Position in chronology
Ashurbanipal 1010
Written in modern English
The text invokes the god Aššur and the goddess Ishtar, whom the king calls the lady who loves him. He says that from childhood into adulthood he held the hem of her divine garment and followed her constantly, and that she protected him with her benevolent care. Her hand, which sustains his life, guided him, and she kept sending him messages through his ecstatic prophets. He killed his enemies and flattened something now lost to damage. The reverse mentions marching into the mountains and capturing a watering place, but the surrounding lines are too broken to read in full.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 5(o 1') [...] (the god) Aššur [...] ... [... the goddess Išta]r, the lady who loves me, ... [...] ... to/for [... from] my childhood until I became an adult, I took hold of the he[m of] her [divinit]y (and) I constantly followed [... (5´) ...] she guarded (me) with her benevole[nt] protection [...] I made [..., h]er hand, which [sustains] my life, guided me [...] she constantly kept sending [me message(s) from] my ecstatics [...] I killed my enemies (and) flattened ... [...] ... [...] ... [...] (r 1') [...] I went ... [...] ... [... i]nside the mountains, his watering place, [..., I captured]…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 5 — scholar edition (ORACC).
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Transliteration
[...] x [...] x [...] / [...] x AN.ŠÁR x [...] x NIŠ? x [...] / [... diš]-⸢tar?⸣ GAŠAN ta-ra-ma-an-ni x x ⸢TA? LA?⸣ [x x (x)] x x x KUR? a-na x [...] / [... ul-tu] ⸢ṣe⸣-ḫe-ri-ia a-di ra-bé-ia TÚG.⸢SÍG?⸣ [DINGIR?]-⸢ti?⸣-šá? ⸢aṣ?-bat at?⸣-tal-lak x [...]1 / [...] x ⸢ta-aṣ⸣-ṣur ina GIŠ.MI-šá ṭa-a-[bi x x] x A e-pu-uš x [...] / [...] ⸢ta⸣-at-tar-ra-an-ni ⸢qa-as-sa⸣ šá ba-la-ṭi ⸢TA?⸣ [...] / [...…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Ashurbanipal or a late Sargonid successor, edited by Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers (RINAP 5, 2018–). ORACC text Q003839.
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/Q003839/..
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/Q003839/.
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