Position in chronology
Sargon II 087
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 2(1') Too poorly preserved to allow translation. (3') [...] I filled [the surroundings of his city (with them). ... I did not allo]w a (single) person to escape. (5') [(As for) the citizens of (the cities) Sippar, Nippur, Babylon, (and) Borsippa who through no fault of their own had been held captive in them, I put an end to their imprisonment and let t]hem [see] the light (of day). [(With regard to) their fields, which long ago, while the land was in disorder, the Sutians had taken away and] appropriated [for their own — I struck down (those) Sutians, the people of the steppe, with the sword.…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 2 — scholar edition (ORACC).
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Why it matters
Records Sargon II restoring captive Babylonians of Sippar, Nippur, Babylon, and Borsippa to freedom and repossessing their fields from Sutian squatters — a calculated display of Assyrian benevolence toward the ancient Babylonian cult cities.
Transliteration
[...] x x [(x)] / [...] x ⸢LI I?⸣ x [(x)] / [... i-ta-at URU-šú] ⸢ú⸣-mal-⸢li⸣ / [... la e-zi]-⸢ba⸣ mul-taḫ-ṭu / [DUMU.MEŠ ZIMBIR.KI NIBRU.KI KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI u bár-sipa.KI ša i-na la an-ni-šú-nu i-na qer-bi-šú-un ka-mu-ú ṣi-bit-ta-šú-nu a-bu-ut-ma ú-kal-lim]-⸢šú⸣-nu-ti nu-ru / [A.ŠÀ.MEŠ-šú-nu ša ul-tu u₄-me ul-lu-ti i-na i-ši-ti ma-a-ti LÚ.su-ti-i e-ki-mu-ú-ma ra-ma-nu-uš-šú-un] ú-⸢ter⸣-ru /…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sargon II, edited by Grant Frame (RINAP 2, 2021). ORACC text Q006568.
Attribution
Image: BM 123416 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P422497). source
Translation excerpted from Frame, G. 2021. The Royal Inscriptions of Sargon II, King of Assyria (721–705 BC). RINAP 2. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap2/Q006568/.
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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.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.