Position in chronology
SAA 01 011. Building a Private Army (ABL 0304)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) The king's word to Mannu-ki-Adad: (2) 1,119 able-bodied men — all together they were 5,000 persons, those of them who have died have died, and those who are alive are alive — were given to the exempts of the Palace and entrusted as charges to your care. So why are you appropriating them, turning some to recruits, others to chariot-men, and others again to cavalrymen, into your own regular troops? (13) Have you not said to yourself: "When the time comes for me to summon them, to whose house shall I go for help?" (18) I am writing to you right now: You have sent many of them to the south and to the north or wherever on (various) errands; summon them wherever they are, they must be there before my eunuch arrives. I shall now send my eunuch to make a review of them.
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/P334193/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-bat LUGAL a-na mman-nu—ki—dIM / 01 lim 01 me 19 LÚv.ERIM-MEŠ KALAG-MEŠ / 05 lim šú-nu ZI-MEŠ ina UGU a-ḫe-iš / am—mar mé-tu-u-ni TAv ŠÀ-bi-šú-nu / mé-e-tu ù am—mar bal-ṭu-u-ni / bal-ṭu a-na LÚv.zu-ku ša É.GAL / ta-ad-nu ki-i pi-qit-ti ina pa-ni-ka / paq-du at-ta a-ta-a ta-na-áš-ši / an-nu-ti a-na LÚv.rak-su-ti / an-nu-ti a-na LÚv.A—SIG-MEŠ / an-nu-ti a-na ANŠE.ša—BAD-ḪAL-la-ti / a-na ki-iṣ-ri…
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 P334193.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334193). source
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/P334193/.
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