Position in chronology
SAA 15 042. Feeding Hittite Deportees (ABL 1082)
About this tablet
A letter to the Assyrian king (probably Sargon II, late 8th century BCE) from a provincial official responsible for a group of Hittite deportees — people forcibly resettled from Anatolia or Syria into the Assyrian empire. The king had queried a discrepancy in the barley stores meant to feed them, and the official reports back on his investigation, quoting an interrogation about rations already consumed. It is a rare glimpse of the day-to-day logistics behind Assyria's mass deportation policy: someone had to account, measure by measure, for the grain that kept deportees alive.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
To the king, my lord, from your servant — best wishes for your health. About the Hittite deportees you wrote to me concerning: you said in your letter that the earlier consignments of the stored barley had been handled twice, or improperly moved. Regarding the supplies that were at their disposal, I questioned the man in charge, asking him why they had already eaten the earlier rations. Whatever their explanation to the king was, I have now written about it, and there is mention of the standard grain measure — but the rest of the letter is broken away and lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) [To the king, my lo]rd: your servant [PN]. [Good] health to the king, [my] lord! [Concerning] the Hittites about whom the king, my lord, [wrote to me], saying: "You wrote [that] the previous [consignments] of stored barley [...] they have moved twice(?)" — [...] which were at their disposal [...] I asked him: "Why [...] did they eat the previous (rations)? [...]" What their statement to the king, [my] lord, was [...] I have (now) written [...] [...] the seah-measure [...] [...] ... [...] (Remainder broken)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Engine notes
read from photo7 uncertain terms ↓
- ša-za-bu-sa-te — Technical administrative term for a type of ration or food allocation; exact etymology and precise meaning debated. Luukko (SAA 15) renders it as a ration-type; some scholars connect it to a verbal root related to 'rescue/provision.' Restoration in line 4 is uncertain.
- LÚv.ḫa-ta-a.a — Literally 'Hittite(s)' — in Neo-Assyrian administrative texts this typically refers to deportees or subjects from formerly Hittite/Syro-Anatolian regions, not necessarily ethnic Hittites in the narrow sense.
- ŠE.tab-ku — Literally 'poured/heaped barley' — a technical term for a barley-heap or grain store from which rations are drawn. Reading of the damaged sign following (⸢x⸣+[x]) cannot be verified.
- ú-sa-ša-ni-ú — Š-stem of nasāḫu or a related root, meaning 'they removed/transferred.' The precise verb and subject are uncertain given the surrounding lacunae.
- pa-ni-a-te — Fem. pl. of pānû, 'former/previous' — here qualifying rations of a prior period. Appears twice (lines 5 and 9), each time with partially broken context.
- pi-i-ša-nu-ú-[ni] — Literally 'their mouth' — may function idiomatically as 'their statement/testimony' in this administrative epistolary context. Restoration and exact meaning uncertain.
- [x x] ⸢GIŠ*⸣.BÁN* — GIŠ.BÁN = seah (a dry-measure unit); the surrounding broken signs prevent recovery of the quantity or full context. Reading flagged with asterisks in the transliteration indicating uncertainty.
Reasoning ↓
Visual examination: The photo shows British Museum tablet Rm 564, a clay fragment roughly 4–5 cm across. The obverse (top-centre image) preserves cuneiform script in approximately 14 lines; the clay surface is heavily worn and chipped, with the right edge broken away and the lower-left corner fragmentary. Individual wedge impressions are visible in the upper portion of the text face but become increasingly indistinct toward the bottom. The left and right side views and bottom views show extreme surface damage, crazing, and abrasion — no readable signs there. From the photo I can confirm the presence of dense, relatively small Neo-Assyrian script with horizontal ruling lines visible between some line groups, consistent with an administrative letter format. Individual sign groups are too small and too damaged at this resolution to verify specific sign readings beyond confirming the general script style and line count (~14 lines on the obverse), which aligns with the transliteration provided. The transliteration-based translation is from SAA 15 042 (ABL 1082), a Neo-Assyrian letter concerning the provisioning (šazabusāte-rations) of Hittite deportees; this administrative context is well established (Luukko, SAA 15, 2002, no. 42). The term šazabusāte remains lexically debated (see uncertainTerms). Confidence is low due to extensive lacunae and the fragmentary state of the tablet.
Generated by Claude Sonnet 4.6 · prompt 2026-05-11/v3-conventions · May 11, 2026 · 3381 in / 1125 out tokens
Transliteration
[a-na LUGAL be]-⸢lí*-a* ARAD*-ka*⸣ [mx x x x] / [lu-u] DI-mu a-na LUGAL be-lí-[a ina UGU] / LÚv.ḫa-ta-a.a ša LUGAL be-⸢lí⸣ [iš-pur-an-ni] / ma-a at-ta ta-sap-ra [ma-a ša-za-bu-sa-te] / pa-ni-a-te ša ŠE.tab-ku ⸢x⸣+[x x x x] / ú-sa-ša-ni-ú ⸢ar⸣-[x x x x] / ša ina pa-ni-šú-⸢nu al⸣-du-[x x x] / a-sa-al-šú nu-⸢ku⸣ a-ta-[a x x x] / pa-ni-a-te e-ku-lu ⸢x⸣+[x x x x] / ša a-na LUGAL be-lí-[a x x x] / pi-i-ša-nu-ú-[ni x x x x] / [a]-sap-ra [x x x x x x x x] / [x x] ⸢GIŠ*⸣.BÁN* ⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x x] / [x x] ni [x x x x x x x x]
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Babylonia and the eastern provinces under Sargon II, edited by Andreas Fuchs & Simo Parpola (SAA 15, 2001). ORACC text P334724.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334724). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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