Position in chronology
Shalmaneser III 056
Translation — scholar edition
RIAo(1) Shalmaneser (III), king of the world, king of Assyria, son of Ashurnasirpal (II), king of the world, king of Assyria, son of Tukultī-Ninurta (II), (who was) also king of the world (and= king of Assyria; the splendid priest of the god Aššur, the attentive ruler who frequents the shrines of the gods inside Ešarra. (3b) At that time, (as for) the ziggurat of the god Ninurta, the great lord, my lord, the site of which no one among the kings, my ancestors, had ever designated nor had the bricks been laid, with my skill that the god Ea, the lord of wide understanding, had given to me, I built…
Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online — scholar edition (ORACC / MOCCI).
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Why it matters
Records Shalmaneser III's claim to have built Ninurta's ziggurat on a previously undeveloped site — positioning himself as a uniquely divinely gifted king where even his ancestors had failed to act.
Transliteration
mdsál-ma-nu-MAŠ MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR AŠ A AŠ-PAP-A MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR AŠ A TUKUL-MAŠ / MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR AŠ-ma ŠAPRA daš-šur šur-ru-ḫu NUN na-du muš-te-eʾ-u / áš-rat DINGIR.MEŠ šá qé-reb é-šár-ra e-nu-ma U₆.NIR / dMAŠ EN GAL-e EN-ia šá ina MAN.MEŠ-ni AD.MEŠ-a-a / a-šar-šá la kul-lu-mu-ma la-a ŠUB-at SIG₄.MEŠ / ⸢ina⸣ ḫi-sa-at lìb-bi-a šá dé-a EN uz-nu DAGAL / i-qí-šu-ú-ni U₆.NIR šu-a-tú ina URU.kal-ḫi lu DÙ-uš…
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 Q004661.
Attribution
Image: BM 090534 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Kalhu (mod. Nimrud) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P428127). 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/Q004661/.
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