Position in chronology
SAA 01 144. Reeds for the King’s Work (ABL 0626)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 1(Beginning destroyed) (1) I shall finish the king's [.....] before the king my lord (comes); the king [my lord] can be glad. (7) I have no reeds for the king's work, (so) I have no work of [the king] (to do). (r 3) They should speak to the governor of Calah; there is reed in the wadi of Ubasê; let him give me a wineski[n raft (loaded) with r[eeds ...... (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 1 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
⸢ša⸣ LUGAL ⸢be⸣-[lí-ia] / ina pa-na-at ⸢LUGAL⸣ / be-lí-ia / ú-ga-am-mar / ⸢lib⸣-[bu] ša LUGAL / ⸢EN*⸣-[ia] ⸢lu⸣ DÙG.GA / ⸢GIŠ*⸣.[ap]-⸢pa⸣-ru / a-na ⸢du₆⸣-li / ša LUGAL / ina IGI-ia / ⸢la⸣-a-šú / ⸢du₆⸣-lu ⸢ša⸣ [LUGAL] / ina IGI-ia ⸢la⸣-[a]-⸢šú⸣ / a-na LÚv.EN.NAM / ša URU.kal-ḫa / liq-bi-ú GIŠ.ap-pa-ru / ina na-aḫ-li / ša URU.ú-ba-se-e / i-ba-áš-ši / KUŠ.maš-ku*-[ru] / ša GIŠ.⸢ap⸣-[pa-ri] / ⸢lid*⸣-[di-na-ni] / [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 P334432.
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/P334432/..
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/P334432/.
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.