Position in chronology
Sargon II 064
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 2(1') [... (As for) the citizens of (the cities) Sippar], N[ippur, Babylon, and Borsippa who through no fault of their own had been held captive in it (Dūr-Yakīn), I put an end to their imprisonment and let them see the light (of day). (With regard to) their fields, which long ag]o, whi[le the land was in disorder, the Sutians had taken away and appropriated for their own], I stru[ck down (those) Sutians, the people] of the steppe, with the sword. [I (re)assigned to them (the citizens) their territories, (whose boundaries) had been forgotten (and) fallen into disuse during the troubled period…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 2 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[... DUMU.MEŠ ZIMBIR].⸢KI? NIBRU?⸣.[KI KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI u bár-sipa.KI ša i-na la an-ni-šú-nu i-na qer-bi-šú ka-mu-ú ṣi-bit-ta-šú-nu a-bu-ut-ma ú-kal-lim-šú-nu-ti nu-ru] / [A.ŠÀ.MEŠ-šú-nu ša ul-tu u₄-me ul]-⸢lu⸣-ti i-⸢na⸣ [i-ši-ti ma-a-ti LÚ.su-ti-i e-ki-mu-ú-ma ra-ma-nu-uš-šú-un ú-ter-ru] / [LÚ.su-ti-i ERIM].⸢MEŠ? EDIN i-na GIŠ.TUKUL ú-šam⸣-[qit ki-sur-ri-šú-nu ma-šu-ú-ti ša ina di-li-iḫ KUR…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sargon II, edited by Grant Frame (RINAP 2, 2021). ORACC text Q006545.
Attribution
Image: Created by Grant Frame and the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) Project, 2019. Adapted for RINAP Online by Joshua Jeffers and Jamie Novotny and lemmatized by Giulia Lentini, Nathan Morello, and Jamie Novotny, 2019, for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation-funded OIMEA Project at the Historisches Seminar - Abteilung Alte Geschichte of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0..
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/Q006545/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.