Ashurbanipal 1002

~655 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·Q003831

Written in modern English

The opening lines are too damaged to translate. After that, Ninurta helped the speaker achieve his heart's desire and returned something — what exactly is lost to damage. The Queen of Nineveh, merciful mother, came to his side and gladly seated him on the throne of his father who had begotten him. The Lady of Arbela, the great lady, regularly sent him favorable messages about the exercise of his kingship. The goddess Gula pacified those who had been insolent to him and made them bow down. The Sebetti, the valiant gods, appear next, but the lines mentioning them are badly broken, and the tablet's final lines cannot be translated at all.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — scholar edition

RINAP 5

High confidence

(o 1') (No translation possible) (o 3') The god Ninurta, ... [...], allowed [me] to achieve [my heart’s] desire [...] (and) he returned [...]. (o 7') The goddess Queen of Nineveh, the mercifu[l mot]her, came to my side and gladly made me sit on the throne of the father who had engendered me. (o 11') The goddess Lady of Arbela, the great lady, regularly sent me favorable message(s) concerning my exercising kingship. (r 3) The goddess Gula pacified those who were insolent to me and she made ... bow dow[n (to me)]. (r 5) The Sebetti, valiant gods, [...] the left [...] ... [...] (r 8) (No translation possible)

Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 5 — scholar edition (ORACC).

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Transliteration

[x] x x [...] / ⸢ú⸣-[x]-al-[...] / ⸢dnin⸣-urta ⸢AB ŠÚ?/ŠI?⸣ [...] / ⸢ṣu⸣-um-me-rat [lìb-bi-ia] / ⸢ú⸣-šak-ši-⸢da⸣ [...] / ú-ter-ra [...] / dšar-rat-NINA.KI ⸢AMA⸣ réme-ni-⸢tu?⸣ / Á.II-a-a it-tas-ḫar-ma / ṭa-biš tu-še-ši-ba-an-ni / ina GIŠ.GU.ZA AD ba-ni-⸢ia⸣ / dbe-let-URU.LÍMMU-DINGIR1 / be-el-tu GAL-⸢tum⸣ / šá e-peš LUGAL-ti-⸢ia⸣ / ú-sa-di-ra ši-pir SIG₅.MEŠ / dgu-la ak-ṣu-⸢ti⸣-ia / tu-ni?-iḫ-ma tu-šak-⸢niš⸣ [x] x x2 / dIMIN.BI DINGIR.⸢MEŠ qar-du⸣-[tum ...] / šu-me-⸢lu?⸣ x [...]3 / il-x [...] / ⸢ta?⸣ x [...]

Scholarly note

Royal inscription of Ashurbanipal or a late Sargonid successor, edited by Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers (RINAP 5, 2018–). ORACC text Q003831.

Attribution

Image: Created by Jamie Novotny and Joshua Jeffers, 2015-22. Lemmatized by Joshua Jeffers, 2018-19, for the NEH-funded RINAP Project at the University of Pennsylvania. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0.. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/rinap/Q003831/..
Translation excerpted from Novotny, J. & Jeffers, J. 2018–. The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (668–631 BC), Aššur-etel-ilāni (630–627 BC) and Sîn-šarra-iškun (626–612 BC), Kings of Assyria. RINAP 5. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap5/Q003831/.

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