Position in chronology
Shalmaneser III 046
Translation — scholar edition
RIAo(1) Shalmaneser (III), strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, son of Ashurnasirpal (II), strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, son of Tukultī-Ninurta (II), (who was) also strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, son of Adad-nārārī (II), (who was) also strong king, king of the world, (and) king of Assyria. (5) At that time, the ancient Tabira Gate, which Aššur-dān (II), son of Tiglath-pileser (II), kings who came before me, had previously built, (that gate) had become dilapidated. I removed its dilapidated section(s), delineated its site, (and) reached its…
Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online — scholar edition (ORACC / MOCCI).
Transliteration
mdsál-ma-nu-MAŠ MAN dan-nu MAN KIŠ MAN KUR aš-šur / DUMU maš-šur-PAP-A MAN dan-nu MAN KIŠ MAN KUR aš-šur / DUMU GIŠ.tukul-ti-dMAŠ MAN dan-nu MAN KIŠ MAN KUR aš-šur-ma / DUMU dIŠKUR-ERIM.TÁḪ MAN dan-nu MAN KIŠ MAN KUR aš-šur-ma / e-nu-ma KÁ.GAL TIBIRA maḫ-ri-tu ša ina pa-an maš-šur-KAL-an / DUMU mGIŠ.tukul-ti-IBILA-é-šár-ra MAN.MEŠ-ni a-lik pa-ni-ia / e-pu-uš e-na-aḫ-ma an-ḫu-sa ú-na-ki-ri /…
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 Q004651.
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/Q004651/..
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/Q004651/.
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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.