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

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Editorial Sumerian literature Sumerian royal Assyrian royal Assyrian archives

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Page 48 / 55

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian

Achaemenid Persian

RINAP 4

Esarhaddon 2008

(1) [To the goddess Bē]let-Bābili, her lady: (2) [N]aqīʾa, wife of Sennach[er]ib, king of Assyria, daughter-in-law of Sargon (II), king of Assyria, mother of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, presented (this object) for the preservation of the life of her son and for her (long) life.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~675 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 4

Esarhaddon 2009

(1) Naqīʾa, wife of Senna[cherib (...)].

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~675 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 4

Esarhaddon 2010

(1') [They (the gods) entered the orch]ards, groves, ... [...] ... [... through the] craft of the sage [“the washing of] the mouth,” “the open[ing of the] mouth,” [“bathing,” (and) “pu]rifica[tion”] (were recited) before [the stars of] the night: the gods [Ea, Šamaš], Asallu[ḫi, Bēlet-ilī], Ku[su], and [Ni]ngirima. (11') I washed its mouth ... [...] exalted [...] ... [...] ... [...] Label on the gown of figure on the left: (1) Image of Naqīʾ[a ...]

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~675 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 4

Esarhaddon 118 / CDLI Seals 006507

(Inscription_A 1) Property of the god Marduk, <<...>> seal of the god Adad of Esagil. (Inscription_B 1) To the god Marduk, great lord, his lord: Esarhaddon, king of the world, king of Assyria, presented (this object) for the sake of his life.

~670 BCE·Neo-AssyrianOur engine

SAA 08 001. Thunder in Ab, King Ill (RMA 257) [weather]

1. In the month of Ab (month V), Adad raised his voice: the sky was darkened, the heaven rained down, lightning flashed, / waters were withheld in the spring(s). / 1. When Adad cried out on a cloudless day, / it is the 'daummattu'-omen: ditto. Famine will be in the land. / Regarding the unfavorable body[-omen]: / the king, my lord, should not speak from his heart [about this], / illness — that year is it. / As many of the people as are sick — / all [will have] well-being. / It will turn around, and the king, my lord — / he who fears the gods, / day and night the gods will pray for him / …

Religion & Myth·Astronomy & Mathematics

~670 BCE·Neo-AssyrianOur engine

SAA 10 044. Timing a Journey of the King (ABL 1141+) [from astrologers]

[To the king, our lord:] [your servants Balasî] [and Nabû-ahhe-eriba.] [Good health] to the king, [our lord]! [May Nabû and] Marduk bless the king, our lord! Concerning the going to the city of [...] about which the king, our lord, wrote to us: if it is good for the king, in Bit-anni(?), in the month Tašritu (VII), to go [there] — or else let the king say: 'No, [... ...]' — as he has said: this month is a long-lasting road (journey) — let it be given up! Let the king go in the month of 'Entering' (Arahsamna, VIII): let him kiss the ground, let them perform the sacrifices.

Daily Life·Economy

~670 BCE·Neo-AssyrianOur engine

SAA 10 206. Prayers and Rituals against Retrograding Mars (ABL 1401) [from exorcists]

[Nabû and M]arduk [to the king,] my lord, [may they bl]ess. [Concerning] Mars, [about which the king, my lord,] wrote to me — [the king, my lord,] does not know [that as/when ...] ... those [...] [...] [in] the constellation of the Furrow (Virgo) it goes; [the flight of] locusts [...] [...] carries [radi]ance; [... evil of] Subartu; [... th]ese we ward off. [Its namburbi-ritual and] lifted-hand prayers [before Mar]s [...] regularly [we perform.] [As for sin,] there is none. May the heart [of the king, m]y lord [be well ...]

Daily Life·Economy

~670 BCE·Neo-AssyrianOur engine

SAA 10 259. Who to Come out Next? (ABL 0364) [from exorcists]

To the king, our lord: your servants Adad-šuma-uṣur and Marduk-šākin-šumi. May there be well-being for the king, our lord. May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, our lord. Concerning the people about whom the king, our lord, wrote to us — saying: 'Is it not you who have [held] them back?' — those who have already come out to report to us, and the others who have not yet performed [their duties]: let them come out tomorrow and let them perform [them]. The king, our lord, knows which ones have performed [their duties] and which ones have not performed [them]. As for us — what do we know of this?…

Daily Life·Economy

~665 BCE·Neo-AssyrianOur engine

SAA 13 073. Complaint of Sickness (ABL 0203)

