Position in chronology
SAA 21 058. Why Haven't You Done What You Promised? (ABL 1380)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) The king's [word] to Menanu: I am [well]; you can be glad. (3) This is what you sent through Ubaru, after you had killed Šimbur: "I have killed Šimbur, to whom you rendered a favour by imposing a treaty upon him but who sinned against the treaty, and I have released Ubaru and am herewith sending him to you. I shall go and we shall make battle with Ummanigaš, to whom you rendered a great favour but who has likewise sinned against your treaty by siding with your adversary and crossing over to your territory, and we shall fight with him and revenge you." (14) And in the messages which I sent…
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/P237540/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[a-mat] LUGAL a-na mme-na-na / [DI-mu] ia-ši ŠÀ-ba-ka lu-u DÙG.GA-ka / a-ga-ʾi-i šu-ú šá i-na ŠU.2 mú-bar / taš-pur ul-tu mšim-bur ta-duk-ku / um-ma mšim-bur šá MUN te-pu-šá-áš-šum-ma / u a-de-e tu-še-eṣ-bi-tu-uš ù šu-u / ana a-de-e-ka iḫ-ṭu-ú a-duk ù mú-bar / ki-i ap-ṭur al-tap-rak-ka al-lak-ma / it-ti mum-ma-ni-i-gaš šá at-ta MUN / GAL-ti te-pu-šá-áš-šum-ma a*-na* a-de-ka-ma / iḫ-ṭu-ú it-ti…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence under Assurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 21, 2018). ORACC text P237540.
Attribution
Image: BM 099005 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P237540). 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/P237540/.
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.