Position in chronology
SAA 21 124. Let Your Army Come and Take the Lapis Lazuli (ABL 1240)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [To] the king [...... whose] sceptre [is just and who pours sw]eet oil [......]: Thus (says) Sar[dur]i, [your servant], king of Urarṭu: (6) Why does the king, my lord, always write to me in such irritated and angry terms? (When) at the time of your father Munuhi was calumniated in this very manner, did I not rule to the effect that the king of the gods, the exalted one, the ruler of the entire universe delivered in the hands of his worshipper those who had sinned (against him), before and behind, right and left (and)above and below? (16) Concerning the lapis lazuli about which the king,…
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/P237246/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[ana?] ⸢šar?⸣-ri [x x x x x x] / ⸢šá⸣ GIŠ.PA-šú [i-šá-rat x x] / 0 Ì.GIŠ ṭa-[bu x x x x x] / um-ma md⸢IŠ⸣.[TAR—du]-⸢ri⸣ [ARAD-ka] / LUGAL KUR.ú-ra-ar-ṭi-im-[ma] / am—mì-ni LUGAL be-lí UD-mi-[šam] / ik-ki te-ku-ti u ma-le-e lib-ba*-a*-[ti] / il-ta-nap-pa-ra AD-ka ki-i pi-i / an-nim-ma kar-ṣi šá mmu-nu-ḫi / ki-i i-tak-kal-lu-šú ul un-da-ʾi-ir / u šá pa-ni ar-ki im-na šu-me-lu / e-la-nu u šap-la-nu…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence under Assurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 21, 2018). ORACC text P237246.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P237246). 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/P237246/.
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.