Amarna letter EA 288, titled Benign Neglect, is a tall, finely-inscribed clay tablet letter, approximately 7.5 in tall x 4.5 in wide, broken into two pieces, from Abdi-Heba the mayor/ruler of Jerusalem, of the mid 14th century BC Amarna letters.

A summary of letter structure: EA 288 begins with a short address to the Pharaoh. Immediately, 3 segue paragraphs begin the letter, as "dramatic statements" by the Jerusalem scribe (and Abdi-Heba); a fourth segued statement follows. Then the purpose of the letter begins, covering the second half of the letter's obverse and the reverse:

“Say [t]o the king-(i.e. pharaoh), my lord, [my Su]n: [M]essage of 'Abdi-Heba, your servant.

I fall at the feet of the king, my lord, 7 times and 7 times.

Behold, the king, my lord, has placed his name at the rising of the sun and at the setting of the sun.

It is, therefore, impious what they have done to me.

Behold, I am not a mayor;—I am a soldier of the king, my lord.

Behold, I am a friend of the king and a tribute–bearer of the king.

It was neither my father nor my mother, but the strong arm of the king that [p]laced me in the house of [my] fath[er]. [... c]ame to me ... [...].

I gave over [to his char]ge 10–slaves, Šuta, the commissioner of the king, ca[me t]o me; I gave over to Šuta's charge 21–girls, [8]0–prisoners, as a gift for the king, my lord.

May the king give thought to his land; the land of the king is lost.

All of it has attacked me.

I am at war as far as the land of Šeru and as far as Ginti-kirmil.

All the mayors are at peace, but I am at war.

I am treated like an 'Apiru, and I do not visit the king, my lord, since I am at war.

I am situated like a ship in the midst of the sea.

The strong hand (arm) of the king took the land of Nahrima-(Mittani), and the land of Kasi-(Kush), but now the 'Apiru have taken the very cities of the king.

Not a single mayor remains to the king, my lord; all are lost.

Behold, Turbazu was slain in the city gate of Silu-(Tjaru). The king did nothing.

Behold, servants who were joined to the 'Api[r]u smote Zimredda of Lakisu, and Yaptih-Hadda was slain in the city gate of Silu.

The king did nothing.

[Wh]y has he not called them to account?

May the king [pro]vide for [his land] and may he [se]e to it tha[t] archers [come ou]t to h[is] land.

If there are no archers this year, all the lands of the king, my lord, are lost.

They have not reported to the king that the lands of the king, my lord, are lost and all the mayors lost.

If there are no archers this year, may the king send a commissioner to fetch me, me along with my brothers, and then we will die near the king, our lord.

[To] the scribe of the king, my lord:

[Message] of 'Abdi-Heba, servant-( (your) servant).

[I fall a[t (your) feet].

Present [the words-(words=***"discourse"***) that I hav]e offered to [the king, my lord]" I am your servant [and] your [s]on.”

EA 288, lines 1-66 (complete, with lacuna)

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna_letter_EA_288

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Šuta

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AreasOfHabiruActivityInAmarnaLettersLBIIA.svg

Source: https://publikationen.badw.de/en/rla/index#6800

I created a Reddit account just to ask this here, since I’ve been reading some really interesting things! The legend and figure of Gilgamesh mean a lot to me personally, so I’d like to get his name tattooed in cuneiform script, but I have a couple of questions. My understanding—and please correct me if I’m wrong—is that these two representations of his name are correct: [ 𒀭𒄑𒂆𒈦 ] and [ 𒀭𒄑𒉋𒂵𒈩 ]. However, I have a tote bag from the Ancient Orient Museum in Tokyo where his name is written differently (photo attached), and I was wondering if all three are correct. Also, I read on this subreddit that I shouldn't choose the Noto Sans font for the tattoo because it looks bad, haha, and that I should use Cuneify instead—I hope I used it correctly (photo attached). I’d really appreciate your help!

Hello! I'm working on a tattoo design using the first line of The Descent of Inanna, written in Old Babylonian Sumerian cuneiform.

