Position in chronology
SAA 05 001. No News is Good News (ABL 0200)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Nashir-Bel. Good health to the king, my lord! (4) The land of the king is well; the forts of the king are well. The king, my lord, can be [gl]ad. (7) Perh[aps the king, my lord], will say: "Any news of the Urarṭian?" He is still over there; nobody has come from there, we haven't heard any news about them y[e]t.
Source: Lanfranchi, G.B. & Parpola, S. 1990. The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II: Letters from the Northern and Northeastern Provinces. SAA 5. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa05/P334145/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-ia / ARAD-ka mNIGIN—EN / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ia / DI-mu a-na KUR šá LUGAL / DI-mu a-na ḪAL.ṢU-MEŠ šá LUGAL / ŠÀ ša LUGAL EN-ia lu-⸢u? DÙG*⸣ / i—su-[ri LUGAL be-lí] / i-qab-⸢bi⸣ [ma]-⸢a mi⸣-[i]-nu / ṭè-mu ša [KUR].⸢URI⸣-[a].⸢a⸣ / am*-ma*-⸢kam*-ma⸣ / šu*-u ⸢ú*⸣-[di]-⸢ni*⸣ / ⸢mi*-me*-ni*⸣ / TA ŠÀ-bi / la i-li-ka / ṭè-en-šú-nu / la ni-šam-me
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P334145.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334145). source
Translation excerpted from Lanfranchi, G.B. & Parpola, S. 1990. The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II: Letters from the Northern and Northeastern Provinces. SAA 5. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa05/P334145/.
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.