Position in chronology
SAA 15 156. Waiting for the King; Merodach-baladan in his Country (ABL 0503+)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Il-yada'. Good health to the king, my lord! The land and the forts of the king my lord are well. The king, my lord, can be glad. (7) Concerning what the king, my lord, wrote to me: "For these two months, be attentive and keep your guard strong, until I come!" — the troops and horses are arrayed together to stand guard in the district of the king, my lord, (and) [I] myself am constantly monitoring my guard. (15) The gods of the king, my lord, have provided peace: ever since the king, my lord, went to the country of the enemy, there have been no enemy…
Source: Fuchs, A. & Parpola, S. 2001. The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part III: Letters from Babylonia and the Eastern Provinces. SAA 15. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa15/P334344/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ía / ARAD-ka mDINGIR—ia-da-aʾ / lu-u DI-mu a-na LUGAL be-lí-ía / DI-mu a-na ma-a-ti URU.bi-ra-a-te / ša LUGAL be-lí-ía ŠÀ-bu / ša LUGAL be-lí-ía lu DÙG.GA-šú / ša LUGAL be-lí iš-pur-an-ni / ma-a ITI-MEŠ-ni an-nu-ti 02 / na-aḫ-ri-di EN.NUN-ka lu dan-nat / a-di É ana-ku al-lak-an-ni / LÚv.ERIM-MEŠ ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ ina na-gi-i / [ša] LUGAL be-lí-ía a-na EN.NUN-ti / [ki]-i a-ḫa-meš…
Scholarly note
Royal correspondence from Babylonia and the eastern provinces under Sargon II, edited by Andreas Fuchs & Simo Parpola (SAA 15, 2001). ORACC text P334344.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334344). source
Translation excerpted from Fuchs, A. & Parpola, S. 2001. The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part III: Letters from Babylonia and the Eastern Provinces. SAA 15. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa15/P334344/.
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.