Position in chronology
SAA 01 089. The Canal Inspector in Assur (ABL 0562)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [To the king, my] lord: Your servant [Ṭab-ṣill-Ešarra]. Good health [to the king, my lord!] May Aššur and Mullissu bless the [king], my lord! (6) As to Bel-ha[...], the canal inspector of whom the king, my lord, wr[ote to me], (9) he arrived in the Inner City on the [eve] of the 4th, brought out his ... and left for the [king, my lord].
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/P334384/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[a-na LUGAL] EN-[ia] / ARAD-ka m[DÙG.GA—ṣil—É.ŠÁR.RA] / lu DI-[mu a-na LUGAL EN-ia] / aš-šur d⸢NIN.LÍL⸣ a-na [LUGAL] / EN-ia lik-ru-[bu] / ina UGU mEN—ḫa-[x x] / LÚv.GÚ.⸢GAL⸣ / ša LUGAL EN iš-[pur-an-ni] / UD 04-KÁM ina [x x] / ina URU.ŠÀ—URU / iq-ṭar-⸢ba⸣ / qar-ba-te-⸢šu⸣ / ú-se-ṣi-a / ina pa-an [LUGAL] / i-ta-[lak]
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 P334384.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334384). 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/P334384/.
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.