Position in chronology
Letter from Ishbi-Erra to Ibbi-Suen about the purchase of grain
Translation · reference
High confidenceSay to Ibbi-Suen, my lord: this is what Icbi-Erra, your servant, says: You ordered me to travel to Isin and Kazallu to purchase grain. With grain reaching the exchange rate of one shekel of silver per gur, 20 talents of silver have been invested for the purchase (2 mss. have instead: ......) of grain. I heard news that the hostile Martu have entered inside your territories. I entered with 72,000 gur of grain (1 ms. has instead: 72,000 gur of grain was brought) -- the entire amount of grain -- inside Isin. Now I have let the Martu, all of them, penetrate inside the Land, and one by one I have seized all the fortifications therein. Because of the Martu, I am unable to hand over (2 mss. have instead: I am unable to make ......) this grain for threshing. They are stronger than me, while I am condemned to sitting around.
Source: ETCSL c.3.1.17: Letter from Ishbi-Erra to Ibbi-Suen about the purchase of grain. Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Robson, E. & Zólyomi, G. (eds.), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.3.1.17
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Composition c.3.1.17 in the ETCSL catalogue. Sumerian literary text reconstructed from multiple cuneiform manuscripts, the great majority Old Babylonian (c. 1900–1600 BCE). Translation reproduced from the ETCSL edition.
Attribution
Image: .
Translation excerpted from ETCSL c.3.1.17: Letter from Ishbi-Erra to Ibbi-Suen about the purchase of grain. Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Robson, E. & Zólyomi, G. (eds.), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.3.1.17.
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