Position in chronology
SAA 21 025. Draft of No. 23 (ABL 1244)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1) As to what you said, ["May the king not abandon U]r, and may the Gurasimmu not get [lost to the king]! What else can be done? Let me do it!" — did I not send send the governor of Mazamua and the prefects, did they not keep watch with you, did they not weaken and did they not die for your defence? When I saw that they were weakening and dying, I sent orders to release them, (but) did I not appoint with you the governors of Lahiru and Arrapha? (r 1) And now, even befo[re you wrote me], I sent the treasurer Aššur-gimilli-terra with an army. Do whatever is opportune to…
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/P452645/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[ina] ⸢UGU*⸣ šá taq-bu-u-[ni ma MAN la ú-ram-ma] / ⸢ŠEŠ⸣.UNUG u gúr-sim-mu la [ŠU.2 MAN] / la ÍL-MEŠ a-ke-e aḫ—ḫur / ep-pu-šú ana-ku DÙ la áš-pu-ru / NAM KUR.za-mu-u LÚ.GAR-ME KI-ku-nu / la iṣ-ṣu-ru la e-ni-šú la ÚŠ-MEŠ / ina UGU EN.NUN-ku-nu ki IGI.LAL*-ni / e-ni-šú-ni ÚŠ-MEŠ-ni KIN DU₈-šú-nu / EN.NAM la-ḫi-ri u EN.[NAM] / ár-rap-ḫa KI-ku-nu / la ap-qid [0] / u ú-ma-a ki ud!-⸢din*⸣ [la KIN] /…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence under Assurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 21, 2018). ORACC text P452645.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P452645). 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/P452645/.
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.