Position in chronology
SAA 17 002. You May not Write your Messages in Aramaic (CT 54 010)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) Say to Sin-iddina: thus says the king. I am well, [you] can be glad. (3) May the bread as well as the first quality beer of the temple be good! May the guard of Ur and my temples be very strong! (6) [Everything th]at you wrote in your letter [is ...]. (7) [As to what] you wrote: "If/since [the ...s] are finished, we will come up (for an audience) before Merodach-Baladan [...]" — now then [...] I will keep listening and [...]. (I swear) by [Aš]šur, Bel and Nabû, my gods, [that ...] ... is not gathered in. (13) [As to what you wrote]: "There are informers [... to the king] and coming to his…
Source: Dietrich, M. 2003. The Babylonian Correspondence of Sargon and Sennacherib. SAA 17. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa17/P237990/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na md30—SUM-na ⸢qí-bi⸣-[ma] / um-ma LUGAL-ma šul-mu ia-a-⸢ši ŠÀ⸣-[ba-ka] / lu-ú ṭa-ab-ka šá É—DINGIR NINDA-ḪI.A lu-ú / KAŠ.SAG lu-ú ṭa-a-bi EN.NUN ŠEŠ.UNUG.⸢KI⸣ / É—⸢DINGIR⸣-MEŠ-e-a ma-aʾ-da lu-ú dan-na-⸢at⸣ / [mim-ma] ⸢ma⸣-la ina ši-pir-ti-ka taš-pu-ra / [x x x x šá] ⸢taš⸣-pu-ra um-ma ki-i / [x x x x x] ⸢iq-ta⸣-tu-ú a-di mdAMAR.UTU—A—MU / [x x x x x] ni-il-la-a a-du-ú / [x x x x x]…
Scholarly note
Babylonian-language letter to Sargon II or Sennacherib, edited by Manfried Dietrich (SAA 17, 2003). ORACC text P237990.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P237990). source
Translation excerpted from Dietrich, M. 2003. The Babylonian Correspondence of Sargon and Sennacherib. SAA 17. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa17/P237990/.
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.
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.