Position in chronology
SAA 17 121. To the Vizier: Coming to the review (ABL 0640)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 17(Beginning destroyed) (1) May our lord [quickly] write [us] that he is in go[od health and] hap[py]! (5) I and Aqar-Bel-lumur are now coming to the review. (9) (As to) the silver sword, of which I talked with my lord and my lord told me: "It will be made" — may my lord make a [beauti]ful silver sword and keep it for me.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 17 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
⸢šu-lum⸣ [ù] / ṭu-ub [ŠÀ-bi] / šá be-lí-i-ni [ḫa-an-ṭiš] / liš-pu-ra-an-[na-a-šú] / a-du-ú a-na-⸢ku⸣ / u mKAL*—dEN—lu-mur / a-na ma-šar-ti / ni-il-la-ka / ⸢GÍR⸣ KUG.UD šá a-na be-lí-ía / ⸢aq⸣-bu-ú u be-lí / ⸢iq⸣-ba-a um-⸢ma⸣ / ⸢ip*⸣-pu-šú GÍR KUG.UD / [bab-ba]-⸢nu⸣-ú be-lí / li-pu-uš-ma / li-ik-la-a
Scholarly note
Babylonian-language letter to Sargon II or Sennacherib, edited by Manfried Dietrich (SAA 17, 2003). ORACC text P238718.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P238718). 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/P238718/.
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.