Carved across the reliefs is a cuneiform inscription - like graffiti, except this was done meticulously as part of the carving of the tablets. Cuneiform must have been hard to carve - the things that made it easy to incise into clay tablets probably did not work as well in stone.
Below the panels was a translation of the writing, which is what is known as the Standard Inscription:
The palace of Ashurnasirpal, chief priest of Ashur, the chosen one of Enlil and Ninurta, the favorite of Anu and Dagan, the divine weapon of the Great Gods, the potent king, the king of the world, the king of Assyria; the son of Tukulti-Ninurta, the great king, the potent king, the king of the world, the king of Assyria; the son of Adad-nirari, the king of the world, the king of Assyria;
the powerful warrior who always lived by Ashur, his lord; who has no rival among the princes of the four quarters of the earth;
the shepherd of his people, fearless in battle, the overpowering tidewater who has no opponent;
the king, subjugator of the unsubmissive, who rules the total sum of all humanity;
the potent warrior, who tramples his enemies, who crushes all the adversaries;
the disperser of the host of the haughty;
the king who always lived by trust in the Great Gods, his lords; and captured all the lands himself, ruled all their mountainous districts, received their tribute; who takes hostages, who establishes victory over all their lands.
When Ashur, who selected me, who made my kingship great, entrusted his merciless weapon into my lordly arms, I verily struck down the widespread troops of Lullumu with weapons, during the battle encounter. As for the troops of the lands of Nairi, Habhu, Shubaru, and Nirbu, I roared over them like Adad the destroyer, with the aid of Shamash and Adad, my helper gods. the king who caused from the other bank of the Tigris to the Lebanon and the Great Sea, the whole of Laqu, and Suhu as far as Rapiqu, to submit; himself conquered from the source of the Subnat River to Urartu; annexed as my own territory from the pass of Kirruru to Gilzanu, from the other bank of the Lower Zab to Til Bari which is upstream from Zaban, from Til sha Abtani to Til sha Zabdani. I counted as my own people from the pass of Babite to Hashmar. I set my residents in the lands over which I ruled obeisance and [forced labor].
Ashurnasirpal, the obedient prince, the worshiper of the Great Gods, the fierce dragon, the conqueror of all cities and mountains to their full extent, the king of rulers, who tames the dangerous enemies, crowned with glory, unafraid of battle, the relentless lion, who shakes resistance, praise the king, the shepherd, protection of the world, the king whose command blots out mountains and seas, who forced into compliance the relentless, fierce kings from the east to the west at his very approach.
Ashurnasirpal, the obedient prince, the worshiper of the Great Gods, the fierce dragon, the conqueror of all cities and mountains to their full extent, the king of rulers, who tames the dangerous enemies, crowned with glory, unafraid of battle, the relentless lion, who shakes resistance, praise the king, the shepherd, protection of the world, the king whose command blots out mountains and seas, who forced into compliance the relentless, fierce kings from the east to the west at his very approach.
Nick read most of this aloud, especially the part about Adad the Destroyer. There was something about the idea of this inscription covering all of the reliefs in Nimrud that really appealed to him. Strangely, the Assyrian reliefs seemed to follow us around - we found them at the Worcester Art Museum, which we visited with Nicholas when Alex was a freshman at WPI, and at the Museum of Fine Arts. When he arrived at Bowdoin, Nick discovered that the art museum there also has two fragments of panels. Many museums don't focus on the text of the inscription, so it was a delight to Nick that he knew the secret message chiseled across the figures.
