Position in chronology
Sennacherib 1017
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 3(1') The foot path [...] onagers (and) gazelles [...] roamed about and [...] among the kings who came before [me ...] region [... Senna]cherib, king of As[syria, ...] that ... [...]
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 3 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Why it matters
A fragmentary royal inscription of Sennacherib attesting his characteristic wilderness rhetoric — onagers and gazelles marking untamed land he claimed to have brought under Assyrian order.
Transliteration
⸢ki?-bi-is GÌR.II⸣ [...] / ANŠE.EDIN.NA MAŠ.DÀ.⸢MEŠ⸣ [...]1 / it-tag-gi-šu-ma x [...]2 / ⸢ina?⸣ LUGAL.MEŠ a-li-kut maḫ-ri-[ia ...] / x na-ge-e [...] / [md30]-⸢ŠEŠ⸣.MEŠ-SU MAN ⸢KUR⸣ [aš-šur ...] / [x (x)] x x šu-a-tu [...] / [...] x [...]
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sennacherib, edited by A. Kirk Grayson & Jamie Novotny (RINAP 3, 2012–2014). ORACC text Q004073.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P401250). source
Translation excerpted from Grayson, A.K. & Novotny, J. 2012–2014. The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704–681 BC). RINAP 3. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap3/Q004073/.
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
An early witness to systematic administrative notation at Kish. Its signs and numerals can be catalogued, but that does not establish a full translation or prove that it is the world's first writing.
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.