Position in chronology
Ashurnasirpal II 060
About this tablet
A small, heavily damaged fragment of a Neo-Assyrian royal inscription belonging to Ashurnasirpal II, who ruled Assyria from roughly 883 to 859 BCE and made Kalhu (modern Nimrud) his capital. The surviving phrases — 'all the lands,' 'as far as the sea,' 'mighty king,' and 'temple of the god' — are stock building-inscription formulae that appear in nearly every one of his commemorative texts. The fragment likely once formed part of a longer account of conquests and temple-building activities. Because only a handful of lines survive, the specific campaign or construction project it records cannot be identified.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The preserved text is too fragmentary for a connected reading, but what survives runs roughly: '…[broken]…all the lands…as far as the sea…[broken]…mighty king…[broken]…temple of the god…[broken]…Lady…[broken].' These are the stock titles and geographic boasts of an Assyrian king — Ashurnasirpal II — asserting dominion over all lands from his heartland to the distant sea, and recording some act of piety toward a deity whose name is now lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] ... [...] [...] all the lands [...] [... as far a]s the sea [...] [...] ... mighty king ... [...] [...] ... temple of the god ... [...] [...]-a Lady [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Engine notes
read from photo5 uncertain terms ↓
- MAN dan-nu — Standard Neo-Assyrian royal epithet šarru dannu, 'mighty king'; appears in nearly all Ashurnasirpal II inscriptions. The exact sign grouping cannot be fully confirmed from the photo at this resolution.
- A.AB.BA — Sumerian logogram for 'sea' (tâmtu in Akkadian); in royal inscriptions typically refers to the Mediterranean or Persian Gulf as the limit of conquest. Cannot verify from photo.
- KUR.KUR.MEŠ — Plural of KUR ('land/mountain'); standard formula in Assyrian royal epithets meaning 'all the lands.' Consistent with a fragment of royal titulary or annalistic text.
- NIN — Sumerian 'lady/mistress'; project glossary notes application to Inanna/Ishtar. In Ashurnasirpal II inscriptions, NIN most commonly refers to Ishtar (Assyrian Šarrat, 'queen'). The line is too broken to determine which deity is meant.
- É DINGIR — 'Temple of the god' (bīt ili); a common phrase in building inscriptions. Which deity's temple is referenced cannot be determined from the surviving fragment.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows a small, triangular terracotta fragment approximately 4–5 cm across (scale bar visible at bottom). The obverse (top-centre image) displays several rows of cuneiform wedges in a warm red-brown clay; the surface is moderately well-preserved in the upper half but increasingly worn and chipped toward the broken lower and right edges. I can discern groups of vertical and horizontal wedges consistent with the signs KUR (mountain/land determinative), and what may be a MAN (LUGAL, 'king') sign group in the fourth line area, broadly matching the transliteration's MAN (šarru, king). The A.AB.BA ('sea') sign cluster in line 3 cannot be confidently isolated from the photo at this resolution. The reverse (middle and lower images) is nearly blank or uninscribed, carrying only the museum accession labels (BM 122680, 1930-8-5,11). The left and right-edge views show no additional inscribed faces. The transliteration supplied is minimal and heavily restored with lacunae, consistent with the physical fragment size visible in the photo. Photo and transliteration are broadly in agreement; no clear discrepancies detected, but most individual signs cannot be verified at this resolution.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 12, 2026 · 3501 in / 926 out tokens
Why it matters
One of the surviving royal inscriptions of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BCE), preserved in the RIAo corpus as a witness to the formulaic and historical record of early Neo-Assyrian kingship.
Transliteration
[...] x x [...] / [...] KUR.KUR.MEŠ [...] / [... a]-⸢di⸣ A.AB.BA [...] / [...] x MAN dan-nu x [...] / [...] x É DINGIR x [...] / [...]-a ⸢NIN⸣ [...]
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 Q004514.
Attribution
Image: BM 122680 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P422453). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).
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