Read Chronology Themes Tablets Engine About

Menu

Read
Chronology
Themes
Tablets
Engine
About

Sumerian · Book

Reading the tablets…

A curated narrative reconstruction of humanity's first great civilization, sourced from the tablets themselves. Open scholarship, beautifully accessible.

The site

About the project The engine Dossiers FAQ Methodology Sources & licensing Provenance & ethics Contact & support

Legal

Privacy policy Terms of use llms.txt Sitemap

Independent scholarship · No academic affiliation · No institutional funding · Tablet imagery attributed per item via CDLI, ETCSL, ORACC, Wikimedia, and public museum collections.

Home
All tablets

The corpus

All tablets.

Every tablet in the corpus — sortable by date, title or period; filterable by theme and period. Use the controls below or change the URL parameters directly.

Search

Sort

Oldest first Newest first Title (A–Z)By period

Theme

Religion & Myth Law Economy Astronomy & Mathematics Daily Life Writing & Literature

Period

Ubaid Uruk Period Early Dynastic Akkadian Empire Ur III · Neo-Sumerian Old Babylonian Old Assyrian Middle Babylonian Middle Assyrian Neo-Assyrian Neo-Babylonian Achaemenid Persian

Source

Editorial Sumerian literature Sumerian royal Assyrian royal Assyrian archives

6,256 of 102,257 tablets · 4 filters activeClear filters

6001–6050 of 6256

Page 121 / 126

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 136

Records Ashurbanipal's sack of Bīt-Imbî and the mutilation of its defenders — visceral first-person evidence of the psychological terror tactics underpinning Assyrian imperial expansion into Elam.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-Assyrian

RINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 137

Attests Ashurbanipal's account of crushing his brother Šamaš-šuma-ukīn's rebellion (652–648 BCE) and defeating the Elamite king Ummanalداšu — Assyrian royal propaganda cast as divine sanction for fratricidal civil war.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 138

Narrates Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III's flight across a river from Assyrian forces — fragmentary but direct Assyrian testimony to the campaign that effectively ended Elamite royal resistance by the 640s BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 139

Attests Ashurbanipal's campaign against Ḫumban-haltaš III of Elam — the routed king's flight 'naked' into the mountains marking one of Assyria's deepest penetrations into Elamite territory before Susa's sack.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 140

Fragmentary Sargonid royal inscription recording spoils — statues, wagons, horses, mules — taken from Susa, likely part of Ashurbanipal's 647 BCE sack of the Elamite capital.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 141

Records Nanāya's 1,535-year 'exile' from Babylonia and her divine nomination of Ashurbanipal as restorer of her cult — linking Sargonid royal legitimacy directly to the goddess's prophetic dreams and ecstatic oracles.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 142

Records Elamite prince Paʾê fleeing to Ashurbanipal and 'grasping the feet' of the king — the submission formula in action during the Assyrian–Elamite power struggle of the 650s BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 143

Records Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III's flight into exile after his own land rebelled — Ashurbanipal's account of Elam's internal collapse following Assyrian devastation of Madaktu.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 144

Attests Aššurbanipal's theology of divine warrant for war — Aššur and Ištar personally guaranteeing victory — in the context of his Elamite campaigns, where a fleeing enemy is seized 'like a falcon.'

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 145

Names three successive Elamite kings — Tammarītu, Paʾê, and Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III — alongside the Arab king Uaiteʾ as captives yoked to Ashurbanipal's chariot, anchoring the chronology of Elam's final collapse under Assyrian pressure.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 146

One of the RINAP 5 composite witnesses to a late Sargonid royal inscription, preserving a fragmentary reference to the city Ša-pī-Bēl and an official titled chief archer — both anchors for reconstructing Ashurbanipal's provincial administration.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 147

Preserves a fragmentary Ashurbanipal royal inscription invoking Aššur and Ištar to legitimise military action against Elam, attesting the standard Sargonid theology of divine wrath as the engine of imperial conquest.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 148

