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Sumerian · Book

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Sumerian · Book

The first cities. The first stories. Still here, written in clay.

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Every tablet in the corpus — sortable by date, title or period; filterable by theme and period. Find a name, follow a period, or explore a subject through the records it left behind.

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Ubaid Uruk Period Early Dynastic Akkadian Empire Ur III · Neo-Sumerian Old Babylonian Old Assyrian Middle Babylonian Middle Assyrian Neo-Assyrian Neo-Babylonian Achaemenid Persian

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Editorial Sumerian literature Sumerian royal Assyrian royal Assyrian archives

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Page 1400 / 1495

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 215

Records Ashurbanipal's gilding of Marduk's canopy and chariot with thirty-four talents of gold — concrete evidence of Assyrian royal investment in Babylonian cult as a tool of political legitimation.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·

Neo-Assyrian

RINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 216

Hymnic praise of a Sargonid king as cosmic mediator — one whose word cannot be changed and without whom no judgement is rendered — fusing royal ideology with the judicial authority of Šamaš.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 217

Ashurbanipal's account of sacking Elam (~646 BCE): the deliberate destruction of temples, secret groves, and royal tombs attests the ideological use of sacral desecration as a weapon of imperial subjugation.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 218

Fragmentary Sargonid royal inscription invoking a lineage from Shalmaneser III to Ashurbanipal: one of dozens of RINAP 5 witnesses reconstructing how late Assyrian kings crafted dynastic legitimacy in monumental text.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 219

Records Ashurbanipal's gold-clad renovation of Marduk's canopy and throne-dais in Babylon, documenting Assyrian investment in Babylonian cult as a deliberate tool of imperial legitimation.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 221

Preserves Ashurbanipal's petition to Šamaš, Adad, Nabû, and Marduk to designate his successor by divine oracle — direct evidence that late Sargonid succession was framed as a matter of celestial appointment, not dynastic right alone.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 222

Records Ashurbanipal's completion and gilding of Eḫursaggalkurkurra at Aššur, anchoring the temple's mid-7th-century renovation to a named Sargonid king and his building piety toward Marduk and Aššur alike.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 224

Ashurbanipal's hymnic praise of Marduk — invoking his mastery over the Igīgū and Anunnakū — attests Assyrian kings publicly venerating the chief Babylonian deity, a theological diplomacy central to their claim over the south.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 225

Catalogs Marduk's epithets — cosmic judge, holder of heaven's bond, destroyer of the wicked — showing how a 7th-century Assyrian king legitimized power by publicly honoring Babylon's chief god.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 226

Attests Ashurbanipal's direct-speech divine assurance — 'Do not fear, I myself will come to your aid' — the same royal-reassurance formula that recurs in Neo-Assyrian prophecies, linking monumental inscription to oracular tradition.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 227

Dedicatory hymn to Nergal at his cult-seat Emeslam in Cutha, preserving Sargonid royal theology of the plague-god as protector of the obedient king against disease and enemy armies.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 228

Invokes a 1,635-year span of Elamite destruction to justify Ashurbanipal's campaign, showing how Neo-Assyrian royal ideology wove deep historical grievance into divine mandate for war.

Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 229

Claims Ashurbanipal personally mastered 'all of the scribal arts' — a rare royal self-presentation as literate scholar that underlies his systematic collection of texts at Nineveh.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 230

Records Ashurbanipal's restoration of Emeslam — the temple of Nergal at Cutha — including bricks molded in ebony and musukkanu-wood and scented with crushed aromatics: a concrete window into Sargonid sacred construction ritual.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 231

Equates Babylon with the zodiacal Crab constellation while describing Ashurbanipal's restoration of its tottering foundations — linking Assyrian royal ideology to celestial geography in a rare astro-theological framing of conquest and clemency.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 232

Asserts Ashurbanipal's personal mastery of the scribal arts as a divine gift — one of the clearest royal claims to literacy in the ancient Near East, legitimising his famous library-building programme at Nineveh.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 233

Claims Assyrian sovereignty over territory reached by a journey of 'one month and twenty days into the midst of the sea' — among the most expansive geographical boasts in the surviving Sargonid royal corpus.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 234

Chronicles Ashurbanipal's repeated installation and removal of Elamite client-kings — Ḫumban-nikaš II, Tammarītu, Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III — documenting Assyrian mechanisms for controlling Elam through dynastic manipulation rather than outright annexation.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 235

