Position in chronology
RINBE 2, Neriglissar 03, ex. 04
About this tablet
A fragment of a royal building inscription of Neriglissar, king of Babylon (reigned 560–556 BCE), one of several copies of a text commemorating his work on Esagil, the great temple of Marduk in Babylon. The surviving lines describe how the king cast eight mušḫuššu-dragons — the snarling serpent-dragon sacred to Marduk — in copper, plated them with silver, and set them up at temple gates to spray deadly venom at evildoers and enemies. It is a vivid glimpse of how Babylonian kings used monumental guardian statues, and the inscriptions boasting of them, to project divine protection and royal piety.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Only scraps of this copy survive, but they say: no king before me ever did this — I, the humble and devout one, cast eight dragon statues in copper, creatures that spew deadly venom at the wicked and at any enemy. I plated them in silver and installed them at the temple gates, on the platforms at their bases. The beginning and end of the text are lost on this fragment, but the full inscription is known from better-preserved copies.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse, fragmentary) In [...] (which) no (former king) had [erected(?) ...] (but) me, the humble, [submissive one ...] I fashioned, and eight [mušḫuššu-dragons of copper ...] which upon the wicked and [the enemy spray venom of death ...] with a plating of si[lver ...] in the gate(s) of [...] on the platform(s) (kisû) [...] (remainder broken)
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
i-na# [...] la u2#-usz#-[...] ia-ti asz2-ru [...] e-ep-ti-iq-ma 8(disz) [...] sza le-em-nim u3 [...] ti-i-ri ka#-[...] i-na _ka2_-[...] i-na ki#-se3#-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Neo-Babylonian (ca. 626-539 BC)) — RINBE 2, Neriglissar 03, ex. 04. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: VA Bab 00610 (Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany) — from Bābili (mod. Babylon) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P518475). 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.