To the king, my lord: your servant Nergal-šarrani. Good health to the king, my lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord, exceedingly! This month, on this very day, since I have been ill, it is a rash (siḫlu). Since it has been itching me all over, [my whole body] has been scratched/itched. (I said): 'I am afflicted by the hand of Dilbat (Venus/Ištar)!' (I said): 'I am afraid concerning the ... of the fire(-omens),' which without the king I cannot do. Now, therefore, I have written to the king, my lord. By the command of the king let it be chosen (and) let it be done, so that he may…

Daily Life·Economy

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianOur engine

Ashurbanipal 001

Documents Ashurbanipal's forced resettlement of conquered populations into Egypt and the Levantine town of Qirbit — a concrete case of Assyrian demographic engineering as an instrument of imperial control.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 002

Lists nine deities who legitimise Ashurbanipal's rule, each sponsoring a different royal quality — a snapshot of the theological machinery the Neo-Assyrian court used to underwrite imperial authority.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 003

Claims divine sanction for Ashurbanipal's literacy — the gods granted him 'a broad mind' to master the scribal arts — embedding scholarly kingship ideology at the heart of Assyrian royal self-presentation.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 004

Claims divine sanction not just for Ashurbanipal's military power but for his scribal learning — one of the clearest royal assertions that literacy itself was a gift of the gods and a mark of legitimate kingship.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 005

Claims divine sanction for Ashurbanipal's legendary scribal literacy — a rare royal boast that a king personally mastered cuneiform learning, framing intellectual mastery as a god-given mark of legitimate rule.

Religion & Myth·Writing & Literature

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 006

Claims Ashurbanipal completed Esarhaddon's unfinished temples — including Eḫursaggalkurkurra at Aššur — framing construction piety as dynastic continuity and divine sanction for his kingship.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 007

Records Ashurbanipal's restoration of Marduk's chariot and shrine roof, linking Assyrian royal piety toward Babylon's chief god to the ideological balancing act of ruling both Assyria and Babylonia simultaneously.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 008

Documents Ashurbanipal's restoration of Sîn and Nusku to their temples and his refurbishment of sanctuaries across Assyria and Akkad, anchoring the king's legitimacy in cultic patronage rather than military conquest.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 009

Attests the Sargonid practice of legitimating a crown prince through divine pre-election — Sîn's nomination in the womb — positioning Ashurbanipal's rule as cosmically ordained before Esarhaddon's formal designation.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 010

Ashurbanipal's titulature — king of Assyria, Babylon, Sumer, and Akkad simultaneously — encapsulates the ideological claim that one ruler could hold the entire Mesopotamian world-order, north and south, under a single divine mandate.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 011

Declares Ashurbanipal's kingship divinely foreordained from the womb by Aššur, Sîn, Šamaš, Adad, and Ištar — anchoring Sargonid legitimacy theology in a chain of gods stretching from conception to coronation.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 012

Records Ashurbanipal's lavish furnishing of Ezida at Borsippa — an ebony bed for Marduk, silver wild-bull guardians, and 83 talents of zaḫalû-metal — documenting Assyrian royal patronage of the great Babylonian sanctuaries.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 013

Preserves Ashurbanipal's own account of his divine mandate, naming seven patron deities across Assyrian and Babylonian pantheons — evidence of deliberate theological synthesis at the height of Sargonid imperial ideology.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 014

Fuses two registers of Sargonid kingship in a single text: the lone-archer lion hunt staged as cosmic spectacle, and the Addaru akītu-festival linking royal legitimacy to the queen of the gods.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 015

Ashurbanipal claims the wisdom of the antediluvian sage Adapa as personal divine endowment — coupling scribal mastery with military might to justify one king's embodiment of both priestly and warrior ideals.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 016

Chronicles the chaotic succession crisis in Elam after Urtaku's death — rival claimants dying of mouse-bite and dropsy before the demon-like Teumman seized the throne — framing Assyrian intervention as cosmic necessity.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 017

Records Elamite court violence — the killing of Indabibi and enthronement of Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III — framed as divinely ordained Assyrian dominance, linking Sargonid royal ideology directly to datable Elamite dynastic upheaval c. 655 BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 018

Preserves Ashurbanipal's account of Elamite vassal Indabibi's submission — fragmentary but direct evidence of how Assyrian royal inscriptions legitimised dominance over post-Teumman Elam.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 019

Documents Assyrian military operations against Elamite royal survivors after the fall of Teumman, then records a diplomatic rupture: Ummanigaš detained Ashurbanipal's envoy and broke off communication — a prelude to renewed Assyrian-Elamite war.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 020

Records Ashurbanipal's desecration of Elamite royal tombs and the repatriation of Nanāya's cult statue to Uruk after 1,635 years — anchoring a precise, self-serving Assyrian chronology of divine abandonment and imperial restoration.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 021

Lists cult centers and temple furnishings restored by Ashurbanipal — including Emeslam at Cuthah, seat of Nergal — documenting the king's systematic program of sanctuary patronage across Assyria and Babylonia.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 022

