Position in chronology
SAA 05 233. The King Gets an Old Boat (ABL 0802)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Šamaš-belu-uṣur. Good health to the king, my lord! (4) The king, my lord, knows that we transport fodder from here to Ampihabi. There is an old boat we use for shipping straw, fodder and all sorts of things [......] (Break) (r 1) If [it is all right], she may go with the king, m[y] lord.
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/P334564/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-ia / ARAD-ka mdUTU—EN—PAB / lu-u DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ia / LUGAL be-lí ú*-da* / ŠE.ki-su-tú TAv na-ak / a-na KUR.am!-pi-ḫa-a-bi ni-za-bi-lu-ni / GIŠ.MÁ ši-i la-bir-tú / ša ti-ib-nu ŠE.ki-su-tú! / mì-i-nu ša i-ba-šu-u-ni / ina ŠÀ-bi nu-še-ba-lu-u-ni / i-⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x] / šúm-⸢ma⸣ [ta-ri-iṣ] / TAv LUGAL EN-⸢ia⸣ [o] / lu-u ta-li-ki
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P334564.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334564). 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/P334564/.
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.