SAA 01 260. Barley for Captives (CT 53 096+)

~715 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P313511

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 1

High confidence

(Beginning destroyed or too broken for translation) (r 2) Now Bel-i[qbi] (is telling me): "Bring me the barley I gave to your [...] and let me give it to the king's captives!" (r 8) Has the king my lord sent a messenger, and [has he s]een their houses and silos? They have weakened me, and no matter what is told them, they refuse to listen to me. (r 18) Aššur-ašared, a bea[rded] (courtier) [...] in the city of Ni[......]. (Break) (e. 1) [The container]s of water [......] have been finished [.....]

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]-⸢e⸣ / [x x x x x x] tú / [x x x x x]-⸢ú⸣-ni / [x x x x LÚv].⸢EN⸣.NAM / [x x x x x]-MEŠ / [x x x x na]-⸢a⸣-ṣa / [x x x x]-⸢ta⸣ a-di / [x x x x x]-i-ni / [x x x x x] ⸢a⸣-nu-rig / [md]EN—⸢iq?⸣-[bi ma]-⸢a⸣ ŠE.PAD-MEŠ / ⸢ša⸣ ina UGU [x x]-⸢ka*⸣ / a-di-nu-u-ni / bi-la a-na ḫu-ub-te / ša LUGAL la-di-i-ni / LUGAL be-li LÚv.DUMU—šip-ri / iš-pur-ra / bé-ta-a-ti-šú-nu / pa-da-ka-a-ti-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 P313511.

Attribution

Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P313511). 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/P313511/.

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet (VAT 15211)

An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.

~2050 BCE

Umma Livestock and Personnel Account (AnOr 1, 243)

A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.

~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.