Position in chronology
SAA 05 107. Kill the Assyrian Delegate! (CT 53 098)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1) "['Drive the enemies of] Kumme from yo[ur] midst!' (2) "Now then [the whole] city of Kumm[u] has turned [ag]ainst Ariye; they [...] speak of killing [the royal delegate]." (6) [The day th]at the letter [of Aššur-reṣ]uwa came [to me] with the messenger [of ...] (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/P313513/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[LÚv.KÚR-MEŠ ša] ⸢URU.ku⸣-um-me TAv ŠÀ-bi-⸢ku⸣-[nu] / [še-ṣi-a ú]-ma-a an-nu-rig URU.ku-um-⸢mu⸣ / [gab-bi-šu ina] UGU ma-ri-e i-sa-ak-nu / [x x x x]+⸢x⸣ ina UGU du-a-ki / [ša LÚv.qe-pi] ⸢i⸣-da-bu-bu / [ina ŠÀ UD-me] ⸢ša e⸣-gír-tú / [ša maš-šur—re]-⸢ṣu⸣-u-a TAv LÚv.A—KIN / [ša x x x ina UGU-ḫi-ia] ⸢il⸣-lik-u-ni-ni / [x x x x x x x x x]-ka / [x x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣-ib-šú-nu
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P313513.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P313513). 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/P313513/.
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.