Position in chronology
SAA 21 065. Pressing for Nabû-bel-šumati and His Accomplices (647-xi) (JCS 54, 079-086)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) The king's word to the elders of Elam: I and the whole of Assyria are well. (3) As to your clandestine consultation, "Why does Assyria treat us like this?" — you know perfectly well why you have been treated in this way, and you have the affront of asking such a question now! (8) It is because of Nabû-bel-šumati, Nabû-qati-ṣabat and Kiribtu that you have been treated in this way. (10) When Ummanigaš came to grasp my feet and I sent my army with him, and (when) they went and defeated Teumman, did we lay our hands on the temples, cities or anything? Did we take spoils of war? Did we not…
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/P423161/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-bat ⸢LUGAL a-na LÚ⸣.AB.BA-MEŠ šá KUR.NIM.MA.KI / DI-mu ia-a-ši ù a-na KUR—AN.ŠÁR.KI gab-bu / ina UGU ša ⸢a⸣-na la a-ma-ri tu-šam-ḫir-a-ni / ma-a ina UGU mì-i-ni ki-i an-ni-i KUR—AN.ŠÁR.KI / te-ep-pa-áš-an-na-ši la tu-da-ma-a / ina UGU mì-i-ni šá ki-i ḫa-an-ni-i ep-šá-a-ka-nu-ni / u ú-ma-a ta-as-sa-na-ʾa-la / ina UGU mdPA—EN—MU-MEŠ mdPA—ŠU.2—ṣa-bat mki-rib-tú / ki-i ḫa-an-ni-i ep-šá-ku-nu / ki-i…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence under Assurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 21, 2018). ORACC text P423161.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Simo Parpola, The Correspondence of Ashurbanipal, Part I: Letters from Assyria, Babylonia, and Vassal States (State Archives of Assyria, 21), 2018. Adapted by Jamie Novotny and lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2018, as part of the research programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair in the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at LMU Munich (Karen Radner, Humboldt Professorship 2015). The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P423161/..
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/P423161/.
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.