Position in chronology
SAA 05 225. Not All Reap What They Sow (CT 53 079)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [To the king, my lord: your servant Adad-issiya. Good health to] the king, [my] lo[rd]! (4) [As to] the seed corn [about wh]ich the king, my lord, wr[ote me]: "Nabû-[...] must cultivate 1,000 (homers of) seed, Mannu-ki-Adad must cultivate [1],000, and you too must cultivate [1],000 (homers of) seed corn" — [wh]ere? I cannot do it! (10) [I] cultivate corn in the face of harsh [...]. They, by contrast, having planted their seed, [e]at from it, feed [their] horses [fr]om it, and (even) cultiva[te s]eed fro[m it]. (16) [They] have seized [...] from the Med[es ......] (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/P313494/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[a-na LUGAL EN-ia] / [ARAD-ka mdIM—KI—ia] / [lu DI-mu a-na] LUGAL ⸢EN⸣-[ia] / [ina UGU] ŠE.NUMUN ⸢ša⸣ LUGAL EN iš-⸢pur⸣-[an-ni] / [ma-a md]AG—⸢x⸣ 01 lim ŠE.⸢NUMUN⸣ / ⸢le⸣-ru-⸢uš⸣ ma-a mman-nu—ki—⸢d?IM?⸣ / [01?] ⸢lim⸣ le-ru-uš ma-a ⸢at-ta⸣ / [01?]-⸢lim⸣-ma ⸢a⸣-ru-uš / ⸢ia?⸣-a-ka ⸢la mu⸣-qa-a.a pu-ut / [x x]+⸢x⸣-MEŠ-te ⸢dan⸣-na-te a-na-ku / [e]-ra-áš šu-nu ŠE.NUMUN / [e]-ta-ár-šú TAv ŠÀ-bi…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Assyria's northern frontier under Sargon II, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola (SAA 5, 1990). ORACC text P313494.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P313494). 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/P313494/.
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.