Position in chronology
Sargon II 050
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 2(1) Palace of Sargon (II), appointee of the god Enlil, nešakku-priest of (the god) Aššur, strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria.
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 2 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Why it matters
Attests Sargon II's dual claim as secular world-king and nešakku-priest of Aššur, yoking imperial military authority to cultic legitimacy in the standard idiom of Sargonid royal titulary.
Transliteration
É.GAL mMAN-GIN / GAR dBAD NU.ÈŠ aš-šur / MAN dan-nu MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR AŠ
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sargon II, edited by Grant Frame (RINAP 2, 2021). ORACC text Q006531.
Attribution
Image: BM 090819 (British Museum, London, UK) — from uncertain (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P428369). source
Translation excerpted from Frame, G. 2021. The Royal Inscriptions of Sargon II, King of Assyria (721–705 BC). RINAP 2. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap2/Q006531/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.