Position in chronology
SAA 05 028. Red Wool for the King (ABL 0431)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Ašipâ. The best of health to the king, my lord! (5) The forts and the land of the king, my lord, are well. (7) Last year, the king, my lord, told me: "[S]end me red wool!" (10) Now then Metu[nu ......] (Break) (r 3) have been brought [to me].
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/P334296/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-ía / ARAD-ka ma-ši-pa-a / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL / EN-ia a—dan-niš / DI-mu a-na URU.bi-rat / a-na KUR ša LUGAL EN-ia / ina šá-dàq-di-iš / LUGAL be-lí iq-ṭi-bi-a / ma-a SÍG.tab-ri-bu* / [še]-bi-la an-nu-⸢rig⸣ / [m]me-tu-[nu x x x]+⸢x⸣ / [x x x x x x] / [x x x x x x] / [x x]+⸢x⸣+[x x]+⸢x⸣+[x x x] / [o] na-ṣu-[u-ni]
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P334296.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334296). 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/P334296/.
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.