SAA 05 293. Finishing the ‘Winged Hoof’ (ABL 0271)

~715 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P334189

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 5

High confidence

(1) To the king, [my] lord: your servant Nabû-ušabši, (and) Iglî. Good health to the king, my lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord! (7) As to the winged hoof about which the king, my lord, wrote me: "Why is it not finished?" — (10) had it been at the disposal of the Assyrians, we would have retrieved it from them and quick[ly fin]ished it! (r 3) [...] the Babylonians [... have been re]trieving it (Break) (e. 1) I shall bring it to the king, my lord.

State Archives of Assyria, volume 5 — scholar edition (ORACC).

Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.

Transliteration

a-na LUGAL be-lí-[ía] / ARAD-ka mdPA—GÁL-ši / mig-li-i / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ía / dAG dAMAR.UTU a-na LUGAL EN-ía / lik-ru-bu / ina UGU ṣu-pur a-kap-pi / ša LUGAL EN iš-pur-an-ni / ma-a a-ta-a la ga-mì-ri / lu ina IGI LÚv.aš-šur-a.a šu-u-tú / ni-iš-luḫ-šu-nu / ár-⸢ḫiš⸣ [ni]-⸢ig⸣-mu-ru / ⸢x⸣+[x x x] DUMU-MEŠ—KÁ*.DINGIR / ⸢x⸣+[x x]-⸢luḫ⸣-u-ni / ud [x x x]+⸢x⸣-ni / nin [x x x] pi [x] / la [x x x x x x] / a [x x x x x x x] / ina UGU LUGAL be-lí-ía ú-bal-ši

Scholarly note

Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P334189.

Attribution

Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334189). 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/P334189/.

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.

~2050 BCE

Drehem Cattle-Distribution Tablet

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.

~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.