SAA 21 065. Pressing for Nabû-bel-šumati and His Accomplices (647-xi) (JCS 54, 079-086)
| Obverse | ||
| o 1o 1 | (1) The king's word to the elders of Elam: I and the whole of Assyria are well. | |
| o 22 | ||
| o 33 | (3) As to your clandestine consultation, "Why does Assyria treat us like this?" — you know perfectly well why you have been treated in this way, and you have the affront of asking such a question now! | |
| o 44 | ||
| o 55 | ||
| o 66 | ||
| o 77 | ||
| o 88 | (8) It is because of Nabû-bel-šumati, Nabû-qati-ṣabat and Kiribtu that you have been treated in this way. | |
| o 99 | ||
| o 1010 | (10) When Ummanigaš came to grasp my feet and I sent my army with him, and (when) they went and defeated Teumman, did we lay our hands on the temples, cities or anything? Did we take spoils of war? Did we not pour oil on blood and become friends? | |
| o 1111 | ||
| o 1212 | ||
| o 1313 | ||
| o 1414 | ||
| o 1515 | ||
| o 1616 | ||
| o 1717 | ||
| o 1818 | (18) When I sent my army last year, we plundered your [temp]les, [...ed you]r cities [......] | |
| o 1919 | ||
| o 2020 | ||
| rest (about 5 lines) broken away | ||
| Reverse | ||
| rr | beginning (about 6 lines) broken away | |
| r 1'1' | (r 1) "[Why] have we been treated [like] this?" [I swe]ar b[y Aššur and my gods]: it is because of N[abû-bel-šumati] and his criminal accomplices that you have been treated in this way. | |
| r 2'2' | ina ⸢ŠÀ⸣ [aš-šur DINGIR-MEŠ-ía at]-⸢ta⸣-ma šum-ma la ina ⸢UGU⸣ | |
| r 3'3' | ||
| r 4'4' | ||
| r 5'5' | (r 5) To begin with, why would I persecute your country? If it were a trading post of beautiful stones or anything, I could think, "Let me seize it and add it to my country," or, "Let me take horses and mules from it and add them to my troops." | |
| r 6'6' | ||
| r 7'7' | ||
| r 8'8' | ||
| r 9'9' | ||
| r 10'10' | (r 10) I might think, "It is a source of silver and gold; let me impose tribute upon them," or, "There are things worthy of kingship there." (But) there is nothing of this or that there. Why, then, would I persecute your country? | |
| r 11'11' | ||
| r 12'12' | ||
| r 13'13' | šu-u me-me-ni ina ŠÀ-bi la-áš-šú ana-ku KUR-⸢ku⸣-nu a-na mì-ni | |
| r 14'14' | (r 14) Now then I am writing to you: Send me Nabû-bel-šumati and his accomplices, and I will promptly send you your gods and make peace. | |
| r 15'15' | ||
| r 16'16' | še-bil-a-ni bi-is ana-ku DINGIR-MEŠ-ku-nu lu-še-bil-ak-ku-nu | |
| r 17'17' | (r 17) However, if you persist in not complying, I swear by Aššur and my gods that under the aegis of gods I will make the future even more horrible than the past to you. | |
| r 18'18' | ||
| r 19'19' | ||
| r 20'20' | ||
| Top | ||
| t.e. 21t.e. 21 | (r 21) Month of Shebat (XI), eponym year of Nabû-nadin-ahi (647*). |
Adapted from Simo Parpola, The Correspondence of Ashurbanipal, Part I: Letters from Assyria, Babylonia, and Vassal States (State Archives of Assyria, 21), 2018. Adapted by Jamie Novotny and lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2018, as part of the research programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair in the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at LMU Munich (Karen Radner, Humboldt Professorship 2015). The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P423161/.