SAA 01 187. Tributaries on the Way to the Palace (CT 53 907)

~715 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P314316

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 1

High confidence

(Beginning destroyed) (5) [x eld]ers accompanied by [x] mul[es], [x do]nkeys and [PN], the son of the (royal) delegate; (Break with traces of numbers and personal names) (r 1) Five [...] 30 [...... have set out] from Til-Barsip on [the ...th of Nisan], crossed the river and left for [the Palace] to greet (the king).

State Archives of Assyria, volume 1 — scholar edition (ORACC).

Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.

Transliteration

[x x x]+⸢x x⸣+[x x x x] / [x x] LÚv.AB.[BA-MEŠ] / [x x] ANŠE.ku-[din-MEŠ] / [x x] ⸢ANŠE⸣.NÍTA-[MEŠ] / m⸢x x x⸣ DUMU LÚv.⸢qe⸣-[e-pi] / i-si-[šú-nu] / ⸢01⸣ [...] 03 ⸢LÚv⸣.[x x] / 04 [...] ⸢x⸣ [x x] / m[...] ⸢x⸣ im [x x] / m[...] / m[...] ⸢sar⸣ [x] / m[...] / m[...] ⸢x⸣ [x x] / m[...] ⸢x⸣ [x x] / m[x x x] ⸢EN⸣—[x]-an-ni / m[x x x x]+⸢x⸣ LÚv.GAL—[x] / m[...] / 05 ⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x x] / 30 ⸢x⸣+[x x x x…

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 P314316.

Attribution

Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P314316). 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/P314316/.

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.