Position in chronology
SAA 17 147. Ostrich’s Egg (CT 54 003)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 17(1) Tablet of Kinâ to Nergal-naṣir, my brother: I am well, may my brother be well too! (5) It can't be true that my brother is severely ill! Now [...] (Break) (r 2) Get back your health and write! (r 4) (As to) the ostrich egg(s) of which my brother wrote to me, by Bel and Nabû, they are not available in Nippur.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 17 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
ṭup-pi mki-na-a / a-na mdU.GUR—APIN-ir ŠEŠ-ía / šu-lum ia-a-ši / lu-ú šu-lum a-na ŠEŠ-ía / ki-i áš-mu-ú / um-ma ŠEŠ-ú-a / ⸢dan-niš mar⸣-ṣu en-na / [x x x]+⸢x⸣ [x x]+⸢x⸣ / [x x x x]-bi / [x x] šu-lum-gu / ⸢ḫu?⸣-us-sa-am-ma / šu-pur ⸢pe⸣-el lu-ur-mu / šá ŠEŠ-ú-a iš-pu-ra / d.EN u dPA lu-ú / i-du-ú ki-i / ina EN.LÍL.KI i-ba-šu-ú
Scholarly note
Babylonian-language letter to Sargon II or Sennacherib, edited by Manfried Dietrich (SAA 17, 2003). ORACC text P237922.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P237922). source
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/P237922/.
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.