Position in chronology
SAA 05 113. All Quiet on the Northern Front (ABL 0123)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Gabbu-ana-Aššur. (3) As to the orders that the king, my lord, gave me concerning the watch of the Urarṭian, ever since I entered Kurbail my messengers have been going back and forth to Nabû-le'i, Aššur-belu-uda''an and Aššur-reṣuwa. (14) We have not [gotten] a whiff of anybody or anything. Everybody is doing h[is] work, there is no hostility at all. (r 1) We keep hearing as follows: "The Urarṭian has not come out of Ṭurušpâ." Nevertheless, [w]e are ke[eping] the watch about which the k[ing, my lord,] ga[ve] me orders — we are not negligent. (r 10) I arrived in Kurbail on the 16th day of Tammuz (IV), and am sending (this) letter to the king, my lord, on the 20th of Ab (V).
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/P334071/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-ia / ARAD-ka mgab-bu—ana—aš-šur / ina UGU ṭè-e-me / ša LUGAL EN iš-ku-na-ni-ni / ina UGU ma-ṣar-ti / ša KUR.ú-ra-ar-ṭa-a.a / TAv É ina URU.kur-ba-ìl / e-ru-bu-u-ni / LÚv.DUMU—šip-ra-ni-ia / ina UGU mdPA—ZU / ina UGU maš-šur—EN—KALAG-an / ina UGU maš-šur—re-ṣu-⸢u-a⸣ / il-lu-ku il-la-ku-u-ni / ši-⸢ir*⸣—šu-me-e / ša ⸢LÚ*⸣ ša* ⸢me*⸣-me-ni / la né-[ṣi-in] ⸢ia⸣-mu-ut-tum / dul-lu-⸢šu*⸣…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P334071.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334071). source
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/P334071/.
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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.