Records Ashurbanipal's furnishing of Marduk's sanctuary at Babylon — an ebony bed clad in gold, silver pirkus weighing six talents each — charting the Assyrian king's calculated piety toward the Babylonian god after decades of fraught Assyro-Babylonian conflict.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 059

Credits Nabû's divine command for Ashurbanipal's defeat of four successive Elamite kings — including Teumman's beheading at the Battle of Til-Tuba — and their humiliation as carriage-pullers, linking Assyrian military conquest explicitly to scribal-god patronage.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 068

One of the standard royal titulary inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (RINAP 5, Q003767), attesting the Sargonid formula — great king, strong king, king of the world — as a fixed ideological claim to universal sovereignty.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 069

Attests Ashurbanipal's full titulary tracing legitimacy through Esarhaddon and Sennacherib — the dynastic chain the Sargonids used to anchor royal authority across three generations.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 072

Attests Esarhaddon's conquest of Egypt and Kush as refracted through Ashurbanipal's own royal ideology: the renaming of cities and installation of vassal kings recorded here illuminates how Assyria consolidated its briefest, most audacious imperial overreach.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 073

Chronicles Ashurbanipal's first campaign against Taharqa of Egypt and Kush, picking up directly from Esarhaddon's earlier conquest and documenting Assyria's sustained military pressure on the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 074

Records a Lydian king's dream-oracle in which a deity commands him to grasp Ashurbanipal's feet, linking Assyrian royal power to Gyges of Lydia's campaigns against the Cimmerians — one of the few cuneiform texts to name a Lydian ruler.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 075

Names eleven divine sponsors of Ashurbanipal's Mannean campaign and records a night ambush routed across three leagues of steppe — pinning Assyrian theology of divinely mandated conquest to a specific military engagement.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 076

Chronicles Ashurbanipal's recapture of Mannean-occupied cities — Paddiri, Arsiyaniš, Eristeyana — documenting Assyrian efforts to reassert the northeastern frontier against a rival highland power.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 077

Records an Arab chieftain sending his daughter as housekeeper and reinstating lapsed tribute payments to Ashurbanipal — direct evidence of how the Assyrian court enforced loyalty through dynastic hostage-taking and fiscal obligation.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 078

Records Ashurbanipal's reimposition of tribute on the Median ruler Uallî — including thirty additional horses — and his simultaneous campaigns against Median city-rulers who had defected, documenting Assyrian methods of coercion and reward on the empire's eastern frontier.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 079

Records Assyria's grain relief to famine-struck Elam and the repatriation of Elamite refugees — then frames Urtaku's subsequent aggression as ingratitude, revealing how Sargonid kings cast humanitarian acts as instruments of political obligation.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 080

Records Urtaku of Elam's unprovoked invasion of Babylonia despite Ashurbanipal's prior goodwill — a rare Assyrian royal account of the diplomatic breakdown that triggered the Assyro-Elamite wars of the 650s BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 081

Records Ashurbanipal's justification for invading Elam: Teumman's persecution of the royal Elamite refugees gave the Assyrian king a dynastic-legitimacy pretext rather than a naked conquest.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 082

Names five Elamite kings — Ummanigaš, Ummanappi, Tammarītu, Kudurru, and Parrû — abandoned their thrones rather than face Assyrian arms, supplying a rare royal-inscription checklist of the dynastic chaos that consumed Elam after 653 BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 083

Ashurbanipal justifies refusing extradition of Elamite royal refugees to Teumman — framing the rejection as divine command — before narrating the campaign that ended at the Battle of the Ulaya River, 653 BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 084

Links a lunar eclipse, divine omens, and the Elamite king's physical affliction — paralyzed lip, diminished eye — to justify Ashurbanipal's campaign: a rare royal text weaving extispicy logic directly into annalistic narrative.

Religion & Myth·Astronomy & Mathematics

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 085

Records Ashurbanipal's installation of Ummanigaš II on the Elamite throne after Teumman's defeat — a rare royal account of Assyrian-engineered regime change in Elam, corroborating the annals' narrative of the 653 BCE Ulai campaign.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 086

Chronicles Aššurbanipal's installation of Tammarītu as an Elamite client king and the subsequent Gambulu campaign — concrete evidence of Assyria's strategy of dynastic manipulation to pacify its eastern frontier.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

~655 BCE·Neo-AssyrianRINAP 5

Ashurbanipal 087

Charges the Elamite king Tammarītu with accepting bribes from the rebel Šamaš-šuma-ukīn: direct Assyrian royal testimony on the diplomacy that nearly split the empire in the 650s BCE.

Writing & Literature·Religion & Myth

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