Position in chronology
Esarhaddon 135
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 4(1) For the goddess Nanāya, veiled one of the goddesses, who is adorned with attractiveness and joy and full of glamour, splendid daughter of the god Anu, whose lordship is supreme among all ladies, eminent spouse of the god Muzibsâ, praised sekretu, beloved of his majesty, compassionate goddess, who goes to the help of the king who reveres her, who prolongs his reign, who dwells in Eḫiliana (“House, Luxuriance of Heaven”) — which is inside Eanna — queen of Uruk, great lady, his lady: (6) Esarhaddon, king of the world, king of Assyria, governor of Babylon, king of the land of Sumer and Akkad;…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
a-na dna-na-a pu-su-um-ti i-la-a-ti šá ḪI.LI u ul-ṣi za-aʾ-na-tu lu-le-e ma-la-tu / bu-kúr-ti da-nim šit-ra-aḫ-ti šá ina nap-ḫar be-le-e-ti šur-ba-a-tu e-nu-us-sa1 / ḫi-rat dmu-zib-sa₄-a ti-iz-qar-ti sek-ra-ti na-aʾ-it-ti na-ram-ti NUN-ú-ti-šú2 / ìl-tum re-me-ni-tum a-li-kát ri-ṣi LUGAL pa-li-ḫi-šá mu-šal-bi-rat pa-le-e-šú / a-ši-bat é-ḫi-li-an-na šá qé-reb é-an-na šar-rat UNUG.KI GAŠAN GAL-tum…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Esarhaddon, edited by Erle Leichty (RINAP 4, 2011). ORACC text Q003364.
Attribution
Image: Created by Erle Leichty, Grant Frame, and the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) Project, 2011. Lemmatized by Jamie Novotny, 2010. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/rinap/Q003364/..
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/Q003364/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.