Position in chronology
SAA 03 023. Epical Text Mourning the Death of a King (CT 54 513)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 3(Beginning destroyed) (2) [......] is veiled in darkness. (3) [......] he looks on, the magnates [...] towards him. (4) [......] of kusītu and sāgu garments (5) [......] holding [...], wailed like an ecstatic. (6) [......]... his ... and his mouth (7) [......] is in labour, screaming (8) [......] her [...]: "Oh magnates [...]! (9) [......]... the king, your lord (10) [......]... the land and the king (11) [......]... like a snake" (12) [......]... he has put on [...]... (r 1) [......]... and the lower side (r 2) [......] tears rolled down [the cheeks] of his mother: (r 3) "[......]... you, I…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 3 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[x x x]+⸢x⸣+[x x x]+⸢x⸣+[x x x x x] / [x x]+⸢x⸣ ta-di-ir-tú ku-ut-⸢tu?-um?⸣ / [x] ⸢x⸣ i-dag-gal GAL-MEŠ ⸢ina ir⸣-ti-šú ⸢x⸣+[x] / [x]-nu-te šá TÚG.BAR.DIB-MEŠ TÚG.sa-gat-MEŠ / [x x x x x] ú-ka-lu a-ki maḫ-ḫe-e id-⸢mu⸣-[mu] / [x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ lu ⸢x x-šú⸣ u KA-šú / [x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ ta-ḫi-al ina ṣi-ri-iḫ-te / [x x x x x x]-šá ma-a GAL-MEŠ MU [x x] / [x x x x x]-⸢ri?⸣-ba ⸢LUGAL⸣ EN-ku-[nu] / [x x x x x…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian court poetry or literary text, edited by Alasdair Livingstone (SAA 3, 1989). ORACC text P336158.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P336158). source
Translation excerpted from Livingstone, A. 1989. Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea. SAA 3. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa03/P336158/.
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.
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.
Part of the earliest known body of international diplomatic correspondence. Akkadian, written in cuneiform on clay, was the lingua franca of Late Bronze Age statecraft — used between Egypt, the Hittites, Mitanni, Babylon, Assyria, and the Levantine vassals.