Position in chronology
Esarhaddon 046
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 4(1) [The palace] of Esarha[ddon, great king, migh]ty [king], king of the world, [king of Assyria, descen]dant of Sennach[erib, great king, migh]ty [king], king of the world, [king of Assyria, ...] ... [...] (r 1') [...] which/that ... [... of]fi[cial ...] ... which/that [...]
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Why it matters
Survives only in fragments, yet adds one manuscript witness to the corpus of Esarhaddon's royal titulary, helping scholars reconstruct how this king broadcast his legitimacy across the Assyrian heartland.
Transliteration
[É].⸢GAL šá⸣ mAN.ŠÁR-⸢ŠEŠ⸣-[SUM.NA LUGAL GAL-ú] / [LUGAL dan]-nu LUGAL ŠÚ [LUGAL KUR aš-šur.KI] / [lip]-⸢lip⸣ md⸢30-ŠEŠ.MEŠ⸣-[SU LUGAL GAL-ú] / [LUGAL dan]-nu LUGAL ŠÚ [LUGAL KUR aš-šur.KI] / [...] x x x x BE [...] / [...] ⸢šá⸣ x x x [...] / [...] ⸢LÚ.SAG⸣ [...] / [...]-ri ⸢šá⸣ [...]
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Esarhaddon, edited by Erle Leichty (RINAP 4, 2011). ORACC text Q003275.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P238702). source
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/Q003275/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.