Position in chronology
SAA 13 202. Fragment Mentioning Harran (CT 53 653)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 13(Beginning destroyed) (2) to [......] (3) the gods o[f ......] (4) ... [......] (5) of/which [......] (Break) (e. 1) [...... to] 30 ye[ars ......] (e. 2) [...... to] the king, my lord I [......] (e. 3) [......] ... for the table [......] (e. 4) [......] ... the citizens of Harran [......] (e. 5) [......] ... [......]
State Archives of Assyria, volume 13 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
⸢x x⸣ [x x x x x x x x] / a-na ⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x x] / DINGIR-MEŠ ⸢ša⸣ [x x x x x] / GIŠ.ṣu?-[x x x x x x x] / ša ⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x x] / ⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x x x] / [x x x x x x x] ⸢30 MU.AN?⸣.[NA-MEŠ x x x x x] / [x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ MAN EN-ía áš-[x x x x x x] / [x x x x x x x]-še-me ina GIŠ.BANŠUR [x x x x x x x] / [x x x x x x] ⸢za⸣ ṣab ṣab DUMU-MEŠ URU.KASKAL šu-[x x x x x x] / [x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣-lak-ku-nu za kil ⸢x⸣+[x 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 P314065.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P314065). 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/P314065/.
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.