Position in chronology
SAA 13 050. Disposition of the Property of Aššur-ili-muballissu (ABL 1078)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(Beginning destroyed) (1) [The king, my lord, can be] glad. (2) [Regarding the property o]f Aššur-ili-muballissu [...], when [he slipped away] from the hands of the king, my lord, Ilu-šezibanni the major domo transp[orted] all the [go]ld, gems, silver implements, [and] fine utensils that your [father had donated] to Aššur-ili-muballissu to the Lower Land, all of it. (9) Now then Huddaya [the ...] has re[trieved] the silver, the gold, and the gems. [I myself] will [... and] give [to the king], my lord, the gold implements and [al]l the [fine] utensils, ......, [ ... v]essels of milhu-stone,…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 13 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[ŠÀ-bu ša LUGAL be-lí-ía] lu ṭa-[a-ba] / [ina UGU x x x x x] ⸢ša⸣ maš-šur—DINGIR—TI.LA.BI / [x x x x x] É TAv ŠU.2 LUGAL be-lí-ía / [e-lu-ni KUG].GI NA₄-MEŠ a-nu-ti KUG.UD / [ù] ú-de-e SIG₅-MEŠ am—mar / [AD-u]-ka a-na maš-šur—DINGIR—TI.LA.BI / [x x]+⸢x⸣ mDINGIR—še-zib-an-ni LÚ.GAL—É / [ina] ⸢UGU⸣ a-ḫa-iš a-na KUR šá-pil-ti / [i-zi]-bi-il an-nu-rig mḫu-ud-da-ia / [LÚ x] re-e-šú šá KUG.UD KUG.GI…
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 P334720.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334720). 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/P334720/.
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.