Position in chronology
Aššur-rem-nišešu 1001
About this tablet
A badly broken royal building inscription of Aššur-rēm-nišēšu, a king of Assyria in the 15th century BCE — a shadowy period from which almost no royal texts survive. What remains follows the standard formula of Assyrian construction records: the king built (probably a wall at the city of Aššur), deposited inscribed clay cones as a foundation record, and closed with a blessing on any future ruler who restores the work when it falls into ruin. Even in this shattered state, it is precious evidence for a king otherwise known almost only from king-lists.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Only scraps survive, but the message is clear enough. The king records that he rebuilt a structure — the lines mentioning foundations and 'I built' belong to that account — and that he buried his inscribed clay cones in the work as a permanent record. He then addresses posterity: when, someday, this building and its structures wear out and crumble, let a future prince restore them; if he does, the god Aššur and another deity (whose name is lost) will hear his prayers. The text presumably went on to ask that the cones be returned to their place, but the rest is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse, fragmentary) [...] which [...] [...] and the founda[tions ...] [...] ... the founda[tions ...] [...] ... I bui[lt ...] [...] I deposited [my clay c]one(s) [(...)] [(...) May a] later [prin]ce, when [...] [...] and its buildings become dilapidated [and ...] [... (who) re]builds (them) — may Aššur and the god(dess) [...] [... l]isten (to his prayers). The c[one(s) ...] (remainder lost)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[...] ša [...] / [...]-ma iš-da-[...] / [...] x iš-da-[...] / [...]-ti-(erasure?)-ma e-pu-[uš ...] / [... sí-ik]-⸢kà⸣-ti aš-ku-un [(...)] / [(...) ru-bu]-ú ur-ku-ú i-nu-me [...] / [...] ù É.MEŠ-šu e-nu-ḫu-[ma ...] / [... e]-⸢pu⸣-šu da-šùr ù d[...] / [... i]-⸢ša⸣-me-ú sí-⸢ik⸣-[kà-ti ...]
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 Q005709.
Attribution
Image: Based on A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Second Millennia BC (to 1115 BC) (RIMA 1), Toronto, 1987. Adapted by Jamie Novotny (2015-16) and lemmatized and updated by Nathan Morello (2016) for the Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative (MOCCI), a corpus-building initiative funded by LMU Munich and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (through the establishment of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair for Ancient History of the Near and Middle East) and based 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/Q005709/..
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
An early witness to systematic administrative notation at Kish. Its signs and numerals can be catalogued, but that does not establish a full translation or prove that it is the world's first writing.
An early surviving historical monument that joins named rulers, a territorial dispute and religious oaths. It shows how a city-state turned victory into a lasting public claim, without establishing that this was the first recorded conflict.