Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

Adad-nerari III 2012

~800 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·Q004792

Written in modern English

He was chief of a vast army. He built a new city on the border of Aššur, beside Mount Ebiḫ on the bank of the Tigris, and enclosed it entirely with a wall, completing it from its foundations to its battlements. He named the city Šarru-iddina. He carved this commemorative inscription so that his name would last forever, and calls on those who come after to read it and honor his name — the line breaks off there.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — scholar edition

RIAo
High confidence
(1') the chief of the extensive army. (2') At that time, I built a city on the border of Baltil (Aššur), by Mount Ebiḫ, on the bank of the Tigris River, and surrounded it entirely (with a wall). I built (and) completed (it) from its foundations to its crenellations. I called the name of that city Šarru-iddina. (9') I wrote my commemorative inscription and (thus) established my name for eternity. May those who come after see this commemorative inscription of mine. May they heed my name and [...]

Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online — scholar edition (ORACC / MOCCI).

Transliteration

LÚ.GAL um-ma-a-ni.⸢MEŠ DAGAL?⸣-[šu ...] / ina u₄-me-šu-ma ina qa-ni URU.bal-til.KI / ina a-ḫat KUR.e-bi-iḫ ina GÚ ÍD.IDIGNA / URU DÙ-uš-ma a-na si-ḫír-te-šú al-mi / TA uš-še-e-šú a-di ga-ba-an-dib-ba-e-šú / ár-ṣip ú-šak-lil / ù MU URU šu-a-tu / mLUGAL-SUM.NA MU-šu ab-bi / NA₄.na-ra-a-a al-ṭu-ur / ù MU a-na da-riš / al-⸢ta⸣-kan / EGIR-ú NA₄.NA.RÚ.A-a / an-na-a IGI.LÁ-⸢šu⸣ / šu-mi li-ʾi-du-⸢ma⸣ / [x x] ⸢ú⸣-[...]

Scholarly note

Royal inscription of an Assyrian king, published in the Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online project (RIAo). Translation reproduced from the ORACC edition. ORACC text Q004792.

Attribution

Image: Based on A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC II (858-745 BC) (RIMA 3), Toronto, 1996. Adapted by Jamie Novotny (2016) and lemmatized and updated by Nathan Morello (2016) for the Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative (MOCCI), a corpus-building initiative funded by LMU Munich and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (through the establishment of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair for Ancient History of the Near and Middle East) and based 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. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/riao/Q004792/..
Translation excerpted from Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online (RIAo), Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative (MOCCI), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; in association with the RINAP Project, University of Pennsylvania. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/riao/Q004792/.

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