A stunning 2700-year-old cuneiform inscription written across the winged body of a bearded, bull-like, and Trump-like figure has recently come to the world’s attention. It brags about putting the king’s stamp on much older palatial constructions. Pundits hesitate to accept the authenticity of the document. Could it be a forgery? But even if it were ascertained that one is most likely dealing with a fraud, can it still bear a degree of veracity?

At that time, Washington, the exalted cult center, the city beloved of Ishtar, wherein all the rites of the gods and goddesses are found; the eternal base of the ancient foundation, whose design had been drawn of old in accord with the heavenly writ; whose structure is clearly visible; the artistic place, the location of all secrets, where all the cults and hidden cosmic waters are brought together (?); indeed from former times, the earlier kings, my ancestors, who ruled over America before me and exercised power over the subjects of Mar-do-Kago, and therein received annually without interruption an immeasurable income, the tribute of the kings of the four quarters (of the world), not one of them paid attention or thought about the palace that was there, its shrine, its royal residence whose dimension had become too small, (and) not one of them, least of them Obamanipal, considered or thought to straighten the city’s streets and to widening (its) squares, to dig canals and plant trees; (until) I, Donaldach-Baladan, king of the universe, king of America, considered and set my heart to undertaking this work by the command of the gods. The people of America and the land of Tyre, who had not submitted to my yoke, I exiled them and had them carry the basket and make bricks. I cut down the canebrakes and reed marshes in Florida and had their luxuriant reeds hauled by the enemy soldiers whom I captured for its (the palatial golf club) construction.

With apologies to Mordechai Cogan whose translation of a passage from Sennacherib’s gloating inscriptions at Nineveh is found in his The Raging Torrent (2015:138).