Position in chronology
Cuneiform tablets, letter from Hammurabi
Not yet translated
This tablet is catalogued and photographed, but no English translation is stored in this record yet. Our translation engine works through the untranslated corpus every night, oldest first — this page will update the day its turn comes. If you are a specialist and can read it, we would love your help.
The world it comes from
Hammurabi, the Epic of Gilgamesh, mathematics.
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Tablet listing the kings of Babylon; Foundation tablet; letter from Hammurabi, lapis lazuli cylinder
Attribution
Image: Unknown artist Unknown artist — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform tablets, letter from Hammurabi.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_tablets%2C_letter_from_Hammurabi.jpg. Description: Tablet listing the kings of Babylon; Foundation tablet; letter from Hammurabi, lapis lazuli cylinder.
Related tablets
Related sources
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.
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.