Position in chronology
SAA 10 173. The Governor has Taken my Field (ABL 0421) [from diviners]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Marduk-šumu-uṣur. Good health to the king, my lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord! (6) The father of the king, my lord, gave me 10 homers of cultivated land in Halahhu. For 14 years I had the usufruct of the land, and nobody disputed it with me. (But) now the governor of Barhalzi has come and mistreated the farmer, plundered his house and appropriated my land. (17) The king, my lord, knows that I am a poor man, that I keep the watch of the king, my lord, and am guilty of no negligence within the palace. Now I have been deprived of my field. I have turned to the king; may the king, my lord, do me justice, may I not die of hunger!
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334289/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[a]-na LUGAL EN-ia / ARAD-ka mdAMAR.UTU—MU—PAB / lu-u DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ia / dAG dAMAR.UTU / a-na LUGAL EN-ia lik-ru-bu / AD-šú ša LUGAL EN-ia / 10 ANŠE ŠE.NUMUN ina KUR.ḫa-làḫ-ḫi / it-ta-na 14 MU.AN.NA-MEŠ / A.ŠÀ a-ta-kal / me-me-ni is-si-ia / la id-di-bu-ub / ú-ma-a LÚ.EN.NAM / la KUR.bar-ḫal-zi it-tal-ka / LÚ.ENGAR* iḫ-te-si / É-su im-ta-šá-aʾ / A.ŠÀ ip-tu-ag / LUGAL be-lí ú-da / ki-i…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334289.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334289). source
Translation excerpted from Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334289/.
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