Position in chronology
SAA 13 201. Trampled Writing Boards (CT 53 622)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(Beginning destroyed) (1) writing boar[ds ...] (2) of boxwood [...] (3) was trampled upon [...]. (4) The writing board[s ...] (5) appeara[nces ...] (6) flesh [...] (7) he/they [...] (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 13 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
le-ʾa-⸢a⸣-[ni x x x x] / ša GIŠ.⸢KU⸣ [x x x x x] / ka-bu-us [x x x x x] / le-ʾa-a-[ni x x x x x] / ši-ik-⸢na?⸣-[ni? x x x x] / UZU-MEŠ [x x x x x x] / i-ḫa-[x x x 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 P314034.
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/P314034/..
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/P314034/.
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.