Position in chronology
SAA 13 124. Transport Order for Lahiru and Dur-Šarrukku (ABL 0558)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(1) [To the king, our lord: your servants, Nabu-bala]ss[u-iqbi] and Nadin-Ea. Good health to the king, our lord. May Bel and Nabû bless the king, our lord. (10) All is very well with our watch. (12) Aššur-naṣir has sent a royal bodyguard to the governor of Lahiru and the governor of Dur-Šarrukku (with the message) concerning the transport order for this work. The governor of Lahiru has obeyed; the governor of Dur-Šarrukku has not. The king, my lord, should know.
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-ni] / [ARAD-MEŠ-ni-ka] / [mdAG]—⸢TI-su⸣—[iq]-⸢bi⸣ / mna-din—ia / lu-u DI-mu a-na LUGAL / EN-ni / dEN ù dAG / a-na LUGAL EN-ni / lik-ru-bu / DI-mu a-na ma-ṣar-ti-ni / ad—dan-niš / maš-šur—PAB-ir / ina UGU ša-az-bu-si / ša dul-li an-ni-i / LÚv.qur-ZAG ina UGU-ḫi / LÚv.EN.NAM URU.la-ḫi-ri / LÚv.EN.NAM URU.BÀD—LUGAL-ru-ki / is-sap-ra / LÚv.EN.NAM URU.la-ḫi-ri / is-se-me LÚv.EN.NAM / ša URU.BÀD—LUGAL-ru-ki / la iš-me / LUGAL EN-ni ⸢lu⸣-u-di
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 P334383.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334383). 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/P334383/.
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.