Position in chronology
Sennacherib 050
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 the people, (and) leader of a widespr]ead [population, I]: (3b) [The goddess Bēlet-ilī, the lady of creation, looked steadfastly upon me and cre]ated [my features (while I was still) in the womb of the mother who gave birth to me. Moreover, the god Ninšiku gave me wide understanding equal to (that of) the sage Adapa (and) endowed me with broad kn]owledge. (5) [The god Aššur, father of the…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 3 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[É.GAL mdEN.ZU-ŠEŠ.MEŠ-SU LUGAL GAL LUGAL dan-nu LUGAL ŠÚ LUGAL KUR aš-šur.KI LUGAL kib-rat LÍMMU-ti] mi-gir / [DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ lu-li-mu er-šu mal-ku pit-qu-du RE.É.UM ba-ḫu-la-ti mut-ta-ru-ú UN.MEŠ rap-šá]-⸢a⸣-ti / [a-na-ku dbe-let-DINGIR.MEŠ be-let nab-ni-ti i-na ŠÀ.TÙR a-ga-ri-in-ni a-lit-ti-ia ke-niš IGI.BAR-an-ni-ma ú-ṣab]-⸢ba⸣-a / [nab-ni-ti ù dnin-ši-kù id-di-na kar-šu rit-pa-šú…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sennacherib, edited by A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny (RINAP 3, 2012–2014). ORACC text Q003524.
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/Q003524/..
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/Q003524/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.