Position in chronology
SAA 05 052. Šubrian Emissaries on their Way to the King (ABL 0252)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Aššur-dur-paniya. Good health to the king, my lord! (4) The Šubrian emissaries came to Šabirešu on the 23rd of Adar (XII). (6) Perhaps the king, my lord, will say: "Who are they?" (They are) Yata', his man in charge of the towns near the Urarṭian border, and with him Abi-yaqâ, a local inhabitant. (10) Perhaps the king, my lord, will say: "Why did his brother and his deputy, who at the review said they would come, not come?" They say: "Hu-Tešub is ill; these (people) have come to bargain." (16) They have written down on clay tablets the king's men and the…
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/P334187/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / ARAD-ka maš-šur—BÀD—IGI-ia / lu šul-mu a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / UD 23-KÁM ša ITI.ŠE LÚ.MAḪ-MEŠ / KUR.šu-bur-a.a ina URU.šá-bi-ri-šú / it-tal-ku-u-ni is—su-ur-ri LUGAL be-lí-i* / i-qab-bi ma-a man-nu šú-nu mia-ta-aʾ / LÚ.GAL—URU-MEŠ-šú ša qa-ni ta-ḫu-me / ša KUR.URI-a.a ⸢m*a*⸣-bi—ia-qa-a UN-MEŠ KUR šú-u-tú / i-si-šú it-tal-⸢ku⸣-u-ni i—su-ur-ri / LUGAL be-lí i-qab-bi ma-a a-ta-a…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P334187.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334187). 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/P334187/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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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.