Position in chronology
Ashurnasirpal II 023
Translation — scholar edition
RIAo(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 great king, strong king, 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…
Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online — scholar edition (ORACC / MOCCI).
Why it matters
One of the standard titulary inscriptions of Ashurnasirpal II, tracing his legitimacy through three generations of Assyrian kings and anchoring royal authority in a chain of divine election by Aššur, Enlil, Ninurta, Anu, and Dagān.
Transliteration
É.GAL maš-šur-PAP-A ŠID aš-šur ni-šit dBAD u dMAŠ na-ra-am da-nim u dda-gan ka-šu-uš DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ MAN dan-nu MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR aš-šur A TUKUL-MAŠ MAN GAL-e MAN dan-ni MAN ŠÚ / MAN KUR aš-šur A 10-ERIM.TÁḪ MAN GAL-e MAN dan-ni 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 Q004477.
Attribution
Image: HMA 9-01762 + HMA 9-01763 (Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA) — from Kalhu (mod. Nimrud) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P247872). 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/Q004477/.
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One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
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.