Position in chronology
SAA 01 235. The Case of Ilu-pija-uṣur the Cohort Commander (ABL 1432)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Taklak-ana-Bel. Good health to the king, my lord! (4) As to Ilu-pija-uṣur the shepherd about whom the king, my lord, wrote to me: "You have removed him from the office of cohort commander! Why did you tell him to exact a talent of silver?" — (9) indeed I have not removed him, he is (still) a cohort commander! Dugul-pan-ili is with the king my lord; let the king my lord ask him if he is not a cohort commander! (12) When Dugul-pan-ili went to the shearing, that person stole his (sheep) dues; he did not come in to the shearing but fled and took refuge in a…
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/P334903/
Why it matters
Transliteration
⸢a-na⸣ LUGAL EN-ia / ARAD-ka mtak-lak—a-na—EN / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ia / ina UGU mDINGIR—pi*-ia—PAB LÚ.SIPA / ša LUGAL be-lí iš-pur-an-ni / ma-a TAv UGU LÚv.GAL—ki-ṣir-ú-te / tu-up-ta-ti-šu ma-a a-ta-a taq-ba-áš-šu / ma-a 01 GÚ.UN KUG.UD us-ḫa la-áš-šu / la-a ú-pat-ti-šu LÚ.GAL—ki-ṣir šu-ú / mdu-gul—IGI—DINGIR ina IGI LUGAL EN-ía LUGAL be-lí / liš-al-šu šúm-mu la-a LÚ.GAL—ki-ṣir šu-tú-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 P334903.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334903). 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/P334903/.
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.