Position in chronology
Ashurnasirpal II 002
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) Palace of Ashurnasirpal (II), vice-regent of (the god) Aššur, chosen of the gods Enlil and Ninurta, beloved of the gods Anu and Dagān, destructive weapon of the great gods, strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, son of Tukultī-Ninurta (II), great king, strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, son of Adad-nārārī (II), (who was) also king of the world (and) king of Assyria; the valiant man who acts with the support of (the god) Aššur, his lord, and who has no rival among the rulers of the four quarters (of the world); marvelous shepherd, fearless in battle, mighty…
Source: 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/Q004456/
Why it matters
Preserves Ashurnasirpal II's titulary in full — the layered chain of divine election, genealogy, and universal kingship that legitimised Neo-Assyrian imperial ideology in the 9th century BCE.
Transliteration
É.GAL maš-šur-PAP-A ŠID aš-šur ni-šit dBAD u dMAŠ na-ra-am da-nim ù dda-gan ka-šu-uš DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ MAN dan-nu MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR aš-šur / DUMU GISKIM-dnin-urta* MAN GAL-e MAN dan-ni MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR aš-šur DUMU 10-ERIM.TÁḪ MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR aš-šur-ma eṭ-lu qar-du šá ina GIŠ.tukul-ti aš-šur EN-šú DU.DU-ku-ma / ina mal-ki.MEŠ šá kib-rat LÍMMU-ta šá-nin-šú la-a TUKU-ú LÚ.SIPA tab-ra-te la a-di-ru…
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 Q004456.
Attribution
Image: SM 1897.01.001 (Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P405822). source
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/Q004456/.
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