Position in chronology
Ashurnasirpal II 2004
Translation — scholar edition
RIAo(1) To the god Adad, canal inspector of heaven and netherworld, who sends abundant rain, who provides pasturage and watering for the peoples in all of the communities, who provides temple shares and offerings for the gods his brothers, canal inspector of rivers, who brings prosperity to the (four) quarters (of the world), the compassionate god to whom it is good to pray, who resides in the city Guzāna, great lord, his lord: (8b) Adda-itʾī, governor of the city Guzānu, son of Šamaš-nūrī, (who was) also governor of the city Guzāna, has devoted and dedicated (this object) for his life so that…
Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online — scholar edition (ORACC / MOCCI).
Transliteration
ana dIŠKUR GÚ.GAL AN-e u KI-ti mu-šá-az-nin / ḪÉ.NUN na-din ri-i-ti u maš-qí-te / ana UN.MEŠ DÙ URU.URU na-din / iš-qu u nin-da-bé-e / ana DINGIR PAP.MEŠ-šú GÚ.GAL ÍD.MEŠ / mu-ṭa-ḫi-du kib-ra-ti DINGIR RÉM-ú / šá si-pu-šú DÙG.GA a-šib URU.gu-za-ni / EN GAL EN-šú m10-it-ʾi GAR.KUR URU.gu-za-ni / A mdUTU-ZÁLAG GAR.KUR URU.gu-za-ni-ma / ana TI-uṭ ZI.MEŠ-šú GÍD.DA UD.MEŠ-šú / šúm-ud MU.MEŠ-šú SILIM…
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 Q004602.
Attribution
Image: Based on A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC I (1114-859 BC) (RIMA 2), Toronto, 1991. Adapted by Jamie Novotny (2015-16) and lemmatized and updated by Nathan Morello (2016-17) 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. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/riao/Q004602/..
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/Q004602/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.