Position in chronology
SAA 05 298. Moving Bull Colossi Across the River (ABL 1362)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 5(Beginning destroyed) (4) As to the of[ficials] in Adi[a] and in Tas[tiate concerning whom] the king, my lord, wro[te me]: "All of them should go t[o Dur-Šarruken]!" — (9) the bu[ll colossi] of the magnates are set up to[gether] and the king, my lord, [(earlier) said]: "They should quickly ... the colossi and as long as the water in the river is [low, bring them across] the river!" (14) Who [...] would (then) stay (here) to look after the [bull colossi]? (r 1) N[ow], the magnates are waiting for [me]. May the king, my lord, wait for me (until) Siv[an] (III), and I will (then) get the work…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 5 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
⸢x x⸣+[x x x x x x x] / ⸢x x⸣+[x x x x x x x] / ⸢x⸣+[x] a-na [x x x x x] / UGU LÚ.⸢EN⸣—[pi-qit-ta-ti] / ša ŠÀ URU.a-di-[a] / URU.ta-as-[ti-a-te ša] / LUGAL be-lí iš-[pur-an-ni] / ma-a gab-bi-šú-nu ⸢a*⸣-[na URU.BÀD—MAN—GIN] / lil-li-ku d⸢ALAD⸣.[dLAMA-MEŠ] / ša LÚ.GAL-MEŠ ki-⸢i⸣ [a-ḫa?-iš] / zaq-pu LUGAL be-lí [iq-ṭi-bi] / ma-a dALAD.dLAMA-[MEŠ] / ar-ḫi-iš li-ik-ba*-[su-ni] / a-du A-MEŠ ina ÍD…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P334865.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334865). 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/P334865/.
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.
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.