Position in chronology
SAA 01 107. How Do You Feed Your Horses? (ABL 0097)
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 what the king, my lord, wrote to me: "Suppose you are staying at home, how do you feed (your horses)?" (9) Half of my horses are fed in the Barhalza province, the other half eat at the [... of the ci]ty of Issete in the domestic quarters of [...]; my cavalry [and ... are sta]tioned in the tax-collection center of the province of [...]. Their [...... (Rest destroyed)
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/P334046/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-ia / ARAD-ka mDÙG.GA—ṣil—É.[ŠÁR.RA] / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-[ia] / aš-šur dNIN.LÍL a-na LUGAL / EN-ia lik-ru-bu / ša LUGAL EN ⸢iš⸣-pur-an-ni / ma-a i—su-ri* ina É-ka-ma / kam-mu-sa-ka ma-a mì-nu tú-šá-kal / meš-li ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ-⸢ia*⸣ / ina KUR.bar-ḫal-⸢zi* e*-ku*⸣-lu* / meš-lu-ma ⸢ina⸣ [x x x] ⸢URU⸣.01-te / [ina] É—02-⸢i⸣ [x x x] e-ku-lu / ⸢ANŠE⸣.BAD-ḪAL-⸢li⸣ [x x]-MEŠ-ni / [ina]…
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 P334046.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334046). 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/P334046/.
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.