SAA 03 025. Letters to Assurbanipal from his Son (AfO 18 382)

~680 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P238321

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 3

High confidence

(Beginning destroyed) (i 1) [......] your ... to [your] seed. (i 2) [......] your [...] to your offspring (i 3) [......] may they give [... to] your offspring! (i 4) [......] your illustrious name, lord of kings. (i 5) [......] this kingship and dominion (i 6) [......] you can accomplish whatever you say (i 7) [......]... to you, lord of kings. (i 8) [Say to Assurbanipal, lov]er of truth, lord of kings: (i 9) [During your days , which Marduk l]oves, [...... of heaven] and earth has made peace with [.......] with you. (i 12) [...... of] the lands are strong; and with (i 13) [......]…

State Archives of Assyria, volume 3 — scholar edition (ORACC).

Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.

Transliteration

[x x x x x x x x x x x] ⸢x x⸣ a-na NUMUN-[ka] / [x x x x x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣-ka a-na pi-ir-i-ka / [x x x x x x x x x x a-na] pi-ir-i-ka lid-di-nu-uʾ / [x x x x x x x x x x x]-a-ma ṭa-ba šum-ka EN LUGAL-MEŠ / [x x x x x x x x x x x] LUGAL-ú-tu ù bé-lu-tu a-ga-a / [x x x x x x x x x x x] ⸢ta⸣-le-ʾa-a ma-al-la at-me-ka / [x x x x x x x x x x x] ⸢x x x x⸣-ak-ka EN LUGAL-MEŠ / [a-na mAN.ŠÁR—DÙ—DUMU.UŠ…

Scholarly note

Neo-Assyrian court poetry or literary text, edited by Alasdair Livingstone (SAA 3, 1989). ORACC text P238321.

Attribution

Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P238321). source
Translation excerpted from Livingstone, A. 1989. Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea. SAA 3. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa03/P238321/.

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet (VAT 15211)

An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.

~2050 BCE

Umma Livestock and Personnel Account (AnOr 1, 243)

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.

~1340 BCE

Amarna Letter EA 153 — Abi-milku of Tyre

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.