SAA 01 149. Governor of Arbela Holding Back the King’s Men (CT 53 108)

~715 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P313523

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 1

High confidence

(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Aššur-šarru-ibni. Good health to the king, [my lord]! (4) The governor of Arbela has [120] king's men who did not go to the campaign with the king but he will not agree to give them to me. I fear the king, my lord, and shall not take hold of his men (without his permission). (r 1) 30 (men from) Tillê, 60 (from) the land of Hamudu of the governor of Calah, 30 from the city of [...]ba. They have neither rations nor work.

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-ía / ARAD-ka maš-šur—MAN—DÙ / lu DI-mu a-na ⸢LUGAL⸣ [EN-ía] / [01 me 20] ⸢LÚv⸣.ERIM-MEŠ—⸢LUGAL⸣ / ⸢ša*⸣ a*-na* KASKAL TAv LUGAL / la i-li-ku-ni / ina IGI LÚv.EN.NAM ša URU.arba-ìl / le-ma-gúr-ru / la i-da-na / TAv IGI LUGAL pa-làḫ-ku / LÚv.ERIM-MEŠ-šú la ú-ṣa-bat / 30 URU.til-e / 60 KUR.ḫa-mu-⸢du*⸣ / ša LÚv.EN.NAM ša URU.kal-ḫa / 30 URU.[x]-ba / la ŠE*.⸢PAD?-MEŠ⸣-šú-nu / la dul-la-šú-nu

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 P313523.

Attribution

Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P313523). 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/P313523/.

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~2050 BCE

Drehem Cattle-Distribution Tablet

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.

~1340 BCE

Amarna Letter EA 153 — Abi-milku of Tyre

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.