Position in chronology
Esarhaddon 1014
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 4(1) (No translation warranted) (r 1') (No translation possible)
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
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Why it matters
One of the preserved royal inscriptions of Esarhaddon (RINAP 4, Q003386), whose composite manuscript tradition helps reconstruct the rhetorical and titulary conventions of seventh-century Assyrian kingship.
Transliteration
[... KUR].ELAM.MA.⸢KI⸣ x x [...] / [...] (x) x-ad NUN ḫi-x x (x) x [...] / [...] x-⸢bi?⸣ šá-at-⸢pi⸣ x [...] / [...] ⸢ri-šá⸣-ni x x AD.⸢MEŠ⸣ x [...] / [...] x-e ma-ku-tu [...] / [...] x x x x ra-a-na ni-i-ti [...] / [...] x sap-lu šá x x [...] / [...] x x [...]1 / [...] x-ka / [...] x-nu-ú-si / [...]-pi / [...] / [...] x x
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Esarhaddon, edited by Erle Leichty (RINAP 4, 2011). ORACC text Q003386.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P395578). source
Translation excerpted from Leichty, E. 2011. The Royal Inscriptions of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (680–669 BC). RINAP 4. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap4/Q003386/.
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One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.