Position in chronology
SAA 01 078. Work on the Panthers, the Ziggurat and Boats (ABL 0483)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Ṭab-ṣill-Ešarra. Good health to the king, my lord! May Aššur and Mullissu bless the king, my lord! (6) [We] overturned the ot[her] panther on the 1[st] and placed it on its face; twenty courses of bricks have been put under it; [its] feet are toward the seat of Lord-of-the-Crown. (12) [x] courses of bricks of the ziggurat have been laid. On the 6th they started building the boat[s], and they are building them (now). (Rest destroyed)
Source: 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/P334331/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na ⸢LUGAL⸣ EN-ia / ARAD-ka mDÙG.[GA—GIŠ].MI—É.ŠÁR.[RA] / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ia / aš-šur dNIN.LÍL a-na LUGAL EN-⸢ia⸣ / ⸢lik⸣-ru-bu / UD* ⸢01?⸣-[KÁM] ⸢d*⸣nam-ru / [nu]-⸢sa*⸣-bal-kit i-na UGU [o] / [pa]-⸢ni⸣-šu ni-ik-ta-⸢ra⸣-ra / ⸢20⸣ ti-ik-pi ina KI.⸢TA-šu*⸣ / [it]-ta-al-ku GÌR.2-MEŠ-[šu] / [i]-⸢na*⸣ pu-tu šub-ti šá ⸢d*EN*—AGA*⸣ / [x] ⸢02⸣ ti-ik-pi ša si-qur-[ri]-⸢te*⸣ / ka-ar-ru / UD 06-KÁM ina UGU GIŠ.MÁ-[MEŠ*] / e-pa-a-še iq-ṭar-bu / e-pu-šu / ⸢x⸣+[x x x]+⸢x⸣ [x x] / ⸢x⸣+[x x x x x]-e / ⸢x⸣+[x x x]-du
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 P334331.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334331). source
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/P334331/.
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.