Position in chronology
Tiglath-pileser I 1007
About this tablet
A fragmentary building inscription of Tiglath-pileser I, king of Assyria around 1100 BCE. In the surviving lines the king records that he deposited his own foundation inscriptions and respectfully returned to their place the older foundation documents of his predecessors — earlier vice-regents of the god Aššur, apparently including Aššur-dān. The text ends with a precise date by the Assyrian eponym calendar, naming the year-official Aššur-kēna-šallim. Such texts were buried in temple or palace foundations so that future kings would find and honour them — exactly the chain of memory this fragment describes.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives says roughly this: 'I laid down my own foundation records here. I found the old inscriptions of earlier rulers who served as Aššur's vice-regents — among them one whose name ends in Ilu-šumma, and Aššur-dān, likewise vice-regent of Aššur — and I put them back where they belonged. Dated the 18th day of the month Kalmartu, in the year of the eponym official Aššur-kēna-šallim, son of Aššur-išmanni.' The beginning of the text and the ends of several lines are broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[... I] deposited my [foundation inscription]s [...] [...] ... Ilu-šumma, vice-regent [of (the god) Aššur ...] [...] Aššur-dān, (who was) also vice-regent of (the god) Aššur — [I restored (them)] to [their place]. Month Kalmartu, eighteenth day, [(...)] eponymy of Aššur-kēna-šallim, [(...)] son of Aššur-išmanni [(...)]
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[... tem-me-ni]-⸢ia⸣ áš-ku-⸢un⸣ [...] / [...] x x DINGIR-šúm-ma ⸢ŠID⸣ [aš-šur ...] / [...] aš-šur-da-a-an ŠID aš-šur-ma a-⸢na⸣ [áš-ri-šu (lu) ú-ter] / ⸢ITI⸣.kal-mar-tu UD.18.KÁM [(...)] / ⸢li⸣-mu maš-šur-ke-na-šal-lim [(...)] / ⸢DUMU⸣ aš-šur-iš-ma-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 Q005962.
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/Q005962/..
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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