Position in chronology
SAA 16 081. Jewellery for the King (ABL 0847)
About this tablet
A letter to an Assyrian king from Nabû-sagib, a goldsmith attached to the queen's household in the royal palace. He reports that he handed over two worked stones — a banded pappardilû gem three fingers across and a piece of igizaggû-stone — to a palace gatekeeper named Matanaḫ-ili, together with a covering letter instructing that they be brought to the king. Then comes the point of the whole message: the craftsman does not know whether the gatekeeper ever passed them on, and he asks the king to check. It is a small, very human document about the risks of sending valuables through intermediaries in a large bureaucracy, and a rare glimpse of a named jeweller working for the Assyrian queen.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
To His Majesty, from your servant Nabû-sagib, son of Paruṭu, goldsmith to the queen's household. My best wishes to the king, my lord; may Nabû and Marduk bless him. For some years now the people of the house of [...] have been pressing me with questions. [The next lines are broken — they mention a month and a quantity of silver.] I handed a pappardilû stone, three fingers wide, and a piece of igizaggû stone to Matanaḫ-ili the doorkeeper, along with a letter telling him to deliver them to the king. Whether he actually delivered them or not, I have no way of knowing — the king should look into it.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineTo the king, my lord: your servant Nabû-sagib, son of Paruṭu, the goldsmith of the household of the queen. Good health to the king, [my lord]! May Nabû and Marduk bless [the] king, my lord! [For x] years, from the house of [.........] they have been questioning me. [.........] of the month [...]. [..................] silver: a pappardilû-stone, three fingers in its width, (and) a DAG.GAZ-piece of igizaggû-stone — I gave (them) to Matanaḫ-ili, the porter, and a letter along with (them), saying: "Deliver (it) to the king, my lord!" Whether he has delivered it, or whether he has not delivered it — let the king, my lord, inquire!
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Engine notes
read from photo10 uncertain terms ↓
- mdPA—sa-gi-ib — Theophoric name Nabû-sagib; 'sagib' means 'exalted/elevated', so the full name = 'Nabû is exalted'. Conventional rendering Nabû-sagib follows SAA practice.
- mpa-ru-ṭi — Personal name Paruṭi; possibly a West-Semitic or Aramaic hypocoristic. The sign marked ⸢ru*⸣ in the transliteration indicates an uncertain reading; cannot verify from photo.
- LÚ!.SIMUG.KUG.GI — Literally 'craftsman of gold' = goldsmith. The '!' marks an apparent scribal error corrected by the editor.
- É MÍ—É.GAL — Literally 'house of the woman of the palace' = the Queen's Household / harem administration.
- NA₄.BABBAR.DIL — A type of agate or banded stone bead; translated here as 'agate-bead' following CAD and SAA convention. Exact stone type debated.
- DAG.GAZ šá NA₄.IGI.ZAG.GA — DAG.GAZ is an ornament or setting type, not fully understood; NA₄.IGI.ZAG.GA = 'eye of the right side' = crystal or rock crystal. Conventional rendering 'crystal ornament'; precise object shape uncertain.
- ma-tan-aḫ—DINGIR — Personal name Matan-ili = 'gift of the god'. Theophoric compound.
- e-gír-tu is-se-niš — egirtu = 'letter, tablet'; issenīš = 'together, at the same time'. Translation: '(I gave them) together with a letter.'
- di*-ni — Read as dīnī, imperative of dânu 'to judge / decide'. The asterisk indicates an uncertain sign reading in the transliteration. Could alternatively be read as a noun 'my judgment/case'.
- Lines 8–11 (heavily lacunose) — Multiple signs and words broken; the restorations offered follow the ORACC SAA 16 081 edition but remain conjectural. Content apparently concerned a timeframe ('years') and a query or report.
Reasoning ↓
Photo examination: The image shows a British Museum tablet fragment (accession label '83 / 1-18 / 115' visible on the right-face view), photographed from multiple angles — obverse, reverse, and both edges. The obverse (top centre panel) and reverse (middle large panel) carry clearly ruled lines of Neo-Assyrian cursive cuneiform; the bottom oval panel shows a lenticular tag or bulla with a few signs. Surface preservation is moderate: wedges are legible in the upper portion of the obverse but become less distinct toward the broken lower-left edge; the reverse shows somewhat more erosion on the right side. At this resolution I can confirm the presence of densely ruled lines matching the line-count of the transliteration, and I can pick out sign-groups consistent with LUGAL, ARAD, and the NA₄.BABBAR.DIL sequence in the lower body; the broken passages (lines 8–11) correspond visually to the damaged lower left corner of the obverse and the upper right area of the reverse, aligning with the lacunae in the transliteration. The name mdPA-sa-gi-ib (Nabû-sagib) and mpa-ru-ṭi are read from the transliteration; the photo confirms a proper-name cluster in lines 2–3 but individual signs cannot be verified at this resolution. The letter is a standard Neo-Assyrian court communication concerning jewellery items (an agate bead and a crystal ornament) delivered to a doorkeeper for transmission to the king; see SAA 16 081 commentary (Luukko & Van Buylaere 2002). The damaged lines 8–11 resist full restoration; tentative readings follow the ORACC edition.
Generated by Claude Sonnet 4.6 · prompt 2026-05-11/v3-conventions · May 11, 2026 · 3372 in / 1361 out tokens
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / ARAD-ka mdPA—sa-gi-ib / A mpa-⸢ru*⸣-ṭi LÚ!.SIMUG.KUG.GI / šá É MÍ—É.GAL / lu-u DI-mu a-na LUGAL / [be-lí]-ía dAG u dAMAR.UTU / [a-na] ⸢LUGAL⸣ EN-ia lik-ru-bu / [x x MU].AN.NA TAv É / [x x x x x] ⸢iš?⸣-al?-u-ni / [x x x x x] ⸢ša⸣ ITI.[x]+⸢x⸣ / [x x x x x x x x] ⸢KUG?⸣.UD / ⸢NA₄⸣.BABBAR.DIL 03 ŠU.SI ru-up-šá-šá / DAG.GAZ šá NA₄.IGI.ZAG.GA / a-na ma-tan-aḫ—DINGIR / LÚ.Ì.DU₈ a-ti-din / e-gír-tu is-se-niš / mu-uk a-na LUGAL be-lí-ía / ⸢di*⸣-ni šum-ma it-ti-din / šum-ma la id-din / LUGAL EN liš-al
Scholarly note
Political letter at the court of Esarhaddon, edited by Mikko Luukko & Greta Van Buylaere (SAA 16, 2002). ORACC text P334590.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334590). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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