Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 13 138. The Priest of Ea Robs the Temple (ABL 1389)

~665 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P334880

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 13
High confidence
(1) To the king, my lord: your servant, Aššur-hamatu'a. Good health to the king, my lord. May Aššur, Ištar, Bel, and Nabû bless the king, my lord. (6) Nabû-epuš, the priest of Ea, has stolen property from the temple. He peeled off and removed the golden ... from the massive (offering) table which is in front of Ištar. Nabû-nadin-apli, the temple guard, caught him red-handed. (14) Even before my time, the [pries]t of Ea committed a [thef]t, but they (the temple authorities) retrieved it and covered it up. (r 1) The king should question him about both (cases). (r 2) When the king, my lord, had…

State Archives of Assyria, volume 13 — scholar edition (ORACC).

Transliteration

a-na LUGAL EN-ia / ARAD-ka maš-šur—ḫa-mat-ia / lu-u DI-mu a-na MAN EN-ia / daš-šur d15 dEN dAG / a-na MAN EN-ia lik-ru-bu / mdPA—DÙ-uš LÚ.SANGA šá dÉ.A / tab-lu TAv É.KUR it-ta-bal / qa-a-ru ša KUG.GI / TAv UGU GIŠ.BANŠUR ut-ta-ri / ša ina IGI d15 / iq-ṭa-la-pa it-te-ši / mdPA—SUM—A LÚ.EN.NUN É—DINGIR / ina ŠU.2-šú iṣ-ṣa-bat / ⸢ù⸣ [ina] pa-na-tu-u-a / [LÚ].⸢SANGA⸣ šá dÉ.A / [tab-lu]-⸢um⸣-ma /…

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 P334880.

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/P334880/..
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/P334880/.

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