Position in chronology
RINBE 2, Neriglissar 03, ex. 03
About this tablet
A fragment of a clay cylinder bearing a royal building inscription of Neriglissar, king of Babylon (559–556 BCE), from Babylon itself. Only the ends of eight lines survive, but they preserve two typical parts of such texts: the king's report of construction work ('I stretched [beams] across') and his closing prayer to a god — praised as the 'light of the gods, his fathers' — asking to enjoy the building, attain his desires, and have his fame reach wherever the sun rises. Neriglissar ruled only four years between Nebuchadnezzar II and Nabonidus, so every one of his inscriptions is a valuable witness to a short, obscure reign.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What remains reads like the closing stretch of a king's dedication. Neriglissar reports finishing a building — laying the roof beams across it — and then turns to prayer, addressing a radiant god, the light of the gods who came before him, whose exalted command no one can overturn. He asks the god for blessings: to be fully satisfied with what he has built, to achieve what he strives for, and — in the broken final line — for something to extend as far as the rising sun, that is, everywhere. The beginnings of all the lines, and most of the text, are lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse? — only line-ends preserved) [...] ... his mouth (i.e., his [command/utterance]) [...] I stretched (beams) across [... O ...], resplendent lord, the god, light of the gods, his fathers [... his] exalted [command(?)] which cannot be altered, [...] may I be sated with its/his [...] [...] may I attain [...] ... [... wherever(?)] the sun rises
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[...]-pi2-szu [...] u2-sza-at-ri-is, [...] _en# dingir_ szu-pu-u2 nu-ur2 _dingir-dingir ad-ad_-szu [...]-ir-ti sza la na-ka-ri [...]-szu# lu-usz-ba [...] lu#-uk-szu-ud [...]-tu [... ]utu# a-s,u-u2#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Neo-Babylonian (ca. 626-539 BC)) — RINBE 2, Neriglissar 03, ex. 03. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: VA Bab 00620 (Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany) — from Bābili (mod. Babylon) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P518474). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.
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.