Position in chronology
Ashurbanipal 1012
Written in modern English
The broken opening lines describe someone sent out and back, then turn to a named ruler along with his brothers, his family, and the whole line of his father's house. One of Ashurbanipal's own eunuchs had been sent to check on this man's welfare, but he'd been thrown in prison. The text ends with a grim image: they crawled naked on their bellies. Everything before and after is too damaged to fill in.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 5(1') [...] ... [...] I sent to him and [...]. (3') [RN, (...,) his brothers], his [fa]mily, (and) the seed of hi[s] father’s house [... the eun]uch of mine whom [I had sent] to inquire abo[ut his well-being ... (5´) ..., whom ...] ... had confined [in prison, ... they] cra[wled naked upon] their [belli]es [and ...].
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 5 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[...] x x [...] / [...] ⸢ú⸣-še-bil-šu-ma [...] / [...] ⸢qin⸣-nu-šú NUMUN É AD-⸢šú⸣ [...] / [... LÚ.šu-ut] ⸢SAG⸣-ia ša a-na šá-ʾa-⸢al⸣ [šul-mì-šú ...] / [...]-⸢i⸣-BI ik-lu-⸢ú⸣ [...]1 / [... mi-ra-nu-uš-šú-un? ina? UGU?] ⸢ŠÀ?-šú⸣-nu ip-⸢ši⸣-[lu-nim-ma? ...]
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Ashurbanipal or a late Sargonid successor, edited by Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers (RINAP 5, 2018–). ORACC text Q009280.
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/Q009280/..
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/Q009280/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
Among the oldest surviving written law collections. It provides an early witness to royal justice and specified compensation, rather than a starting date for law itself.
A major surviving ancient law collection, carved on a basalt stela over two meters tall. Royal authority and legal decisions become a monument; this is not a code in the modern sense.