Position in chronology
Adad-nerari III 2001
Written in modern English
This monument belongs to Semiramis, palace woman of Šamšī-Adad V, king of the world and king of Assyria. She was the mother of Adad-nārārī III, king of the world and king of Assyria, and daughter-in-law of Shalmaneser III, king of the four quarters of the world.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
RIAo(1) Monument of Semiramis, the palace woman [of Šam]šī-Adad (V), king of the world, king of Assyria, mother of Adad-nārārī (III), king of the world, king of Assyria, daughter-in-law of Shalmaneser (III), king of the four quarters (of the world).
Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online — scholar edition (ORACC / MOCCI).
Transliteration
ṣa-lam fsa-am-mu-ra-mat / MUNUS.É.⸢GAL⸣ [šá mšam]-ši-dIŠKUR / MAN ŠÚ MAN ⸢KUR⸣ [da]-šur / MUNUS.AMA [šá md]⸢IŠKUR⸣-ERIM.TÁḪ / MAN ŠÚ MAN ⸢KUR⸣ da-šur / MUNUS.kal-lat [md]⸢sál⸣-ma-nu-MAŠ / MAN kib-rat LÍMMU-ti
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 Q004781.
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/Q004781/..
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/Q004781/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.