Position in chronology
SAA 05 139. Troops from Muṣaṣir Summoned by the King (ABL 0448)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) As to the men from Muṣaṣir whom the king summoned, they are in Sihana, on the plain. Shall we send word and have them brought here, or should they stay in the plain?
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/P334312/
Why it matters
Transliteration
ina UGU LÚv.ERIM-MEŠ / KUR.mu-ṣa-ṣir-a.a / ša LUGAL SAG-su-nu / i-šu-u-ni / ina URU.si-ḫa-na / ša mad-bar šu-nu / ni-iš-pu-u-ru / lu-bi-lu-ni-šu-nu-u / ú-la-a ina mad-bar-ma / lu* šu-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 P334312.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334312). 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/P334312/.
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.