Position in chronology
SAA 13 085. Report of Arrival of Horses: Iyyar 7 (CT 53 011)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Nabû-šumu-iddina. The very best of health to the king, my lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord! (8) 8 horses trained to the yoke, (9) 15 cavalry mounts: (10) 23 [horses] in all; (11) 3 m[ules] from [...], (13) 3 ...-mu[les]: (r 2) 6 mule[s] in all — (r 3) a total of 29 horses and mule[s] have come in today from Manṣuate. (Blank space of two lines) (r 7) Month of Iyyar (II), 7th day.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 13 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / ARAD-ka mdPA—MU—AŠ / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL / be-lí-ia a—dan-niš a—dan-niš / dPA dAMAR.UTU / a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / lik-ru-bu / 08 KUR-MEŠ ša ni-i-ri / 15 KUR-MEŠ BAD-ḪAL / PAB 23 [KUR-MEŠ] / 03 ⸢ANŠE⸣.[ku-din-MEŠ] / ša [x x x x] / 03 ANŠE.⸢ku⸣-[din-MEŠ] / šul-la-[me] / PAB 06 ANŠE.ku-⸢din⸣-[MEŠ] / PAB 29 KUR-MEŠ ku-din-[MEŠ] / ša URU.man-ṣu-a-te / ⸢UD-mu⸣ an-ni-ú / e-tar-bu-u-⸢ni⸣ / ITI.GUD UD 07-KÁM
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 P313426.
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/P313426/..
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/P313426/.
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.