Position in chronology
SAA 21 152. Tablet of Ashurbanipal' s Magnates Concerning Horses (ABL 0623)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 21(1) A tablet of the magna[tes of Assurbanipal] to the eunuch of [NN] and the deputy [...] of the city [...]: (5) The horses [...] (6) horses [...] (7) the interest o[f ...] (8) mules [...] (Break) (r 1) Don’t be negligent and si[n]! ... (r 2) Guard the letter, it must be present with the horses at the review. They will read [it] in the ki[ng’s] presence, it is evidence.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 21 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
IM LÚ.⸢GAL⸣-[MEŠ ša maš-šur—DÙ—A] / a-na LÚ.SAG ša m*[x x x] / a-na LÚ.02-ú [x x x] / ša URU.⸢x⸣+[x x x x] / ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ [x x x] / ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ [x x x] / ṣi-ib-te ⸢ša?⸣ [x x x] / ANŠE.ku-din-MEŠ [x x x] / la ta-ši-ṭa ta-ḫa*-[ṭa-a] / e-gír-tu uṣ-⸢ra⸣ [0] / TAv ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ a-na ma-šar-[te] / lu qur-bat ina pa-an ⸢LUGAL⸣ / i-sa-si-ú-[ši] / ši-i mu-kin-⸢tu⸣ [0]
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence under Assurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 21, 2018). ORACC text P393867.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P393867). 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/P393867/.
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.
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.