Position in chronology
SAA 21 019. The Job is Not Yet Done (ABL 0561)
Translation · reference
High confidenceBeginning destroyed (2') [...] 50 m[en] (3') [...] you did not [...]. (4') They proceeded against them, and you saw nothing. Issaran-mušallim could go out, run about, and re-enter (Babylon) as he wished, and again you saw nothing. Should it have been him and had he been fleeing, would he not have escaped and got away just like that? (12') Ever since those times you have kept watch and made yourself a good name in my presence; and you are enj[oying] your 'salt' for this in my presence. (r 1) I know that from the very beginning those people have not loved you, and that you do not love them…
Source: Parpola, S. 2018. The Correspondence of Assurbanipal, Part I: Letters from Assyria, Central Babylonia, and Vassal States. SAA 21. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa21/P393846/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x] ni ⸢da*⸣ [x x x x x x] / [x]-⸢me*⸣-50 ⸢LÚ⸣.[x x x x] / [x x] ⸢la⸣ tu-uṣ-[x x] / ina UGU-ḫi-šu-nu e-ta-at-qu / la ta-mu-ra mdKA.DI—mu-šal-lim / ki-i ŠÀ-bi-šu it-tu-ṣi / id-du-lu is-su-ḫur / e-ta-rab la ta-mur-a-ma / lu šu-ú šu-ú iḫ-liq / la ki-i an-nim-ma-a / ú-še-zib il-lik TAv ŠÀ / UD-MEŠ am-ma-a-te ma-ṣar-tú / ta-at-ta-aṣ-ra / šu-un-ku-nu ina IGI-ia / tu-dam-mì-iq-qa / ṭa-ab-ta-ku-nu / ina…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence under Assurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 21, 2018). ORACC text P393846.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P393846). source
Translation excerpted from Parpola, S. 2018. The Correspondence of Assurbanipal, Part I: Letters from Assyria, Central Babylonia, and Vassal States. SAA 21. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa21/P393846/.
Related tablets
Related sources
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.
Part of the earliest known body of international diplomatic correspondence. Akkadian, written in cuneiform on clay, was the lingua franca of Late Bronze Age statecraft — used between Egypt, the Hittites, Mitanni, Babylon, Assyria, and the Levantine vassals.