Position in chronology
Sennacherib 168
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 3(1) Sennacherib, great king, strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters (of the world), leader of a widespread population, the one who fashioned image(s) of (the god) Aššur and the great gods, the one who carries out to perfection the forgotten rites of Ešarra through divination, at the command of (5) the gods Šamaš and Adad, the one who makes great their purification rites, the one who returns the abandoned protective spirit of Ešarra to its place, who knows well how to revere the gods of heaven and the gods of Assyria, who exalts the great gods in their…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 3 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
md30-PAP.MEŠ-SU MAN GAL MAN dan-nu MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR aš-šur.KI / MAN kib-rat LÍMMU-ti mu-tar-ru-u UN.MEŠ DAGAL.MEŠ / e-piš ṣa-lam AN.ŠÁR u DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ mu-šak-lil / pa-ra-aṣ é-šár-ra ma-šu-u-ti ina bi-ri ina qí-bit / dUTU u dIŠKUR mu-šar-bu-u šu-luḫ-ḫi-šú-un / mu-ter dLAMMA é-šár-ra ba-ṭil-ti a-na áš-ri-šú / šá pa-làḫ DINGIR.MEŠ šá AN-e u DINGIR.MEŠ KUR aš-šur.KI ra-biš / mu-du-u mu-ul-li…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sennacherib, edited by A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny (RINAP 3, 2012–2014). ORACC text Q003973.
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/Q003973/..
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/Q003973/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.