Position in chronology
Sargon II 109
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 2(1') [the victorious one who is perfect in strength and power (and) who subjugated the insubmissive Medes; who slaughtered the people of the land Ḫarḫar (and) enlarged] the territory of Assyria; [who gathered (back together) the scattered land Mannea (and) brought order to the disturbed land Ellipi; who established (his) kingship over both (these) lands and made] his name [glo]rious; (3') [... Since the (first) day of my reign], there has been [no ruler who could equal me] and [I have met no one who could overpower (me) in war or battle. Pisīri(s) of the city Carchemish sinned against the…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 2 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[ma-a-ʾu ga-mir dun-ni ù a-ba-ri mu-šék-niš KUR.ma-da-a-a la kan-šu-te šá-a-giš UN.MEŠ KUR.ḫar-ḫar.KI mu-šar-bu-ú] ⸢mi-ṣir⸣ KUR aš-šur.⸢KI⸣1 / [mu-pa-ḫir KUR.ma-an-na-a-a sa-ap-ḫi mu-ta-qí-in KUR.el-li-pí dal-ḫi ša LUGAL-ut KUR.KUR ki-lal-la-an ú-kin-nu-ma ú-šar]-ri-ḫu zi-kir-šú / [... ina u₄-um be-lu-ti-ia mal-ku gaba-ra-a-a ul] ib-ši-⸢ma⸣2 / [ina e-peš MURUB₄ u MÈ ul a-mu-ra mu-né-ḫu…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sargon II, edited by Grant Frame (RINAP 2, 2021). ORACC text Q006590.
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/Q006590/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.