Position in chronology
Sargon II 073
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 2(1) Palace of Sargon (II) appointee of the god Enlil, nešakku-priest of the god Aššur, chosen of the gods Anu and Enlil, strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters (of the world), favorite of the great gods, just shepherd, whom the gods Aššur (and) Marduk choose and whose fame (these gods) exalted to the heights; (3) the strong man who is clad in awesome splendor (and) whose weapons(s) are raised to strike down (his) enemies; the valiant man who since the (first) day of his reign has had no ruler who could equal him and no one who could overpower (or) rival…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 2 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
É.GAL mLUGAL-GI.NA šá-ak-nu dEN.LÍL NU.ÈŠ da-šur ni-šit IGI.II da-nim ù dEN.LÍL MAN dan-nu MAN KIŠ MAN KUR aš-šur.KI MAN kib-rat LÍMMU-i mi-gir DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ / SIPA ke-e-nu šá da-šur dAMAR.UTU ut-tu-šu-ma zi-kir šu-mi-šú ú-še-ṣu-u a-na re-še-e-te / zi-ka-ru dan-nu ḫa-lip na-mur-ra-te ša a-na šum-qut na-ki-ri šu-ut-bu-u kak-ku-šu / eṭ-lu qar-du šá ul-tu u₄-um be-lu-ti-šú mal-ku GABA.RI-šú la…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sargon II, edited by Grant Frame (RINAP 2, 2021). ORACC text Q006554.
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/Q006554/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.