Position in chronology
SAA 15 118. Elamite Troops Besiege and Take Malaku (ABL 1063)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (2) they came and besieged [Malak]. At [day]break, they let their released troops go to the [...] and towns, and they plundered all the people and oxen. Those who escaped got scared and entered Der. (9) On the 14th of Kislev (IX) I sent cavalrymen to Malak. They come back and told me: (13) "The herald has entered the house of Zera-iddin, gathered the inhabitants of the country (and) the Malakites, and entered them into a temple. They keep watch over them, and have [...ed the ...] of Zera-iddin [...]." (20) [M]y messenger returned from the c[ity ...] on the 14th, and I…
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/P334708/
Why it matters
Transliteration
⸢i*-x⸣ [x x x] na [x x x x] / i-tal-ku-[ú*]-ni URU.[ma-lak] / il-ti-⸢bi⸣-i a-⸢ki⸣ [UD-mu] / im-me-ra-an-ni ina ⸢UGU⸣ [x x] / URU-MEŠ LÚv*.ra-mu-ú-[ti] / ur-ta-mì-i UN-MEŠ GUD-MEŠ ⸢gab⸣-[bu] / iḫ-tab-tu am—mar ú-še-zi-bu-u-ni / ig-du-ru-ú-ni ina* URU.de-ri / e-tar-bu-u-ni UD 14-KAM ITI.KAN / ša—LÚv.BAD-ḪAL-li-a-ti a-na / URU.ma-li-ki* a-sap-par / i-tal-ku-u-ni iq-ṭè-bu-ú-ni / ma-a LÚv.NÍGIR :…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Babylonia and the eastern provinces under Sargon II, edited by Andreas Fuchs & Simo Parpola (SAA 15, 2001). ORACC text P334708.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334708). 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/P334708/.
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.