Position in chronology
Sennacherib 034
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 3(1) Palace of Sennacherib, great king, strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters (of the world), favorite of the great gods, wise prince, circumspect ruler, shepherd of people, (and) leader of a widespread population, I: (3b) The god Aššur, father of the gods, looked steadfastly upon me among all of the rulers and made my weapons greater than (those of) all who sit on (royal) daises. He gave me a just scepter that widens borders (and) he put in my hand a merciless rod to fell enemies. (6b) In a pitched battle, I overwhelmed like the Deluge Marduk-apla-iddina…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 3 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
É.GAL mdEN.ZU-ŠEŠ.MEŠ-eri-ba LUGAL GAL ⸢LUGAL dan-nu LUGAL ŠÚ LUGAL KUR aš-šur.KI LUGAL kib-rat LÍMMU-tim⸣1 / mi-gir DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ lu-li-mu er-šu ma-⸢al-ku pit-qu-du RE.É.UM ba-ḫu-la-a-ti⸣ / mut-tar-ru-ú UN.MEŠ rap-šá-a-ti a-na-ku d⸢aš-šur AD DINGIR.MEŠ i-na kul-lat ma-li-ki⸣2 / ke-niš IGI.BAR-ni-ma UGU gi-mir a-šib pa-rak-ki ú-⸢šar-ba-a GIŠ.TUKUL.MEŠ-ia id-di-nam⸣ / GIŠ.GIDRU i-šar-tu…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sennacherib, edited by A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny (RINAP 3, 2012–2014). ORACC text Q003508.
Attribution
Image: Created by A. Kirk Grayson, Jamie Novotny, and the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) Project, 2012. Lemmatized by Jamie Novotny, 2011. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/rinap/Q003508/..
Translation excerpted from Grayson, A.K. & Novotny, J. 2012–2014. The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704–681 BC). RINAP 3. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap3/Q003508/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.