Position in chronology
SAA 13 060. The Festival of Babylon (ABL 0971)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(1) [To the king, my lord: your servant, Urdu-Nabû. Good health to the king, my lord. May Aššur, Sin, Šamaš, Marduk, Zarpanitu, Nabû, Tašmetu, Ištar of Nineveh, and Ištar of Arbela — these great gods who love your kingship] — [allow] the king, my lord, to live [100 year]s. May they grant the king, my lord, the satisfaction of old age, extreme old age. (12) [Concernin]g the offerings about which the king, (my) lord, wrote to me, saying: "Be on the alert! Let there be nothing lacking," [every]thing is in very good order. The king, my lord, can be glad. (16) [Nob]lemen of Babylon and of Borsippa…
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 EN-ia] / [ARAD-ka mARAD—dPA] / [lu-u DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ía] / [aš-šur d30 dUTU dAMAR.UTU] / [dzar-pa-ni-tum dPA dtaš-me-tum] / [d15 ša URU.NINA d15 ša URU.arba-ìl] / [DINGIR-MEŠ an-nu-u-te GAL-MEŠ] / [ra-i-mu-te LUGAL-ti-ka] / [01 me MU].AN.NA-MEŠ a-na LUGAL EN-ia / [lu]-⸢bal⸣-li-ṭu ši-bu-ti lit-tu-tu / [a-na] LUGAL EN-ia lu-šab-bi-u / [ina] ⸢UGU⸣ UDU.SISKUR-MEŠ ša LUGAL EN…
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 P334651.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334651). 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/P334651/.
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.