Position in chronology
SAA 16 029. Debts of the Governor of Barhalza (ABL 0916)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 16(1) [To the king], my lord: your servant Mardî. May [Ninurta], Zababa, Nergal, Madanu [and Nabû] bless the strong and righteous [kin]g, my lord. (4) [From the beginn]ing I have been his servant. My brother tried to make Bel-zeru-ibni kill me, (but) I grasped [the feet of the crown prince], saved myself from it in darkness and hunger, and fled to the tower [with the crown prince], my [l]ord. Compassion took hold of the king; [at my return], the crown prince sent a messenger with me, [saying], "You are to give him back [the things] that the governor of Barhalza owes him." (9) I constantly…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 16 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[a-na LUGAL] be-lí-ía ARAD-ka mmar-di-i / [dNIN.URTA] dZA.BA₄.BA₄ dU.GUR dDI.KUD / [dAG? a-na] ⸢LUGAL⸣ dan-nu u ki-i-nu be-lí-ía lik-ru-bu / [TAv re-e]-⸢ši⸣ LÚv.ARAD-šú a-na-ku ŠEŠ-u-a a-na mEN—NUMUN—DÙ uš-mat-tan-ni / [GÌR.2 DUMU—LUGAL] a-ṣa-bat ina e-kel-ti bu-bu-ti la—pa-ni us-se-zib / [TAv DUMU—LUGAL be]-lí-ía a-na ŠÀ URU.i-si-ti aḫ-tal-qa re-e-mu a-na LUGAL iṣ-ṣa-bat / [x x x LÚv].A—KIN…
Scholarly note
Political letter at the court of Esarhaddon, edited by Mikko Luukko & Greta Van Buylaere (SAA 16, 2002). ORACC text P334623.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334623). source
Translation excerpted from Luukko, M. & Van Buylaere, G. 2002. The Political Correspondence of Esarhaddon. SAA 16. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa16/P334623/.
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.
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.