Position in chronology
SAA 21 060. A Letter to Indabibi (649) (ABL 1151)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 21(1) A tablet of Assurbanipal, king of Assyria, to Indabibi, king of Elam, his brother. I, my palace, [my ...], and my country are well. May [you ... be well]. (5) [Concerning] those [mess]ages (rest (about 15 lines) broken away) (beginning (about 18 lines) broken away) (r 1) Mo[nth of …, xth day], eponym year of Ahu-ila'i. (rest (3 lines) uninscribed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 21 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
IM šá AN.ŠÁR—DÙ—DUMU.UŠ MAN LUGAL KUR—AN.ŠÁR.KI / a-na min-da-bi-bi MAN KUR.NIM.MA.KI / ŠEŠ-šú DI-mu a.a-ši a-na É.GAL-ía / [x x x x a-na] ⸢KUR⸣-ia lu-u DI-mu / [a-na ka-a-šá ina UGU šip]-⸢re⸣-ti ši-na / [x x x x x x x x]-ʾu-ú / [x x x x x x x] ⸢x⸣-nu-[ú] / ⸢ITI.SIG₄ UD 03?⸣-[KÁM] / lim-mu mPAB—le-i*
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence under Assurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 21, 2018). ORACC text P237330.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P237330). 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/P237330/.
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
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.