Position in chronology
SAA 03 041. Letter from Aššur to Šamši-Adad V (KAH 142)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1) [To sa]ve his life, [he entered the city Nemetti-šarri. You followed behind him] and defeated him. [You took away from him his] chariots, [his stallions and ... of battle.] (3) You [did] battle within his city and [wrought a blood bath at the city gate. You cut down his orchards. Two] hundred and fifty-six cities in [its] vicinity [you razed, destroyed, and burned]. (5) As to what you wrote to me: "[I went] to Der. [Der is a great metropolis] whose foundations are as firm as the mass of a mountain. [......] I surrounded and captured that city. [The gods dwelling in…
Source: Livingstone, A. 1989. Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea. SAA 3. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa03/P336225/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[a-na šu-zu]-ub ZI-MEŠ-⸢šú⸣ [ana URU.né-met-ti—MAN e-ru-ub EGIR-šú ta-ar-te-di] / [GAZ]-⸢MEŠ⸣-šú ta-du-ak GIŠ.GIGIR-[šú pet-ḫal-lu-šú x x x MÈ te-kim-šú] / [i-na] ⸢qé⸣-reb URU-šú mit-ḫu-ṣu ⸢ta⸣-[sa-kan de-ek-tu ina KÁ.GAL-šú ta-du-ak GIŠ.SAR-MEŠ-šú ta-ak-šiṭ] / [02]-me-56 URU-MEŠ-ni šá li-me-tú-[šú ta-ta-pal ta-ta-qar ina IZI ta-sa-rap] / ša taš-pu-ra-an-ni ma a-na URU.de-⸢e-ri⸣ [at-ta-lak ma-a…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian court poetry or literary text, edited by Alasdair Livingstone (SAA 3, 1989). ORACC text P336225.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Alasdair Livingstone, Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea (State Archives of Assyria, 3), 1989. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2019-20, as part of the research programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair in the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at LMU Munich (Karen Radner, Humboldt Professorship 2015). The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P336225/..
Translation excerpted from Livingstone, A. 1989. Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea. SAA 3. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa03/P336225/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
The single most important literary discovery of the 19th century. It rewired the understanding of the Bible's literary context and proved that the Mesopotamian flood tradition is older. It is the oldest surviving epic poetry in human history.
The literary tradition is no longer anonymous from this point. Authorship — the idea that a specific human voice composes a specific work — enters the historical record with her.