Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 13 134. Letter of Complaint about Pulu (ABL 0951)

~665 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P334641

Translation · reference

High confidence
(Beginning destroyed or not translatable) (4) The matter which [he ...] will not pl[ease] the king. (5) Now Pulu, the lamentation priest, has been acting arbitrarily in the temple of Nabû. Without the permission of the king, he tore out doorposts, fastened others, and cut down the ... in the Akitu house of N[abû] and the Akitu house of Tašmetu. As for the golden table of [Mar]duk, which Sargon had made, he assigned a goldsmith to it. He removed the old work and replaced it with new. (12) Furthermore, the dragons upon which Nabû stands, and the socle between them — he has made a sketch out of…

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/P334641/

Why it matters

Transliteration

LUGAL [x x x x x x x] pa is [x x x x]-tú? / ina ŠÀ-⸢bi⸣ [x x x x x x] ù [x x x x]-⸢pa⸣-tum / is-si-⸢ḫir⸣ [x x x x x x] ma ad [x x x x x] / a-bu-tu* ša ⸢x x⸣-la?-ni a-na LUGAL la ⸢ṭa*⸣-[ba-at] / ú-ma-a mpu-ú-lu LÚ.UŠ.KU ki-i ra-[me-ni-šu] / ina É—dPA up-pa-áš ina É—a-ki-ti ša ⸢d*⸣[PA] / ù É—a-ki-ti ša dtaš-me-tum ša ⸢la*⸣-a ⸢LUGAL*⸣ / GIŠ.šu-up-šá-a-te it-ta-sa-aḫ ša-ni-a-te iṣ-ṣa-bat /…

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 P334641.

Attribution

Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334641). 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/P334641/.

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