Position in chronology
Sargon II 112
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 2(1') No translation possible. (3') [...] ... people of the house of his father [...] (4') [...] ... in Assyria [...] (5') [...] ... with the land Ḫilakku ... [...] (6') [... that (man) (Ambaris) ... wrote to ...] Mitâ, king of the land Musku, about taking away terr[itory of mine ...] (7') [... I brought in bondage] to [Assyria Ambaris ...], with one hundred of his chariot(s) [...] (8') [...] I set [a eunuch of mine as provincial govern]or over them and [considered them] as people [of Assyria ...] (9') [... I (then) restored to their former status the cities Ḫa]rrua (and) Ušnanis, fortresses…
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 2 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[...] (traces) [...] / [...] (traces) [...] / [...] (x) x x ⸢UN?.MEŠ? É? AD?⸣-šú x [...] / [...] x x ina ⸢qé⸣-reb KUR ⸢aš-šur⸣.KI x [...] / [...] KUR? (x) x x x x ⸢it⸣-ti KUR.ḫi-lak-ki x x (x) [...] / [...] (x) x x x KUR.mu-⸢us⸣-ki ša e-⸢ke⸣-mu mi-[ṣir-ia ...] / [...] it-ti 1 ME GIŠ.GIGIR-šú a-na KUR [aš-šur.KI ...] / [... LÚ.EN].⸢NAM UGU⸣-šú-nu áš-⸢kun-ma⸣ it-ti UN.MEŠ [...] / [...…
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Sargon II, edited by Grant Frame (RINAP 2, 2021). ORACC text Q006593.
Attribution
Image: Created by Grant Frame and the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) Project, 2019. Adapted for RINAP Online by Joshua Jeffers and Jamie Novotny and lemmatized by Giulia Lentini, Nathan Morello, and Jamie Novotny, 2019, for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation-funded OIMEA Project at the Historisches Seminar - Abteilung Alte Geschichte of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0..
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/Q006593/.
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.