Position in chronology
SAA 05 062. Meeting the King on the Way (ABL 0729)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Na'di-ilu. Good health to the king, my lord! (4) Now that the king, my lord, has set out and is coming, should I come as far as Šabirešu to meet the king, my lord? May the king, my lord, wr[ite me] what the king my lo[rd's orders are]. (9) [Perhaps] the king, my lord, will s[ay]: "The horses [...] (Break) (r 2) ... should se[n]d straw [......] (Rest destroyed)
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/P334518/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / ARAD-ka mI—DINGIR / lu šul-mu a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / an-nu-rig LUGAL be-lí <$ut*-ta*-mì*-ši*$> / il-la-ka a-na-ku lal-lik-ka / a-du URU.šá-bi-ri-šú / ina* GABA LUGAL be-lí-ia-⸢a*⸣ / mi-i-nu ša LUGAL [be-lí i-qab-bu-ni] / LUGAL be-lí liš-⸢pu⸣-[ra i—su-ri] / LUGAL be-lí i-[qab-bi] / ⸢ma⸣-a ANŠE.KUR.RA-[MEŠ x x] / [x x]+⸢x x x⸣+[x x x x] / [x x]+⸢x x⸣+[x x x] / ⸢ḫa⸣-[nu?]-⸢te⸣ ŠE.IN.[NU-MEŠ] / liš-pu-⸢ru?⸣ [x x x]
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P334518.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334518). 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/P334518/.
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.