Position in chronology
SAA 01 037. The Chariotry of the Palace Guard (CT 53 307)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 1(1) [To the king, my lord: your servant Sin-ahhe-riba. Good health to the king, my lord! Assyria is well, the temples are] we[ll, all the king's forts] are well. The ki[ng, my lord, can be glad] indeed. (8) They have got hold of [that] horse concerning [which the king my lord gave me] or[ders] [...... (Break) (r 4) ......] the merchant [...... t]o the [Palace] Superintendent [......] like the king, my lord. (r 7) The chariot grooms of the ša-šēpi guard [...] under my command are asking for plants [... and one] full talent of bronze [...] per one team of hor[ses ...] in accordance with what the ki[ng ...]. What exactly does the king, my lord, order? (SPACER)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 1 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[a-na LUGAL EN-ia] / [ARAD-ka m30—PAB-MEŠ—SU] / [lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ia] / [DI-mu a-na KUR—aš-šur.KI] / DI-[mu a-na É.KUR-MEŠ-te] / DI-mu ⸢a-na⸣ [URU.bi-rat ša LUGAL gab-bu] / ŠÀ-bu ša ⸢LUGAL⸣ [EN-ia a—dan-niš lu DÙG.GA] / ANŠE.KUR.RA [am-mì-ú ša LUGAL be-lí] / [ina] UGU-ḫi-šú ⸢ṭè⸣-[mu iš-kun-an-ni] / [iṣ]-ṣab-tu-ni-šú ina [x x x x x x] / [x] ⸢ŠÀ⸣-bi la [x x x x x x] / [x x]-ḫu-ra a-[x x x x x…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence under Sargon II, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 1, 1987). Letter from a governor or high official to the king of Assyria. ORACC text P313722.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Simo Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I: Letters from Assyria and the West (State Archives of Assyria, 1), 1987. 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/P313722/..
Translation excerpted from Parpola, S. 1987. The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I: Letters from Assyria and the West. SAA 1. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa01/P313722/.
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.