Position in chronology
SAA 17 136. Elamite Offensive at Bit-Imbiya (ABL 0781)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 17(1) Your servant Marduk-naṣir: I would gladly die for the vizier, my lord! May Anu and Ištar bless the vizier, my lord! Say to the vizier, my lord: (6) The caravan from Lahiru arrived on the thirteenth of the month Tammuz (IV). The sons of Ina-tešî-eṭir, from the house of Ṣullulu, brought wool from Bit-Imbiya. (r 1) They say: "Now the palace herald and the entire army of Upper Elam are at Bit-Imbiya. They are crossing a ford on the river Abani." (r 6) I have sent the news to the vizier, my lord. May my lord command at the palace that troops be positioned opposite them at Der until the king has attained his objective.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 17 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
ARAD-ka mdAMAR.UTU—ŠEŠ-ir / a-na di-na-an LÚ.SUKKAL be-lí-ía / lul-lik da-num u dIŠ.TAR / [a]-⸢na⸣ LÚ.SUKKAL be-lí-ía lik-ru-bu / ⸢um⸣-ma-a a-na LÚ.SUKKAL be-lí-ia-a-ma / UD 13-KÁM šá ITI.ŠU a-lak-ti / šá URU.la-ḫi-ru te-te-la-a / DUMU-MEŠ šá mina—SÙḪ—KAR-ir / DUMU mṣu-lu-lu SÍG-ḪI.A / il-ti URU.É—mim-bi-ia / ul-te-bir-ú-nu / um-ma a-du-ú / LÚ.NÍGIR—É.GAL u e-mu-qu / šá NIM.MA.KI e-le-ni-ti /…
Scholarly note
Babylonian-language letter to Sargon II or Sennacherib, edited by Manfried Dietrich (SAA 17, 2003). ORACC text P237901.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Manfried Dietrich, The Neo-Babylonian Correspondence of Sargon and Sennacherib (State Archives of Assyria, 17), 2003. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2009-11, 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/P237901/..
Translation excerpted from Dietrich, M. 2003. The Babylonian Correspondence of Sargon and Sennacherib. SAA 17. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa17/P237901/.
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.
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.