Position in chronology
Sennacherib 041
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 3(1') [I made (them) an obj]ect of wonder. (2'b) I decorated them (the doors) with silver [and copper] knobbed [nails]. I adorned the arches, friezes, and all of their copings with baked bricks (glazed in the color of) obsidian (and) lapis lazuli. (7'b) So that the construction of my palace might be carried out correctly and that my handiwork be completed, at that time, the god Aššur and the goddess Ištar, who love my priestly service (and) who selected me (lit. “who called my name”), revealed to me a source of trunks of cedar, which since distant days grew tall and very thick as they stood in…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 3 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[a-na tab]-ra-a-ti / [ú-šá-lik sik-kàt] kar-ri1 / kas-pi [ù URUDU qé]-reb-šin / ú-šal-me i-na SIG₄.AL.ÙR.RA / NA₄.ZÚ NA₄.ZA.GÌN us-si-ma / se-el-lum né-bé-ḫi ù gi-mir / pa-as-qí-šin áš-šú šip-ri É.GAL-ia / šu-te-šu-ri ù li-pit ŠU.II-ia šul-lu-me / i-na u₄-me-šu-ma daš-šur ù diš-tar / ra-ʾi-mu LÚ.SANGA-ti-ia na-bu-ú MU-ia / giš-maḫ-ḫi GIŠ.ere-ni ša ul-tu u₄-me SÙ.MEŠ / i-ši-ḫu-ma ik-bi-ru ma-gal…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sennacherib, edited by A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny (RINAP 3, 2012–2014). ORACC text Q003515.
Attribution
Image: Created by A. Kirk Grayson, Jamie Novotny, and the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) Project, 2014. Lemmatized by Jamie Novotny, 2013. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/rinap/Q003515/..
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/Q003515/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.