Invokes the craft deities Ninagal, Kusibanda, and Ninkurra alongside Mullissu and Ištar of Nineveh, preserving late Sargonid royal theology linking divine artisanship to military victory.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 149

Fragmentary Sargonid royal inscription naming Tīl-Tūba and a descendant of the Elamite king Urtaku — likely part of Ashurbanipal's account of his wars against Elam in the 650s BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 150

Chronicles Ashurbanipal's Elamite campaign alongside the rebel king Tammarītu, placing Ištar's intervention at the heart of Assyrian royal ideology in the wars that destroyed Elam in the 650s BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 151

Names Tammarītu — an Elamite king restored and then deposed by Ashurbanipal — in a royal inscription that frames Assyrian military intervention as divine mandate from Aššur.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 152

Records Ashurbanipal's campaign against Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III of Elam, one of the few royal inscriptions naming that king and corroborating the Assyrian destruction of Elam in the 640s BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 153

Attests Nabû-bēl-šumāti's submission to Ashurbanipal and a connection to Mannean territory, offering fragmentary but direct evidence of Assyrian diplomacy on its northeastern frontier ca. 655 BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 154

Records Ashurbanipal's claim that the goddess Nanāya had dwelt in Elam for exactly 1,535 years before choosing him as her liberator — yoking precise dynastic chronology to divine mandate for the Elamite campaigns.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 155

Records Ashurbanipal's decapitation of the Elamite king Teumman at the Battle of Til-Tuba (~653 BCE) and the installation of a client ruler — the Assyrian annalistic template for conquest, divine mandate, and vassal governance in one passage.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 156

Records Ishtar-as-Venus abandoning the Arab king Hazael to Sennacherib's forces and then migrating to Assyria — direct theological justification for Assyrian military dominance over the Arabs across three royal generations.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 157

Chronicles Ashurbanipal's successive defeats of three Elamite kings, placing Elam's serial dynastic collapses within the framework of Ištar's divine patronage of Assyrian military power.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 158

Names Tammarītu, Paʾê, and Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III together in an Assyrian royal account of the Elamite wars, corroborating the turbulent succession of client and captive kings Ashurbanipal installed after the sack of Susa.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 160

Dedicates a restored shrine to Bēlet-parṣē within Nineveh's House of Succession, then invokes her curse on any ruler who erases Ashurbanipal's dynastic name — a rare attestation of this goddess as guardian of Sargonid legitimacy.

Religion & Myth·Writing & Literature

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 161

Records Elamite heralds submitting to Assyrian envoys and a decapitated rival king's head being carried as tribute — concrete evidence of how Ashurbanipal projected terror to dissolve Elamite resistance without pitched battle.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 163

Records Elamite heralds and a provincial governor preemptively delivering a rival king's severed head to Assyrian envoys — concrete testimony to the psychological reach of Ashurbanipal's campaigns into Elam c. 655 BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 164

Narrates the death of the Elamite king Teumman at the Battle of the Ulaya River (653 BCE): one of the few royal inscriptions to preserve a verbatim last command attributed to a defeated enemy king.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 165

Records Ashurbanipal's account of the Battle of the Ulaya (c. 653 BCE) and the decapitation of the Elamite king Teumman — a scene also carved on the Nineveh palace reliefs, letting scholars align royal inscription and sculptural propaganda.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 166

Attests Ashurbanipal's claim to have choked the Ulāya River with Elamite dead — a vivid rhetorical formula for total victory that shaped how Assyrian kings narrated the destruction of their eastern rival.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 167

Attests Ashurbanipal's triumphal entry into Arbela with Gambulian and Elamite captives — including Teumman's severed head — framed as a gift of Ištar and staged within the akītu-festival liturgy.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 168

Narrates the rout of the Elamite king Teumman at the Battle of Til-Tuba (653 BCE), his wagon's collapse in the forest, and his son Tammarītu grasping his hand — a royal account of Assyria's decisive dismemberment of Elam's royal line.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 169

Chronicles Ashurbanipal's Elamite campaign — including the defeat of Teumman and the burning of Ša-pī-Bēl — while naming provincial officials like the šandabakku of Nippur, anchoring Assyrian imperial reach into Babylonia.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 170

