In early 2000, Professor Simo Parpola asked us if we were interested in editing the SAA volume on the political correspondence of Esarhaddon. His question first struck us with surprise, but after a moment of hesitation we answered: yes, of course! We were very delighted to have this unexpected opportunity to prepare a volume for the SAA series.
At that time we were provided with all the necessary computer files for the volume, including transliterations extracted from the database of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. The original goal was to have the volume ready for publication by the end of 2001. It became clear early on, however, that this schedule could not be kept, as our work on the Assyrian-English-Assyrian dictionary of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project did not leave us much time to concentrate on the Esarhaddon letters. The volume was thus temporarily placed second in our order of priorities. Therefore we finished the first draft of the translations only around Easter 2001. Later, in February 2002, we went to the British Museum for a week to collate many of the texts.
The introduction to the volume was written after the collation trip. Our cordial thanks are due to Prof. Parpola under whose guidance we prepared the volume. We are extremely grateful that he gave us this chance . Moreover, he corrected numerous errors and improved many inconsistencies. He also established the final order of the letters, and generously added even more letters, all edited by him, to the volume, including letters that were originally assigned to the Assurbanipal volume of the series (nos. 14-20, I 11-117, 158, 160, 162, 164-165 and 175-176). The translations of nos. 59-61 and 100 are also based on his work. We wish to thank Dr. Julian Reade for the magnificent illustrations he provided for this book. We also owe thanks to Mr. C. B. F. Walker, Deputy Keeper of the Department of the Ancient Near East, who permitted us to prepare copies and collations at the British Mu- seum, to the helpful staff of the Students' Room, to Dr. Heather D. Baker, who corrected our English, and to Prof. Matthew W. Stolper (Chicago), on whose unpublished work our translation of no. 78 is largely based. We are grateful to the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to publish the ten previously unpublished texts and fragments included in this volume, and to Prof. W.G. Lambert (Birmingham) for communicating his preliminary translations of K 19787, K 19979, K 19986 and K 20565 to the SAA project many years ago.
Finally, we wish to extend our thanks to the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Graduate School of the Insti tute of Asian and African Studies of the University of Helsinki for the financial support provided to Mikko during the years 2001-2002, without which this work could not have been completed.
Mikko Luukko & Greta van Buylaere
Mikko Luukko & Greta van Buylaere, 'Preface', The Political Correspondence of Esarhaddon, SAA 16. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 2002; online contents: SAAo/SAA16 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2022 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa16/preface/]