Position in chronology
SAA 05 188. Fragment Referring to Zikirtu (CT 53 272)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (3) [...] re[quested a fi]eld [...] (4) [He did not g]ive him [...] (5) [... ab]out Zik[irtu], (6) [gav]e him [...] and sen[t him to me]. (7) [...] m[y] messenger [...] (8) I asked h[im about the Urarṭ]ian, and he informed me [as follows]: (Rest destroyed)
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/P313687/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x x x x] ⸢x⸣ [x x] / [x x x x x x] li ⸢x⸣+[x x] / [x x x x x A].ŠÀ e-[te-riš] / [x x x la i]-⸢di⸣-na-áš-šu / [x x x x] ⸢UGU⸣ KUR.zi-⸢gír⸣-[te] / [x x i-ta]-⸢na⸣-áš-šu i-sa-pa-[ra-šu] / [x x x x] LÚv.A—KIN-⸢ia⸣ [x x] / [ina UGU KUR.URI]-a.a a-sa-al-⸢šú⸣ / [ki-i an-ni-e?] ⸢iq⸣-ṭí-bi-a ma-a ⸢x⸣+[x x]
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P313687.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P313687). 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/P313687/.
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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.