Position in chronology
SAA 15 074. A Man Sells his Daughter to Karalla (CT 53 027)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (2) [...... T]his [man] had so[ld his] daug[hters for money i]n Karalla. (Later) he put [...] salt in a bag and put his seal in it, went off, and sent it to his daughter(s), saying: "Run away and come to me!" (7) An Itu'ean whom I had appointed as a ... in the fort, and who returned this salt, said it to a bodyguard, and the bodyguard wrote (about it) to the king, my lord. (r 1) As to what the king, my lord, wr[o]te to me, no Karalleans remained (here so) I (could) not ask them, nor are there corn rations, wine, ... (or) kudimmu (salt) that they would be giving them. (r…
Source: 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/P313442/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x x x x x x x x x x]-ni / ⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x x x x an]-⸢ni⸣-ú / DUMU.[MÍ-MEŠ-šú x x ŠÀ]-bi KUR.kar-la / i-⸢ti⸣-[din x x x]+⸢x⸣ MUN ina ŠÀ-bi KUŠ.A.⸢GÁ⸣.LAL / NA₄.KIŠIB-šú ina ŠÀ-bi ik-ta-ra-ár it-⸢ta?-lak?⸣ / šu-ú a-na DUMU.MÍ-šu ú-se-bi-il ma-a / ḫi-il-qa-a-ni al-ka-ni LÚv.i-tu-ʾa-a.a / ša a-na GIŠ.⸢TAB⸣.BA ina URU.ḪAL.ṢU ap-⸢qi-du⸣-u-ni / MUN an-ni-tu ú-sa-ḫi-ru-u-ni / a-na LÚv.qur-bu-te…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Babylonia and the eastern provinces under Sargon II, edited by Andreas Fuchs & Simo Parpola (SAA 15, 2001). ORACC text P313442.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P313442). 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/P313442/.
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.