Position in chronology
SAA 13 162. Restoration Work in the Esaggil (ABL 0120)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(1) [To the king, my lord: your servant, Ur]du-ahhešu. [Good he]alth to the king, my lord. May [Aš]šur and Ešarra bless the king, my [lor]d. May Marduk, Zarpanitu, Nabû, Tašmetu, Nanaya, and all the gods who dwell in Esaggil lengthen the days of the king, my lord. May they firmly establish the throne of the king, my lord. May they grant happiness and physical well-being to the king, my lord. (13) 138 cedars have been brought here this year from the magazine [of] Carchemish. Of these 30 large cedars [... for] the outer cella of Bel; [x+]2 cedars we fastened on top of [...] (20) [... up]on the…
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 m]⸢ARAD⸣—PAB-MEŠ-šú / [lu] ⸢šul⸣-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ía / [daš]-šur É.ŠÁR.RA a-na LUGAL / [EN]-ía lik-ru-bu dAMAR.UTU dzar-pa-ni-tum / dAG dtaš-me-tum dna-na-a / ù DINGIR-MEŠ am—mar ina É.sag*-gíl* / kam-mu-su-ni UD-me ša LUGAL / EN-ía lu-ur-ri-ku GIŠ.GU.ZA / ša LUGAL EN-ía lu-ki-in-nu / ṭu-ub ŠÀ-bi ṭu-ub UZU / a-na LUGAL be-lí-ía lid-di-nu / 01-me-38 GIŠ.ERIN MU.AN.NA…
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 P334068.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334068). 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/P334068/.
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.