Position in chronology
SAA 15 223. The King Resident in Babylonia (ABL 0315)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Šarru-emuranni. Good health to the king, my lord! The fort is well. (5) Concerning the horses about which the king, my lord, wrote to me: "They should go to Qudanati" — I have equipped ten lone horses and sent a cohort commander with them. There are many Babylonians and Borsippans who pass there; should they take hold of them? As the king, my lord, commands. (r 1) As to the rec[ruitment officers] about whom the king, my lord, wr[ote to me]: "Why have they left their w[ork] and r[un away]?" — they have certainly not run a[way]. When the king, my lord, set out, the [...s] received them and re[lea]sed them. (r 9) Now that the king my lord is staying overnight here, they will come and comp[lete] (their work).
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/P334203/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-ía / ARAD-ka mLUGAL—IGI.LAL-an-ni / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ía / DI-mu a-na URU.ḪAL.ṢU / ina UGU ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ / ša LUGAL be-lí iš-pur-ni / ma-a ina URU.qu-da-na*-ti / lil-li-ku 10 ANŠE.e-da-nu-ti / ú-sa-aṣ-bit / LÚv.GAL—ki-ṣir i-si-šú-nu / a-sap-ra ma-ʾa-⸢da*⸣ / LÚv.DUMU—KÁ.DINGIR.KI / lu-u LÚv.DUMU—BÁR.SIPA.KI / ša ina ŠÀ-bi e-ti-qu-[ni] / li-iṣ-bat-u-né-e [o] / a-ki 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 P334203.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334203). 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/P334203/.
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.