Position in chronology
SAA 05 074. Mule Express not Available (NL 062)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Mahdê. Good health to the king, my lord! (4) (As to) the mule express that we provide and the royal bodyguard who com[es] citing a royal order that he should go as far as Šabirešu — he has used up the [...] in my possession! (6) The king, my lord, knows that I do not main[tain] a team (to go) as far as Šabirešu; the ones that go do not return. My teams are used up; the king, my lord, should know (this). (r 2) We let the teams from Calah go by; my chariot, my team and [my] [dri]ver went (with) Nabû'a the bodyguard as far as Šabirešu, and those of Šabirešu le[t them go] by. (r 6) Let the king, my lord, inve[stigate]; let him send word that I come, and I shall come on foot! I have no chariot, no team, no driver!
Source: Lanfranchi, G.B. & Parpola, S. 1990. The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II: Letters from the Northern and Northeastern Provinces. SAA 5. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa05/P224392/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / ARAD-ka mmaḫ-de-e / lu-u DI-mu a-na MAN EN-ia / kal-li-ú ša ni-⸢da⸣-nu-ni / LÚv.⸢qur-bu⸣-ti ša il-lak-[an]-⸢ni⸣ / ma-a [a]-bat MAN ši-i-ti / ma-a a-di URU.šá-bi-ri-šú / lil-lik ⸢ANŠE?⸣ ša ina <IGI>-ia / ⸢ug-da⸣-me-⸢ra⸣ LUGAL be-lí / ú-da a-di URU.šá-bi-ri-šú / ú-ru-u la ú-⸢kal⸣-[la] / ša il-⸢lak⸣-ú-⸢ni⸣ / la i-sa-ḫur-ú-ni / ANŠE.ú-ra-te-ia / ⸢gam⸣-mu-ra / LUGAL be-lí lu ú-da…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P224392.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Giovanni B. Lanfranchi and Simo Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II: Letters from the Northern and Northeastern Provinces (State Archives of Assyria, 5), 1990. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2009-11, as part of the AHRC-funded research project “Mechanisms of Communication in an Ancient Empire: The Correspondence between the King of Assyria and his Magnates in the 8th Century BC” (AH/F016581/1; University College London) directed by Karen Radner. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P224392/..
Translation excerpted from Lanfranchi, G.B. & Parpola, S. 1990. The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II: Letters from the Northern and Northeastern Provinces. SAA 5. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa05/P224392/.
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