Position in chronology
SAA 01 094. Ferrying Straw and Fodder at Opis (ABL 0089)
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) A boat of mine which the Treasurer used for carrying money downstream is anchored at Bab-bitqi, and a boat of the governor of Arrapha is doing ferry service at Opis. The king, my lord, knows that we have to bring over straw and fodder from the other bank. (r 1) Now, let the governor of Arrapha's boat go and serve as a ferry at Bab-bitqi, and let mine come so we can use it to bring straw and fodder over at Opis. (r 10) The men of the governor of Arrapha are doing the ferrying at Bab-bitqi.
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/P334038/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-ía / ARAD-ka mDÙG.GA—ṣil—É.ŠÁR.RA / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ía / aš-šur dNIN.LÍL a-na LUGAL EN-ía / lik-ru-bu / GIŠ.MÁ ši-i ia-a-tú / LÚv.IGI.DUB kas-pu ina ŠÀ-bi / ú-se-ri-da / i-na URU.KÁ—bit-qi / ta-za-az-za / ù GIŠ.MÁ ša LÚv.EN.NAM / ša URU.arrap-ḫa ina ŠÀ URU.ú-pi-a / né-bu-ru tú-pa-áš / LUGAL EN ú-da / ki-i ŠE.IN.NU ŠE.ki-su-tú / TA* ba-te am-me-te / nu-še-bar*-[u-ni] /…
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 P334038.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334038). 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/P334038/.
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.