Position in chronology
SAA 13 084. Report of Arrival of Horses: Nisan 6 (ABL 0686)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Nabû-šumu-iddina. The very best of he[alth] to the king, my lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord! (7) ...[... day x]+3 (8) ...[......]...s (Break) (r 1) 90 [......] from the town of [...]: (r 3) a total of 164 Kushite horses, 35 cavalry mounts, and 6 mules — (r 7) 207 horses and mules in all — have come in today. (r 10) [Month of N]isan (I), 6[th] day.
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 mdAG—MU—AŠ / lu ⸢DI⸣-[mu] a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / a—dan-niš a—dan-niš / dAG dAMAR.UTU a-na LUGAL / be-lí-ia lik-ru-bu / ⸢x⸣+[x x x UD x]+3-KÁM / ⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣-MEŠ / 90 [x x x x x x] / ša URU.[x x x x x] / PAB 01 me 64 ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ / KUR.ku-sa-a-a / 35 KUR-MEŠ ša BAD-ḪAL-li / 06 ANŠE.ku-din-MEŠ / PAB 02 me 07 KUR-MEŠ ANŠE.ku-din-MEŠ / UD-mu an-ni-ú / e-tar-bu-u-ni / [ITI].⸢BARAG⸣ UD 06-[KÁM]
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 P334484.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334484). 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/P334484/.
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.