Position in chronology
SAA 21 028. I'm Sending to You my Treaty Tablet (ABL 0539)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [The king's] w[ord to Nabû-ušabši. I am] we[ll], you [can be glad]. (3) Fr[om the beginning until no]w, you have render[ed many] favour[s] to me, kept m[y watch] and not sinned against my Treaty and oath. You have fallen and died on account of all the messages and orders I have been sending to you. And truly by these recent things that you have done you have surpassed everything. (12) The fact that for the sake of my name you have isolated yourself, keeping on the side of the representative of Aššur and Marduk; that you have kept [my watch] and not made [common cause] with my enemy; [the…
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/P237759/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-[mat LUGAL a-na md+AG—ú-šab-ši?] / DI-[mu ia-a-ši ŠÀ-ba-ka lu-u DÙG.GA]-ka / ⸢ul⸣-[tu re-še a-di a-kan]-⸢na⸣ / MUN-[ḪI.A ma-aʾ-da-ti] ina IGI-ía / tal-ta-⸢kan⸣ [ma-aṣ-ṣar-ti]-⸢ia⸣ ta-at-ta-ṣar / a-na MUN-ía u a-na ma-mì-ti-ía / ul taḫ-ṭi a-na UGU šip-re-ti-ía / ma-la al-tap-pa-ru-ka u a-na UGU / a-mat-ia ki-i tan-qu-tu me-ta-ta / ù kit-tú ur-ki-tu a-ga-at / [šá] te-pu-šú al-la gab-bi-ši-na /…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence under Assurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 21, 2018). ORACC text P237759.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P237759). 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/P237759/.
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.