Position in chronology
SAA 01 085. A Messenger Returns from Birat (ABL 0396)
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) Haldi-naṣir, the mercenary who took the letter to the Biratean, has come back carrying a letter; [I am sending him] right now [to] the king, my lord. (r 1) [I asked him]: "Why were you delayed?" He said: "He detained me for 12 days; Marduk-šumu-iddina will be coming right after me."
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/P334271/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-ia / ARAD-ka mDÙG.GA—ṣil—É.ŠÁR.RA / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ía* / aš-šur dNIN.LÍL a-na LUGAL / EN-ia lik-ru-bu / mḫal-di—PAB LÚv.rak-su / ša e-gír-tú / ina UGU KUR.bi-ra-ta-a.a / ú-bi-lu-ni / i-tal-ka e-gír-tú na-ṣa / an-⸢nu⸣-rig / [ina pa-an] LUGAL EN-ia / [a-sap-ra-áš-šú] / [a-sa-ʾa-al-šú] / [mu-uk] a-ta-a / tú-ki-iš / ma-a 12 UD-MEŠ / ik-ta-al-a-ni / ma-a mdMES—MU—SUM-na / an-nu-rig / i—da-a-tú-u-a / il-la-ka
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 P334271.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334271). 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/P334271/.
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.