Šamši-Adad I 02

LAYER 1 — Visual examination: The fragment is a small, roughly triangular chip of dark stone (diorite or basalt), British Museum accession 99383. The inscribed face (top image) shows two ruled horizontal lines dividing the surface into at least two registers, each containing deep, sharply incised cuneiform wedges. The upper register appears to preserve three to four signs: at the left I can make out what looks like a large compound sign possibly including horizontal wedges consistent with LUGAL or a similar royal title sign; to its right there appear to be two further signs with prominent triangular heads. The lower register shows a sign group that could be consistent with an EN or NÍL component sign (stacked horizontals with angled head wedges), followed by further signs. Preservation of the carved wedges is relatively good where the stone surface is intact, but the extreme fragmentation means only a fraction of the original text survives on this face; the right and lower edges are all broken. The reverse (bottom image) is uninsribed and shows the raw break surface with the museum label. LAYER 2 — Translation from transliteration: The text is a royal building inscription of Šamši-Adad I (Old Babylonian period, c. 1813–1781 BCE). The transliteration opens with a damaged first-person declaration, followed by the king's name and titles, then a narrative clause about expulsion (ušassiksuma), a fragmentary passage about the ziqqurat, and then a full titulary block. The core narrative records the renovation of the temple Emenu-è within the Ešmaš temple precinct at Aššur, noting that the old temple had fallen into ruin; it had originally been built by the son of Sargon (i.e., Naram-Sin) king of Akkad. CROSS-CHECK: The photo preserves only a tiny portion of the full composite text; the signs visible — what appears to be LUGAL and an EN-type sign — are consistent with the titulary section (LUGAL KIŠ / ša-ki-in dEN.LÍL). I cannot verify specific signs for the personal name, the ziqqurat passage, or the Naram-Sin reference from this photo alone. The inscription is well known from other manuscript witnesses and the transliteration follows standard Šamši-Adad I building inscription tradition (cf. RIMA 1 A.0.39.2; Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Second Millennia, pp. 49–51).