Position in chronology
SAA 12 046. Fragment of Land Grant (NARGD 23)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 12(1) [NN, ......, king of Assyria, overseer, son of NN, ......], king of As[syria, overseer, son of NN, ......], king of Assy[ria, likewise overseer]. (one royal seal impression preserved) (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 12 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[mx x x x x x x x x x x x x x x LUGAL KUR—daš-šur.KI PA-lum] / [DUMU mx x x x x x x x] ⸢LUGAL KUR⸣—[daš-šur.KI PA-lum] / [DUMU mx x x x x x x x] LUGAL KUR—daš-⸢šur⸣.[KI PA-lum-ma]
Scholarly note
Royal grant, decree or gift inscription of the Neo-Assyrian period, edited by Laura Kataja & Robert Whiting (SAA 12, 1995). ORACC text P336268.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P336268). source
Translation excerpted from Kataja, L. & Whiting, R. 1995. Grants, Decrees and Gifts of the Neo-Assyrian Period. SAA 12. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa12/P336268/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.