Position in chronology
SAA 15 033. News of Borsippa, Sippar, Elam and the Son of Yakin (ABL 1003)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 15(Beginning destroyed) (1) ["...] ..., tell [... to Eṭiru] and Iddin-ahhe [...]! And if [he comes] to Sippar, [let] Eṭiru and Iddin-[ahhe tell it to him. ......] the (good) name of Sippar, he will become afraid, get up, [...], go away, [and ...] there. [Guard] this word like [...]!" — (9) I did neither fetch him up here nor did I tel[l him (to come)]. They brought him to me, and I [and NN s]poke [with him] in accordance with the k[ing]'s words: (12) "(Any)one who [......] may live [in] one of my villages; (14) ["...] within these [...] (15) "[...] It is the king's word [...] (16) ["...] Re[ap]…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 15 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
ša [x x] ⸢x⸣ na [x x x x me-ṭè-ru] / ⸢ù⸣ o* m*SUM—PAB-MEŠ ⸢qi⸣-[bi x x x x] / ù šúm-ma ina UD.KIB.NUN.[KI il-la-ka] / me-ṭè-ru ù mSUM—[PAB-MEŠ liq-bu-niš-šú] / ma-a šu-mu ša UD.KIB.NUN.⸢KI⸣ [x x x x] / i-pal-làḫ i-ta-ab-⸢bi⸣ [x x x x x] / ma-a il-lak ina ŠÀ-bi ⸢x⸣+[x x x x x] / ma a-bu-tú an-ni-tú ki-i [x x x] / la ú-še-li-a la a-qa-⸢ba⸣-[áš-šú?] / ina UGU-ia na-ṣu-niš-šú a-⸢na⸣-[ku mx x x] / ina…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Babylonia and the eastern provinces under Sargon II, edited by Andreas Fuchs & Simo Parpola (SAA 15, 2001). ORACC text P334671.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334671). source
Translation excerpted from Fuchs, A. & Parpola, S. 2001. The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part III: Letters from Babylonia and the Eastern Provinces. SAA 15. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa15/P334671/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
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.