Position in chronology
SAA 15 364. Corn Taxes Collected but Deficits not Supplied (CT 53 416)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 15(Beginning destroyed) (2) [......] Let them bring [them down ...]! (3) [I] sent [... the pr]efects of [...], and they brought [them to me]. (5) They are [inci]ting them against me [...]. (6) [I]ati' says: "[You have ...] us [our] corn tax, (but) you have not su[pplied our] deficit(s) [for ...] years!" (9) [...] to [...] (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 15 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[x x x x x x] ⸢LÚv.x⸣+[x x x] / [x x x x x]-⸢šá⸣ lu-še-ri-[du-šú-nu] / [x x x LÚv].⸢GAR?⸣-nu-⸢te⸣ ša ⸢x⸣+[x x] / [x x a]-⸢sa⸣-pa-ra ú-se-⸢bi⸣-[lu-ni-šú-nu] / [ú-šá]-da-bu-bu-ni-šú-⸢nu⸣ [x x] / [m]⸢ia⸣-ti-iʾ ma-a ŠE.nu-⸢sa⸣-[ḫi-ni] / [x x x]+⸢x⸣-na-ši ma-a bat-qi-[ni] / [x x MU].⸢AN⸣.NA-MEŠ la ta-ṣa-[x x] / [x x x x] a-na ⸢ka⸣-[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 P313829.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P313829). 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/P313829/.
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.