Position in chronology
SAA 13 114. Five Hundred and Ninety Draft Horses Arrived Today (ABL 1017)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(Beginning destroyed) (1) May [DN and DN] give to the king, my lord, [lo]ng [days and ever]lasting ye[ars] of well-being, happiness, joy and endurance of reign! (5) 122 horses trained to the yoke from the [commander]-in-chief; (7) 58 from the palac[e herald]; (8) 89 from ...[...]...[...]; (9) 28 from [......]; (10) 12 from [......]...[...]; (11) 130+[x from ......]...[...]; (12) 69 [from ......]; (13) 13 [from ......]; (14) 28 [from ......]; (15) 41 from Dur-Šarruken [...]: (16) in all 5[90+x horses] trained to the yo[ke, (from) ...], which [are] in the surroundings of [GN], and about which [I have written] to the king, [my lord], in [this] letter, have come in today. (r 7) Concerning the tablet which the [...s] sent [me ...] (r 9) ...[......] (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 13 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[UD-me ar]-ku-⸢ú⸣-tú MU.⸢AN*⸣.[NA-MEŠ] / [da]-⸢ra⸣-a-te ša ṭu-ub ŠÀ-bi / [ša] ḫu-ud ŠÀ-bi ša i-li-iṣ! ŠÀ-[bi] / ù lu-bur BALA-MEŠ a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / lid-di-nu 01 me 22 ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ / ša ni-i-ri ša [LÚ.tur]-tan-ni* / 58 ša LÚ.[NÍGIR—É].GAL [o] / 89 ša ANŠE?.[x x x] ANŠE.[x x] / 28 ša [x x x x x x x x] / 12 ša [x x x x x x] še [x x] / 01 me 30 [x ša x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ [x x] / 69 [ša x x 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 P334678.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334678). 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/P334678/.
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.