Ancient Inscriptions of Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Dating from the 3rd century BCE

during the late third and early second millennium BC

through to the early part of the Fifth Dynasty (c. 2498-2345 BCE)

thought to date from the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II (r. 1279-1213 BC)

Assembled during the reigns of the Persian kings Artaxerxes I, Darius II, and Artaxerxes II

spanning a period of 100 years in the 5th to 4th centuries BCE

found in Persepolis dating to the Achaemenid Persian Empire

is an ancient Egyptian text written on papyrus in abbreviated hieratic script

Composed during the reign of Thutmose III, it listed sixty-one kings beginning with Sneferu from Egypt's Old Kingdom

near Xanthos, ancient Lycia

are inscribed in Sumerian with lists of the kings of Sumer

is an Ancient Nubian stele detailing the victory of Kushite King Piye

They all date to the period between c. 2500 BC and the destruction of the city c. 2250 BC

The Consularia Italica are a collection of consular fasti published in 1892 by Theodore Mommsen

The Rosetta Stone is a stele of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes.

The Mesha Stele, also known as the Moabite Stone, is a stele dated around 840 BCE containing a significant Canaanite inscription in the name of King Mesha of Moab (a kingdom located in modern Jordan).

The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of more than thirty inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls, attributed to Emperor Ashoka of the Mauryan Empire who ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from 268 BCE to 232 BCE.

It deals primarily with the reign of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, covers the conquest of Babylon by the Persian king Cyrus the Great, and ends with the start of the reign of Cyrus's son Cambyses II, spanning a period from 556 BC to some time after 539 BC.

The Chronograph of 354 is a compilation of chronological and calendrical texts produced in 354 AD for a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus by the calligrapher and illustrator Furius Dionysius Filocalus.

The Ipuwer Papyrus has been dated no earlier than the Nineteenth Dynasty, around 1250 BCE but the text itself is much older, and dated back no earlier than the late Twelfth Dynasty of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom.

It comes from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), in northern Iraq, and commemorates the deeds of King Shalmaneser III (reigned 858-824 BC).

The Victory Stele of Naram-Sin is a stele that dates to approximately 2254-2218 BC, in the time of the Akkadian Empire, and is now at the Louvre in Paris.

It is commonly dated to the 10th century BCE, but the dating is uncertain, because the excavation was not stratified.

The Merneptah Stele, also known as the Israel Stele or the Victory Stele of Merneptah, is an inscription by Merneptah, a pharaoh in ancient Egypt who reigned from 1213 to 1203 BCE.

The texts were written in the 13th and 12th centuries BCE.

It is thought that the stele was inscribed during the Ptolemaic Kingdom, which ruled from 332 to 31 BC.

The Cylinders of Nabonidus refers to cuneiform inscriptions of king Nabonidus of Babylonia (556-539 BC).

Written on fragments of thin, postcard-sized wooden leaf-tablets with carbon-based ink, the tablets date to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (roughly contemporary with Hadrian's Wall).

The letters were probably written shortly before Lachish fell to the Babylonian army of King Nebuchadnezzar II in 588/6 BC during the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah (ref.

It was written by Arrian of Nicomedia from AD 130-131.

Authored by Darius the Great sometime between his coronation as king of the Persian Empire in the summer of 522 BC and his death in autumn of 486 BC, the inscription begins with a brief autobiography of Darius, including his ancestry and lineage.

It was created and used as a foundation deposit following the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire was invaded by Cyrus and incorporated into his Persian Empire.

The text was completed just one month before Augustus' death (19 August AD 14), although most of its content was written years earlier and likely went through many revisions.

Though dated by Cook to the 2nd century CE, subsequent reappraisals have pushed the date of the fragments back to about 150-100 BCE.

It is generally dated to the 9th-century BCE, though some scholars have proposed later dates; it is one of the earliest, extra-biblical references to a Davidic dynasty.