Position in chronology
SAA 21 089. (no title) (CT 54 455)
Translation · reference
High confidence(almost entirely destroyed) (rest (5 lines) destroyed) (beginning broken away) (r 1') [......] when [...] (r 2') [s]ent [by the hand of] Zakiru son of I[bâ]: "May the king [with] the governors come [into your presence]," [yo]u wrote to me: "Come!" (r 8') Do[n’t] you know that an inauspicious [omen] and [one that is not t]o the benefit [...] Rest destroyed
Source: Parpola, S. 2018. The Correspondence of Assurbanipal, Part I: Letters from Assyria, Central Babylonia, and Vassal States. SAA 21. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa21/P236935/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x x x x x] ⸢x⸣ / [x x x x x x x x]-pi / [x x] ⸢x x⸣ ki-i ⸢x⸣ [x] / [ŠU.2?] mza-ki-ri DUMU i-[ba-a] / [iš]-pu-ra um-ma LUGAL [0] / [KI] LÚ.NAM-MEŠ um-ma [0] / [ina IGI]-ka lil-li-⸢ka⸣ / [at]-⸢ta⸣ taš-pu-ra [0] / [um]-⸢ma⸣ al-ka at-ta / [ul] ⸢ti⸣-de-e ki-i / [Á?] ⸢la⸣ ba-ni-ti ù / [šá a]-⸢na⸣ du-un-qí / [x x] ⸢x x x x x x⸣
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence under Assurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 21, 2018). ORACC text P236935.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P236935). source
Translation excerpted from Parpola, S. 2018. The Correspondence of Assurbanipal, Part I: Letters from Assyria, Central Babylonia, and Vassal States. SAA 21. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa21/P236935/.
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.