Position in chronology
Ashurnasirpal II 028
Translation — scholar edition
RIAo(i 1) To the goddess Šarrat-nipḫi, great lady, foremost in heaven (and) netherworld, queen of all of the gods, the strong one whose weighty command is respected [in the temples], whose form is surpassing among the goddesses, shining countenance who like the god Šamaš, her sibling, thoroughly inspects the circumference of heaven (and) [netherworld], most capable of the Anunnakū gods, offspring of the god Anu, supreme among the gods, counsellor of her brothers, leader, the one who stirs up the seas (and) shakes the mountains, heroine of the Igīgū gods, lady of conflict and battle, without whom…
Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online — scholar edition (ORACC / MOCCI).
Transliteration
a-na dGAŠAN-KUR NIN GAL-ti SAG-ti AN-e KI-tim ⸢šar-rat DÙ⸣ DINGIR.MEŠ ge-šèr-tu šá [ina É.KUR].⸢MEŠ⸣ si-kir-šá DUGUD / ina dINANNA.MEŠ šu-tu-rat nab-ni-sa zi-mu nam-ru šá GIM d⸢šá-maš⸣ ta-li-me-šá kip-pa-at AN-e [KI-tim] mit-ḫa-⸢riš⸣ ta-ḫi-ṭa / le-ʾa-at da-nun-na-ki bu-kur-ti da-nim šur-bu-ut DINGIR.MEŠ ma-li-kát PAP.MEŠ-šá a-li-kát maḫ-⸢ri da⸣-li-ḫat [ta]-ma-a-te / mu-na-ri-ṭa-at ḫur-šá-ni…
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 Q004482.
Attribution
Image: Based on A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC I (1114-859 BC) (RIMA 2), Toronto, 1991. Adapted by Jamie Novotny (2015-16) and lemmatized and updated by Nathan Morello (2016-17) for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation-funded OIMEA Project 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/Q004482/..
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/Q004482/.
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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.