Position in chronology
SAA 13 046. Where are the Sacrifices to be Performed? (ABL 1221)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(Beginning destroyed) (1) May [(the gods) ... bl]es[s the king], my [lo]rd. (3) [Concerning the sacrific]es of the 5th day [which the king], my [l]ord, put in the [ch]arge of the chief cupbearer — are they to come and perform them before Aššur, and are they to bring [to the king], my lord, the coo]ked meat, the portions of meat and the [insid]e cuts of meat which are (to be laid) before Aššur? [Wha]t is it that the king, my lord, [com]mands? (12) I have set aside the [... of] Lisikutu [... for the ki]ng, my lord. (14) [The ... of] this [...] concerns every(thing); I have written it down…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 13 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣+[x x x x x] / [x x x x be]-li-⸢ia lik⸣-[ru-bu] / [ina UGU UDU].⸢SISKUR⸣-MEŠ ša UD 05-KÁM / [ša LUGAL] ⸢be⸣-li ina UGU LÚ.GAL—KAŠ.LUL / [ki-i pi]-qit-tu ik-ru-ur-u-ni / [il-lak]-ú-ni ina IGI daš-šur ep-pa-šu-ú / [UZU].⸢sal⸣-qa UZU.DIŠ-ḫa-a-ni / [UZU.É-a-ni]-a-ti ša pa-an daš-šur / [a-na LUGAL] be-li-ia ú-bal-ú-ni-i / [mi-i]-⸢nu⸣ ša LUGAL be-li / [i-qab]-bu-ú-ni / [x x x x]…
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 P334803.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334803). 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/P334803/.
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.