Position in chronology
Sennacherib 184
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 3(1) I, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, the one who fashioned image(s) of (the god) Aššur (and) the great gods, built (this) house and gave (it) to my second son Aššur-ilī-muballissu. I strengthened and laid its foundation(s) with limestone, stone from the mountains.
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 3 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
ana-ku md30-PAP.MEŠ-SU / MAN KUR AŠ DÙ-ìš ṣa-lam AN.ŠÁR / u DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ É DÙ-ma / a-na mAN.ŠÁR-DINGIR.MU-TI.LA.BI / DUMU-ia tar-den-ni ad-din / UŠ₈-šú ina pi-i-li NA₄ KUR-i / ú-dan-nin-ma ad-di
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sennacherib, edited by A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny (RINAP 3, 2012–2014). ORACC text Q003989.
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/Q003989/..
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/Q003989/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.