Position in chronology
SAA 13 088. Report of Arrival of Horses: Day 5 (ABL 0071)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Nabû-šumu-iddina. The very best of health to the king, my lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord! (7) 121 cavalry mounts, (8) 1 cavalry ...-mount: (9) 122 cavalry [mounts] in all have come in from the commander-in-chief, incomplete; (12) 5 cavalry mounts have come in from the governor of Calah, incomplete — (15) a total of 127 cavalry mounts have come in today. (17) [Concerning] the [hors]es trained to the yoke which came in yesterday from Barhalzi and Arrapha and about which I wrote to the king, my lord. — I will array them early in the morning. I will also array the hitched-up Mesean horses, which are kept hitched up at all times. (r 12) What are the written instructions of the king, my lord? (r 14) 5th 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 / 01 me 21 KUR-MEŠ BAD-ḪAL-li / 01 šul-lam BAD-ḪAL-li / PAB 01 me 22 [KUR] BAD-ḪAL / ša LÚ.tur-ta-ni / e-tar-bu-u-ni la gam-ma-ru-ni / 05 KUR BAD-ḪAL ša LÚv.EN.NAM / ša URU.kal-ḫi e-tar-bu-u-ni / la gam-ma-ru-u-ni / PAB 01 me 27 KUR BAD-ḪAL / UD-mu an-ni-u…
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 P334021.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334021). 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/P334021/.
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.