Position in chronology
Sargon II 095
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 2(1) Sargon (II), appointee of the god Enlil, nešakku-priest of (the god) Aššur, governor (appointed) by the gods Nabû and Marduk, built the temple of the gods Nabû and Marduk, his lords, from its foundations to its crenellations for the sake of his life, the well-being of his offspring, the overthrow of this enemies, the success of the harvest of Assyria, (and) the well-being of Assyria.
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 2 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Why it matters
Sargon II dedicates a temple to Nabû and Marduk — Babylonian gods — listing five explicit royal goals, evidence that Assyrian kings cultivated Babylonian divine patronage to legitimize rule over the south.
Transliteration
mLUGAL-GI.NA šá-ak-ni dBAD / NU.ÈŠ aš-šur GÌR.NÍTA dAG u dAMAR.UTU / É dAG u dAMAR.UTU EN.MEŠ-šú1 / ul-tu UŠ₈-šú a-di gaba-dib-bi-šú / a-na TI.LA-šú šùl-mu NUMUN-šú / sà-kap LÚ.KÚR.MEŠ-šú SI.SÁ BURU₁₄ šá KUR aš-šur.KI / šá-lam KUR aš-šur.KI DÙ-uš
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sargon II, edited by Grant Frame (RINAP 2, 2021). ORACC text Q006576.
Attribution
Image: BM 090243 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P427871). 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/Q006576/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.