Position in chronology
Sargon II 009
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) Palace of Sargon (II), great king, strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria, governor of Babylon, king of the land of Sumer and Akkad, favorite of the great gods; (3) just shepherd, (one) to whom the gods Aššur, Nabû, (and) Marduk granted a reign without equal and whose reputation (these gods) exalted to the heights; (5b) who (re)-established the šubarrû-privileges of (the cities) Sippar, Nippur, (and) Babylon; who abolished corvée duty for (the cities) Dēr, Ur, Eridu, Larsa, Kullaba, Kissik, (and) Nēmed-Laguda, (and) gave relief to their people; who (re)-established the privileged…
Source: Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online (RIAo), Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative (MOCCI), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; in association with the RINAP Project, University of Pennsylvania. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/riao/Q006490/
Why it matters
Claims Sargon II restored the šubarrû-tax exemptions and abolished corvée in seven southern Babylonian cities, documenting how an Assyrian king legitimised rule over Babylon by presenting himself as guardian of ancient urban privileges.
Transliteration
É.GAL mLUGAL-GI.NA LUGAL GAL-ú LUGAL dan-nu LUGAL KIŠ LUGAL KUR aš-šur.KI / GÌR.NÍTA KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI LUGAL KUR EME.GI₇ ù URI.KI mi-gir DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ / RE.É.UM ke-e-nu ša daš-šur dAG dAMAR.UTU LUGAL-ut la šá-na-an / ú-šat-li-mu-šu-ma zi-kir šu-mì-šu ú-še-ṣu-ú / a-na re-še-e-ti šá-kin šu-ba-re-e ZIMBIR.KI NIBRU.KI / KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI mu-šá-áš-šík tup-šik-ki BÀD.AN.KI ÚRI.KI eridu.KI / ARARMA.KI…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of an Assyrian king, published in the Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online project (RIAo). Translation reproduced from the ORACC edition. ORACC text Q006490.
Attribution
Image: MAH O.0022 (Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, Switzerland) — from Dur-Šarrukin (mod. Khorsabad) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P424362). source
Translation excerpted from Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online (RIAo), Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative (MOCCI), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; in association with the RINAP Project, University of Pennsylvania. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/riao/Q006490/.
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