SAA 17 177. Contacting the Vizier (CT 54 186)

~710 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P238660

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 17

High confidence

(Beginning destroyed) (3) [...] ... [to/with/against] us (4) [... agai]nst the Assyrian(s) (5) [...] he hears. Concerning [...] (6) [... the ...]s of Marduk-šarru-uṣur [...] (7) [...] he sent (word) and took away [...] (8) [...] ... the land Irreja (9) [... who] were brought to me, whose names I wrote down and (whom) I sent to [the vizier], my lord, (r 1) [...] they are [...], and he is held before him. (r 2) [(I swear) by the gods] of the vizier, my lord, that before [...] brought peace to me, for three years [...] I was mute and [did not write] to the king, my lord. [Now] I have [written]…

State Archives of Assyria, volume 17 — 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 x x x]+⸢x⸣ / [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ / [x x x x x x] ⸢x x x⸣ [x x x x]-ḫi-ni / [x x x x x a]-na UGU LÚ.aš-⸢šur⸣.[KI-MEŠ x x x] / [x x x x x x x x x x i]-šem-me áš-šú ⸢x⸣+[x x x] / [x x x x x x x]-MEŠ šá mdAMAR.UTU—MAN—ŠEŠ ⸢x⸣+[x x] / [x x x x x x x x x] ⸢iš⸣-pu-ram-ma i-bu-ku ⸢x⸣ e [x x] / [x x x x x x x x x x x x]+⸢x x x x⸣-us-sa KUR.i-ri-ʾa / [x x x x x…

Scholarly note

Babylonian-language letter to Sargon II or Sennacherib, edited by Manfried Dietrich (SAA 17, 2003). ORACC text P238660.

Attribution

Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P238660). 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/P238660/.

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.