Position in chronology
SAA 13 062. The Key is Lost (ABL 0115)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(1) To the king, my lord: your servant, Urdu-Nabû. Good health to the king, my lord. May Aššur, Sin, Šamaš, Marduk, Zarpanitu, Nabû, Tašmetu, Ištar of Nineveh, and Ištar of Arbela — these great gods who love your kingship — allow the king, my lord, to live 100 years. May they grant the king, my lord, the satisfaction of old age, extreme old age. (14) On the 29th of [...], an apprentice of Adad-[...] lost the key to the lock of the temple of [...] and the temple of [...] in the tem[ple of ...]. (r 2) It is being rumor[ed that ...]. (r 4) Let the king, [my] l[ord ......]. (r 5) [Could we possibly] act [without] the king, [my lord]? We will act (only) when the king, my lord, says so.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 13 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / ARAD-ka mARAD—dPA / lu-u šul-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ia / aš-šur d30 dUTU dAMAR.UTU / dzar-pa-ni-tum dAG / dtaš-me-tum d15 ša URU.NINA / d15 ša URU.arba-ìl / DINGIR-MEŠ an-nu-u-te GAL-MEŠ / ra-i-mu-te šar-ru-ti-ka / 01 me MU.AN.NA-MEŠ a-na LUGAL EN-ía / lu-bal-li-ṭu ši-bu-tú lit-tu-tu / a-na LUGAL be-li-[ia] / lu-šab-bi-ʾu-[ú] / up-pu ša si-[ku-ri] / ša É—d[x x] / ⸢ša⸣ É—d[x x] /…
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 P334063.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Steven W Cole, Peter Machinist, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Priests to Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (State Archives of Assyria, 13), 1998. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko and Silvie Zamazalová, 2011-13, as part of the AHRC-funded research project “Mechanisms of Communication in an Ancient Empire: The Correspondence between the King of Assyria and his Magnates in the 8th Century BC” (AH/F016581/1; University College London) directed by Karen Radner. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P334063/..
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/P334063/.
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