Position in chronology
SAA 15 184. Gold for the Statue of Humhum; Deserters from Bit-zeri (ABL 0438)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, [my] lord: your servant Marduk-šarru-[uṣur]. Good health to the king, [my lor]d! (4) Concerning what the king, my lord, wrote to me: "Where are these kakkussu-ornaments placed?" — they are placed upon the mole of the god Šidada, outwards. There are seven of them, and their weight is 5 minas and fifty shekels of gold. One mina and 10 shekels of the gold is for the breast of the god Humhum. A total of 7 minas of gold has been used in the time of the king, my lord, but there is no written record on it. (17) Concerning what the king, my lord, wrote to me: "What objects has…
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/P334302/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-[ía] / ARAD-ka mdAMAR.UTU—⸢MAN*⸣—[PAB] / lu-u DI-mu a-na LUGAL ⸢be⸣-[lí-ía] / ša LUGAL be-lí iš-pur-an-[ni] / ma-a ka-ku-sa-ni an-nu-ti / a-a-ka ša-ka-nu ina UGU / ki-pi-li ša dši-da-da / ša-ka-nu pa-ni-šú-nu / a-na qa-an-ni 07 šu-nu / 05 MA.NA 50 GÍN KUG.GI KI.LAL-šú-nu / 01 MA.NA 10 GÍN KUG.GI / a-na UZU.GABA ša dḪUM.ḪUM / PAB 07 MA.NA KUG.GI ina ŠÀ-bi / UD-mu-MEŠ ša LUGAL…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Babylonia and the eastern provinces under Sargon II, edited by Andreas Fuchs & Simo Parpola (SAA 15, 2001). ORACC text P334302.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334302). 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/P334302/.
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.