Attests Teumman of Elam's demand that Ashurbanipal extradite sixty royal Elamite refugees — a casus belli for the 653 BCE campaign that ended at the Battle of the Ulāya River.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 172

Records Ashurbanipal's account of the Elamite king Tammarītu's betrayal and his own palace coup — a rare Assyrian royal text naming an internal Elamite dynastic rupture as divine punishment for siding with the rebel Šamaš-šuma-ukīn.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 173

Records Tammarītu of Elam's downfall after aiding the Babylonian rebel Šamaš-šuma-ukīn: divine sanction via internal Elamite revolt, narrated as proof that Aššur and Ištar actively defended Ashurbanipal's throne.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 174

Chronicles Ashurbanipal's suppression of his brother Šamaš-šuma-ukīn's revolt and the punishment of Borsippan rebels, preserving the Assyrian court's own framing of the great civil war of 652–648 BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 175

Ashurbanipal's own account of suppressing his brother Šamaš-šuma-ukīn's revolt (652–648 BCE): one of the few royal inscriptions detailing the Assyrian civil war that nearly split the empire.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 176

Records Ashurbanipal's confiscation of his rebel brother Šamaš-šuma-ukīn's household after the Babylonian civil war (652–648 BCE): palace women, eunuchs, chariotry, and named officials catalogued as war spoils of fratricide.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 177

Records the Elamite king Tammarītu's flight to Nineveh and submission to Ashurbanipal after his own servant Indabibi overthrew him — a rare first-person royal account of Elam's internal collapse during the Assyro-Elamite wars.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 178

Records Elamite king Tammarītu's humiliating flight to Nineveh and submission at Ashurbanipal's feet after a servant's coup — corroborating the Rassam Cylinder's account of Assyria exploiting Elam's internal collapse.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 179

Records Tammarītu's flight through the Sealand marshes after military defeat and his rival Indabibi's seizure of the Elamite throne — Assyrian royal testimony to the dynastic fractures that left Elam vulnerable to Ashurbanipal's campaigns.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 180

Records Ashurbanipal's capture and public humiliation of Ammi-ladīn, king of Qedar, paraded on camels before the Assyrian court — direct epigraphic evidence of Assyrian military reach into the north Arabian steppe.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 183

Names Šamaš-šuma-ukīn alongside royal regalia and court officials, preserving fragmentary Assyrian testimony on the brother-king installed at Babylon whose revolt in 652 BCE shook the empire.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 184

Records Aššur's divine mandate empowering Ashurbanipal to install Tammarītu's envoy on the Elamite throne — direct evidence of Assyrian ideological justification for installing client kings in Elam, c. 655 BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 185

Records Ashurbanipal's rebuilding of Arbela's long-unfinished walls and the silver-and-gold refurbishment of Ištar's temple there — grounding the city's role as Ištar's cultic seat in datable royal construction.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRIAo

Ashurbanipal 186

Preserves Ashurbanipal's full titulature — 'king of the world, king of the four quarters' — within a royal inscription that also records deliberate erasure, attesting the scribal practice of revising official commemorative texts.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 187

Records Ashurbanipal's personal tally of eighteen lions killed in a single dawn hunt, anchoring the famous Nineveh lion-hunt reliefs in a contemporary textual account of royal ritual violence.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 188

Narrates Ashurbanipal's systematic deportation of the Elamite royal family, elite troops, and craftsmen after his sack of Elam — primary Assyrian evidence for the deliberate dismantling of a rival dynastic state.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 189

A fragmentary Sargonid royal inscription recording a campaign against Elam — one of several RINAP 5 witnesses that, read together, reconstruct Ashurbanipal's systematic dismantling of Elamite power in the mid-seventh century BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 190

Sîn's prenatal naming of Ashurbanipal as rebuilder of Eḫulḫul — the moon-god's temple at Ḥarrān — grounds a political construction project in divine predestination, illustrating how Sargonid kings legitimised costly building programmes through celestial prophecy.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

1…120 121 122…126