Position in chronology
SAA 01 031. More on the Cimmerian Defeat (ABL 0197)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 1(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Sin-ahhe-riba. Good health to the king, my lord! Assyria is well, the temples are well, all the king's forts are well. The king, my lord, can be glad indeed. (8) The Ukkaean has sent me (this message): "The troops of the Urarṭian king have been utterly defeated on his expedition against the Cimmerians; eleven of his governors have been eliminated [with] their troops; his commander-in-chief and two of his governors [have been taken prisoners]. He (himself) came to take [the road to ......] came [...... the pr]efects of his country [......] stationed [in…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 1 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / ARAD-ka md30—PAB-MEŠ—SU / lu šul-mu a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / šul-mu a-na KUR—aš-šur.KI / šul-mu a-na É.KUR-MEŠ-te / šul-mu a-na URU.bi-rat ša LUGAL gab-bu / ŠÀ-bu ša LUGAL EN-ia a—dan-niš lu DÙG.GA / KUR.uk-ka-a.a ina UGU-ḫi-ia is-sa-par / ma-a LUGAL KUR.URI-a.a a-na KUR.ga-mir / bé-et il-lik-ú-ni ma-a LÚv.e-mu-qi-šú / a-na ma-la de-e-ka ma-a 11* LÚv.EN.NAM-MEŠ-šú / [TAv]…
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 P334142.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334142). 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/P334142/.
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
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.