Position in chronology
RINBE 2, Neriglissar 03, ex. 08
About this tablet
A royal building inscription of Neriglissar, king of Babylon (reigned 559–556 BCE), one of several duplicate copies from Babylon itself. It commemorates his work on the 'Dais of Destinies' — the ceremonial throne-platform where the god Nabû, 'the true heir' of Marduk, took his seat during the great New Year (akītu) festival, when the god processed into Babylon on the 5th day of the year and returned home on the 11th. Such inscriptions let a short-reigned usurper king present himself as the pious caretaker of Babylon's most sacred rituals.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Neriglissar, king of Babylon, restorer of the great temples Esagil and Ezida, records here that he rebuilt and set up the Dais of Destinies — the sacred platform inside the temple precinct. This is the spot, he explains, where every New Year, during the akītu festival, when Marduk, chief of the gods, sets out in procession, the god Nabû, his true heir, parades into Babylon and takes his place: he arrives on the 5th day of the festival and departs on the 11th, going and coming in solemn procession. The edges of the tablet are broken, so the ends of the lines — including the details of the king's building work — are lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse, all lines broken at the right edge) [Ne]riglissar, king of Babylon, [...] [the one who reno]vates(?) Esagil and [Ezida ...] with [...] like the (original) appurtenances [...] I set up [...]. The Dais of Destinies, which is inside [...], upon which at the New Year (zammukku), the beginning [of the year], during the akītu-festival, (at) the setting-out of the Enlil of the g[ods, Marduk], Nabû, the true heir, processes t[o ...] Šuanna [...], (on) the 5th day (and) the 11th day, in going and retu[rning ...] (remainder of this exemplar broken)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[]nergal#-lugal-u2-s,u-ur2 _lugal_ babila2# [x] [x x]-di-isz e2-sag-il2 u3 [...] it-ti [...] ki-ma si3-ma-a-[...] u2-usz-zi-iz [...] _bara2_ szi-ma-a-ti sza qe2-re-[...] sza i-na za-am-mu-uk-ku re-e-sza [...] i-na i-si3-in-ni a-ki-ti ta-be-e en-lil2 _dingir#-[...]_ na-bi-um _ibila_ ki-nim i-sza-ad-di-hu a-[...] szu-an-na [x] _u4 5(disz)-kam2 u4 1(u) 1(disz)-kam2_ i-na a-la-ku u3 ta-a-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Neo-Babylonian (ca. 626-539 BC)) — RINBE 2, Neriglissar 03, ex. 08. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: B 0002 — from Bābili (mod. Babylon) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P518479). 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.