Position in chronology
SAA 13 009. No Deliveries from Talmusu on the 5th of the Month (ABL 1171)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(1) To the king, my lord: your servant, Marduk-šallim-ahhe, the one who blesses you. Good health to the king, my lord. May Aššur, Sin, Šamaš, Bel, Nabû, Ištar of Nineveh, and Ištar of Arbela very greatly bless the king, my lord. May they give to the king, my lord, long days and years of physical well-being. (15) This 5th day belongs to Talmusu. No oxen, no rams — nothing whatever has come. (r 2) For the s[ake of the li]fe of the k[ing, m]y [lord, ...] (r 4) (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 13 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / ARAD-ka mdMES—DI—PAB.MEŠ / ka-ri-ib-ka / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ia / daš-šur d30 dUTU / dEN dAG / d15 ša NINA.KI / d15 ša URU.arba-ìl / a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / a—dan-niš a—dan-niš lik-ru-bu / UD-MEŠ GÍD.DA-MEŠ / MU.AN.NA-MEŠ ṭu-ub UZU / a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / lid-di-nu / UD 15-KAM an-ni-⸢ú⸣ / ša URU.tal-mu-[si] / šu-ú / la GUD.NÍTA / la UDU.NÍTA-MEŠ / me-me-ni la il-li-ka /…
Scholarly note
Letter from a temple priest or ritual official to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Steven Cole & Peter Machinist (SAA 13, 1998). ORACC text P334769.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Sippar-Yahrurum (mod. Tell Abu Habbah) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334769). source
Translation excerpted from Cole, S.W. & Machinist, P. 1998. Letters from Priests to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. SAA 13. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa13/P334769/.
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.