Position in chronology
Ashurnasirpal II 004
Translation — scholar edition
RIAo(1') son of Tukultī-Ninurta (II), king of the world, king of Assyria, son of Adad-nārārī (II), (who was) also king of the world (and) king of Assyria. (2'b) For my life, so that my days might be long, my years be many, (for) the well-being of my seed (and) my land, (for) the safekeeping of my vice-regal [throne], (for) abundance in my city, (for) the increase of my people, (for) the thriving of my people in Assyria, [for the scorching of] my enemies, for the destruction of my [dangerous foes], to [subdue] under me rulers who oppose me;
Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online — scholar edition (ORACC / MOCCI).
Transliteration
A TUKUL-dMAŠ MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR aš-šur / A 10-ERIM.TÁḪ MAN ŠÚ MAN KUR aš-šur-ma ana TI ZI.MEŠ-a GÍD UD.MEŠ-a šúm-ud MU.MEŠ-a SILIM NUMUN.MEŠ-a KUR-a PAP [GIŠ.GU.ZA-e] / ŠID-ti-a ḪÉ.GÁL URU-a DAGAL UN.MEŠ-a SI.SÁ LÚ-a KUR aš-šur za-i-ri-ia [a-na qa-me-e áš-ṭu-te]-a a-na ZÁḪ mal-ki.MEŠ KÚR.MEŠ-a a-na GÌR.II.MEŠ-[a šuk-nu-še]
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 Q004458.
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/Q004458/..
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/Q004458/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.