...] ... [...] ... [...] the goddess Erua ... [...] ...
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[...] šá a-šar-šú ru-u-qu / [... al]-me-ma áš-lu-la šal-lat-su / [... LÚ].⸢EN⸣.URU šá URU.pa-ra-tuk*-ka1 / [... KUR.ma-da]-⸢a⸣-a šá a-šar-šú-nu SÙ / [... ANŠE.mur-ni-is-qí GAL].MEŠ NA₄.ZA.GÌN GAZ [KUR]-šú / [... iš-ši]-qu GÌR.II-ia / [... e-mid]-su-nu-ú-ti / [... pa]-⸢a⸣-ṭi KUR.bi-ik-ni / [... LÚ].⸢EN⸣.URU.MEŠ dan-nu-te / [... šal-la]-tiš am-nu / [...]-šú-nu-[ti] / [...] x x NI ḫar-ri x [...]2 /…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Esarhaddon, edited by Erle Leichty (RINAP 4, 2011). ORACC text Q003264.
Attribution
Image: Created by Erle Leichty, Jamie Novotny, and the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) Project, 2011, 2017. Lemmatized by Jamie Novotny, 2010, and updated by him, 2017, 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/Q003264/..
Translation excerpted from Leichty, E. 2011. The Royal Inscriptions of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (680–669 BC). RINAP 4. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap4/Q003264/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.