Records Ashurbanipal's sack of Susa and the return of the goddess Nanāya to Eanna after her long Elamite 'captivity' — linking military conquest to the restoration of Babylonian cult.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 236

Attests Nanāya, Uṣur-amāssa, and Urkayītu as divine guarantors of royal legitimacy at Uruk — preserving a local theological formula for kingship otherwise scarcely documented in Sargonid inscriptions.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 237

One of the composite royal inscriptions of Ashurbanipal preserved across multiple manuscript witnesses, attesting the Sargonid titulary 'king of Sumer and Akkad' as a living ideological claim to Babylonian sovereignty.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 238

Records Ashurbanipal's military intervention against a ruler of Qirbit who refused submission — one of the few inscriptions attesting Assyrian punitive campaigns into the Kassite borderlands during his reign.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 239

Preserves Ashurbanipal's three-generation dynastic lineage — son of Esarhaddon, grandson of Sennacherib — a formulaic claim that anchored Sargonid legitimacy in royal inscriptions of the mid-seventh century BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 240

Names Urtaku and Ummanigaš — the Elamite king and his brother whose rivalry Assyria exploited — placing this inscription among the direct royal accounts of Ashurbanipal's Elamite campaigns.

Ashurbanipal 215

Ashurbanipal 216

Ashurbanipal 217

Ashurbanipal 218

Ashurbanipal 219

Ashurbanipal 221

Ashurbanipal 222

Ashurbanipal 224

Ashurbanipal 225

Ashurbanipal 226

Ashurbanipal 227

Ashurbanipal 228

Ashurbanipal 229

Ashurbanipal 230

Ashurbanipal 231

Ashurbanipal 232

Ashurbanipal 233

Ashurbanipal 234

Ashurbanipal 235

Ashurbanipal 236

Ashurbanipal 237

Ashurbanipal 238

Ashurbanipal 239

Ashurbanipal 240

SAA 14 001. Milki-nuri Buys the Village of Nabu-šezib (668-VI-19) (ADD 0472)

SAA 14 002. Milki-nuri Buys the Village of Bahaya (666-XII-19) (ADD 0627)

SAA 14 003. Milki-nuri Buys Ten Slaves (ADD 0727)

SAA 14 004. Milki-nuri Buys Five Slaves (ADD 0287)

SAA 14 005. Milki-nuri Buys Six Slaves (ADD 0316)

SAA 14 006. Milki-nuri Buys Land and People (ADD 0452)

SAA 14 007. Milki-nuri Buys [...] (ADD 0494)

SAA 14 008. Zarpi, Manageress, Buys a Woman (668-V-27) (ADD 0208)

SAA 14 009. Manageress of the Central City Buys a Slave (668-I-22) (ADD 0190)

SAA 14 011. The Lady Sinqi-Issar Receives a Slave Woman Instead of Silver (654-II-14) (ADD 0076)

SAA 14 012. Manageress Buys Two Slaves (ADD 0267)

SAA 14 013. Manageress of Assur Buys a Slave (650) (ADD 0206)

SAA 14 014. Manageress of Assur Buys a Woman (ADD 0209)

SAA 14 015. Court Decision on Behalf of Ninuayu, the King’s Eunuch (*641-VII-13) (ADD 0105)

SAA 14 016. Ninuayu Buys Slaves (*639-X-18) (ADD 0250)

SAA 14 017. Ninuayu Buys a Woman (*633-II-14) (ADD 0214)

SAA 14 018. Ninuayu Buys a Slave (ADD 0182)

SAA 14 019. Ninuayu Buys Two Slaves (ADD 0249)

SAA 14 020. Ninuayu Buys Three Slaves (ADD 0254)

SAA 14 021. Ninuayu Buys Slaves (ADD 0260)

SAA 14 022. Ninuayu Buys Land and People (ADD 0505)

SAA 14 023. Bel-duri Lends Barley and an Ox (658-VI-18) (ADD 0152)

SAA 14 024. Luqu, Cohort Commander of the Crown Prince, Buys Women (659-II) (ADD 0233)

SAA 14 025. Luqu Lends Silver (*648) (ADD 0111)

SAA 14 026. Luqu Lends Ten Shekels of Silver (*645-VI-5) (ADD 0004)

SAA 14 027. Purchase of a Vacant Lot (*640) (ADD 0358+)