The present volume has been prepared in close co-operation by the two editors, and they share the responsibility for the end product. Before embarking on the work, in August 1987, we agreed on a division of the work involved in manuscript preparation and on the general principles according to which the work was to be completed. Lanfranchi was to supply the introduction and the basic translation of the texts, while Parpola was to concentrate on the transIiterations.
Virtually all the texts selected for the volume were collated by Parpola in March, 1988. The results were subsequently incorporated in the Project's database and a fresh printout of transliterations and indices was sent to Lanfranchi who in the course of 1989 prepared preliminary translations of all the texts on the basis of this material.
The translations made by Lanfranchi were scrutinized and edited by Parpola during the summer of 1990. This work was accompanied by a detailed orthographical and prosopographical analysis of the material, which made it possible to identify a great number of previously unknown writers, establish the final text order, and exclude from the volume a considerable number of irrelevant fragments. The critical apparatus and indices were compiled by Parpola in the fall, while Lanfranchi completed the introduction and scrutinized the revised translations in November. A final round of collations in the British Museum was completed by Parpola in December, 1990.
This book is the first volume in the SAA series produced using the Ventura desktop publishing setup acquired by the Project earlier this year, and marks a turning point in the Project's publishing activities. The credit for setting up the system and actually producing the electronic paste-up of the volume goes to the Managing Editor of the Project, Robert Whiting, assisted by Timo Kiippa of the Helsinki University Press.
The two previously unpublished tablet fragments in this volume are published by the kind permission of the Trustees of the British Museum. The staff of the Department of the Western Asiatic Antiquities of the Museum helped in every way in the study of the texts.
Galley proofs of the manuscript were read by Robert Whiting, Nicholas Postgate, F. M. Fales, and Julian Reade, who contributed many useful remarks. Results of collations and other corrections and modifications to the manuscript were entered by Laura Kataja.
December, 1990
G. B. Lanfranchi
Simo Parpola
Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola
Giovanni B. Lanfranchi & Simo Parpola, 'Preface', The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II: Letters from the Northern and Northeastern Provinces, SAA 5. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1990; online contents: SAAo/SAA05 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa05/saa5preface/]