Position in chronology
Esarhaddon 104
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 4(i 1) [Esarhaddon, gre]at [king], mighty [king], king of the world, (i 5) king of [Assyria], governor of [Bab]ylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, true shepherd, favorite of the lord of lords, pious prince, (i 10) beloved of the goddess Zarpanītu — the queen, the goddess of the entire universe — reverent king who from the days of his childhood (i 15) was attentive to their rule and praised their valor, pious slave, humble, submissive, the one who reveres their great divinity — (i 18b) At that time, in the reign of a previous king, bad omens occurred (i 20) in Sumer and Akkad. The people living…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
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Why it matters
Esarhaddon frames his restoration of Babylon by cataloguing the bad omens that condemned a previous king — making this one of the clearest surviving examples of Assyrian rulers using omen-lore to legitimise regime change.
Transliteration
[AN.ŠÁR-ŠEŠ-SUM.NA] / [LUGAL] ⸢GAL⸣-u / [LUGAL] ⸢dan⸣-nu / LUGAL kiš-šat / LUGAL [KUR aš]-⸢šur.KI⸣ / GÌR.NÍTA ⸢KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI⸣ / LUGAL KUR EME.GI₇ u URI.KI / SIPA ke-⸢e⸣-nu mi-gir / EN EN.⸢EN⸣ NUN na-a-du / na-ram dNUMUN-DÙ-tum / šar-⸢ra⸣-ti i-lat / kal gim-ri LUGAL šaḫ-tú / ša ul-tu u₄-me / ṣe-eḫ-ri-šu be-lut-su-nu / pu-tuq-qu-ma quru-su-nu / dal-lu re-e-šu mut-nen-nu-u / áš-ru kan-šu pa-liḫ /…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Esarhaddon, edited by Erle Leichty (RINAP 4, 2011). ORACC text Q003333.
Attribution
Image: MMA 86.11.342 (+ ?) CBS 01526 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, USA; University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) — from uncertain (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P258860). 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/Q003333/.
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