Position in chronology
SAA 01 001. Midas Of Phrygia Seeks Detente (NL 039)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) The king's word to Aššur-šarru-u[ṣur]: I am well, Assyria is well: you can be glad. (3) As to what you wrote to me: "A messenger [of] Midas the Phrygian has come to me, bringing me 14 men of Que whom Urik had sent to Urarṭu as an embassy" — this is extremely good! My gods Aššur, Šamaš, Bel and Nabû have now taken action, and without a battle [or any]thing, the Phrygian has given us his word and become our ally! (10) As to what you wrote: "I shall not send my messenger to the Phrygian without the permission of the king, my lord" — I am now writing to (tell) you that you should not cut off…
Source: Parpola, S. 1987. The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I: Letters from Assyria and the West. SAA 1. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa01/P224485/
Why it matters
Transliteration
⸢a⸣-bat LUGAL a-na maš-šur*—MAN—⸢PAB šul⸣-mu ia-⸢a⸣-ši / ⸢šul⸣-mu a-na KUR—aš-šur.KI ⸢ŠÀ⸣-[ka] ⸢lu⸣ DÙG.GA-ka / ⸢ša⸣ taš-pur-an-ni ma-a LÚv.A—šip-⸢ri⸣ [ša] mme-ta-a / KUR.mus-ka-a.a ina UGU-ḫi-ia it-⸢tal⸣-ka ma-a 14 ERIM-MEŠ / KUR.qu-u-a.⸢a ša⸣ m⸢ú-ri⸣-ik a-na LÚv.šap-ru-te / a-na KUR.URI ú-še-bi-lu-u-ni ma-a ina UGU-ḫi-ia na-ṣa / ta-ri-iṣ a—dan-niš an-nu-rig aš-šur dšá*-maš* EN / dAG…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence under Sargon II, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 1, 1987). Letter from a governor or high official to the king of Assyria. ORACC text P224485.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Simo Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I: Letters from Assyria and the West (State Archives of Assyria, 1), 1987. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2009-11, as part of the AHRC-funded research project “Mechanisms of Communication in an Ancient Empire: The Correspondence between the King of Assyria and his Magnates in the 8th Century BC” (AH/F016581/1; University College London) directed by Karen Radner. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P224485/..
Translation excerpted from Parpola, S. 1987. The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I: Letters from Assyria and the West. SAA 1. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa01/P224485/.
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.