Position in chronology
SAA 01 023. Catching Runaway Servants (CT 53 185)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (2) [...]-naṣir is dead; the [...] of the city of ... have fled [...] and are (now) [li]ving at Balṭi-iqbi's. (7) Let them make it [...] perfectly clear to Balṭi-iqbi that he should immediately bring forth the [slave]s, give them to his son, and come straight away to me! (SPACER)
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/P313600/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x x] ⸢mi⸣ [x x] / [mdx]—⸢PAB-ir⸣ mi-e-te / [x x]+⸢x⸣-MEŠ ⸢ša⸣ URU.⸢sik?⸣-ris / [x x]-šú-[nu] iḫ-ta-⸢la⸣-qu / [ina pa]-an [m]⸢bal⸣-ṭi—iq-bi / [kam]-⸢mu⸣-su / [x x]-⸢na⸣-ni bir-te / [IGI.2-MEŠ] ⸢ša⸣ mbal-ṭi—iq-bi / [lu]-⸢ma⸣-di-du / [x]-⸢MEŠ⸣ ár-ḫiš / [lu]-še-ṣi-a / [a]-na DUMU-šú lid-din / [le]-ti-qa li-li-ka
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 P313600.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P313600). 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/P313600/.
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.