Position in chronology
Sargon II 084
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 2(1') [I continually ac]ted [as provider for (the cities) Sippar, Nippur, Babylon, and Borsippa (and) I made restitution for the wrongful damage suffered by] the people of privileged status, as many [as there were (of them); I restored the exemption (from obligations) of (the city) Baltil (Aššur) and the city Ḫarrān, which] had fallen into oblivion [in the distant past], and their privileged status that had la[psed]. (3') [...] (with) pure zaḫalû-silver for the work on Eḫursaggalkurkurra (“House, the Great Mountain of the Lands”), the sanctuary of the god Aššur [...] ... the goddesses Queen of…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 2 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[ša ZIMBIR.KI NIBRU.KI KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI ù bár-sipa.KI za-nin-us-su-un e-tep]-⸢pu-šá⸣ <ša> ⸢LÚ.ERIM⸣.MEŠ ki-din-ni ⸢mal⸣ [ba-šu-ú ḫi-bil-ta-šú-nu a-rib-ma] / [za-kut bal-til.KI ù URU.ḫar-ra-ni šá ul-tu u₄-me ma-aʾ-du-ti] ⸢im⸣-ma-šu-ma ki-din-nu-us-su-⸢un ba⸣-[ṭil-ta ú-ter áš-ru-uš-šá]1 / [...] za-ḫa-lu-ú eb-bu a-na ši-pir é-ḫur-sag-gal-kur-kur-ra at-man daš-šur x [...]2 / [...] x SU Ú TAR ⸢DA?⸣…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sargon II, edited by Grant Frame (RINAP 2, 2021). ORACC text Q006565.
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/Q006565/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.