Position in chronology
SAA 13 019. Recalcitrant Assyrian Shepherds (ABL 0726)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [To the ki]ng, [my] lord: your servant, Dadî. [Go]od health to the king, [my] lord. May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord. (6) From the beginning of the month until now the shepherd responsible for the cultic meals has refused to go for his tax collection. I myself am buying sheep from the market (lit. 'The city gate') and fattening them. (12) The shepherd who serves in the house of the [harus]pices also did [not] come [for the tax collection. ...he has not t]aken the sheep [...], therefore I [cannot] give them. (r 2) (If) these people, who are Assyr[ians], refuse to fear the…
Source: Cole, S.W. & Machinist, P. 1998. Letters from Priests to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. SAA 13. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa13/P334515/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-[na] LUGAL EN-[ia] / ARAD-ka mda-di-[i] / [lu] DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-[ia] / [d]PA dMES a-na LUGAL / ⸢EN⸣-ia lik-ru-bu / ⸢TAv⸣ SAG.DU ITI a-du a-kan-ni / ⸢LÚv⸣.SIPA nap-ti-ni a-na / ⸢pi⸣-ri-šú la-a i-ma-gúr / ⸢la⸣ i-la-ak a-na-ku / UDU-MEŠ TAv ŠÀ-bi KÁ.GAL / a-la-qi ú-šá-kal / LÚv.SIPA ša ina É DUMU-MEŠ / [ḪAL]-MEŠ-ni i-za-zu-u-ni / [a-na pi-ri la] i-li-ka-ma / [x x x x]-ma UDU-MEŠ / [x x la]…
Scholarly note
Letter from a temple priest or ritual official to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Steven Cole & Peter Machinist (SAA 13, 1998). ORACC text P334515.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334515). source
Translation excerpted from Cole, S.W. & Machinist, P. 1998. Letters from Priests to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. SAA 13. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa13/P334515/.
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.
The single most important literary discovery of the 19th century. It rewired the understanding of the Bible's literary context and proved that the Mesopotamian flood tradition is older. It is the oldest surviving epic poetry in human history.
The literary tradition is no longer anonymous from this point. Authorship — the idea that a specific human voice composes a specific work — enters the historical record with her.