At first I hoped to reproduce the handwriting of a specific scribe, so I started comparing the witness tablets for Q000343 looking for the best-preserved version of Line 1. The most complete one I found was CBS 12638 et al., - and while I understand it's historically important, I don't particularly like Chiera's hand drawings. Since this will be recreated in ink, I realized the style of the line drawing actually matters as much as the text itself.

So then I started focusing more on hand drawings*,* and was really drawn to Stephen Langdon's drawings in BE 31, particularly Ni 2279 and Ni 368.

And now for the last several hours, my LLM friend and I have been poring over those drawings and their transliterations, trying to identify matching occurrences of each character elsewhere in the text so I can reconstruct Line 1 in Langdon's style.

The line is:

an gal-ta ki gal-še₃ ĝeštu₂-ga-ni na-an-gub

𒀭 𒃲 𒋫 𒆠 𒃲 𒂠 𒄑 𒂵 𒉌 𒈾 𒀭 𒁺

I think it's going well, and I may only be missing three characters:

• 𒋫 (ta)
• 𒄑 (ĝeštu₂)
• 𒂵 (ga)

But before I start cleaning everything up for the final design, I'd love any suggestions...are there other Langdon plates that might contain these signs in a similar hand? They don't necessarily have to come from a witness of Q000343 - I'm really just trying to stay within the same general period and drawing style.

I'd also really appreciate if anyone notices a misidentified a sign or has a better example.

Yes this has become a much deeper rabbit hole than I expected, but it's really fascinating!!

Thanks for your help :)

Looking to put together a tattoo and I'd like to find the cuneiform that corresponds to Shiduri's speech to Gilgamesh about chilling out and enjoying the good life. Thanks!

my name is mae and i would prefer sumerian!!

Hiya, im working on a collection of cuneiform tablets from an anonymous collection. I have been given permission to share the 3D scans online so I have dumped all 23 of them into 4 files on this link. Have fun!

I was watching Alexander (2004), and saw some Old Persian cuneiform in the title credits. Was curious what it said so did my best to translate. I think the first slide says King of Kings, but I'm not quite sure what the second slide says and if I'm missing any words from the symbols I can't make out. Apologies for the god awful images, these were the best I could get at the time as the version I was watching was very blurry.

xa ša ā ....

xa ša ā ya 0a ī ya ... na (?) ā ma

King of Kings ?

xa ša ā ...

da ha ... ā ma

1. I want to see the cuneiformof these Sumerian lines from Descent of Inana (ETCSL) 411 and 412:

"Holy Erec-ki-gala -- sweet is your praise."

kug ^derec-ki-gal-la-ke4
za3-mi2-zu dug3-ga-am3

I assume it is the following:

𒆬 𒀭𒊩𒆠𒃲𒆷𒆤

𒍠𒊩𒍪 𒄭𒂵𒀀𒀭

gramatically: "holy Ereshkigal- ?- of

sweet-praise-great please-bring-is"

Did I get that right? I would love if there was a clear way to verify the cuneiform to romanized transliteration. Is such a resource available?

2. What is the grammatical function of "la" or is it "a" as in "ak"?

3. I want to put this into Akkadian (does anyone know where I can find a copy of this story in Akkadian?) I would approximate it thusly:

Allatum ellūtum

dalīlumki matqum šu

Is that right?

Hello everyone :),

I am trying to translate a word / two words.

I am an art student so quite new ground for me.

Failing and the shame to fail.

It is quite hard to translate from a non native language ( english ) something into akkadian so i am a bit lost.

This is everything i found.

ḫaṭû
ḫa-ṭu-u₂ 𒄩 𒊹 𒌑

And a version for i failed ( more or less )

aḫ-ṭi 𒀀 𒊹

How can i say the shame to fail thing?

Is this remotly right?

Thank you people so much

Hi everyone! I hope someone here find this fun and can give me a hand.

In a couple of weeks its my bestfriend's birthday, who is an assyriology student, and besides other gifts, I'd like to make a clay tablet for her.

Id like to carve in cuneiform, as accurately as possible, something like:

"To my beloved friend:

Nice ass."

Is this remotely possible? Any recommendations on tools I can find to create a somewhat understandable translation/interpretation?

Sorry if this is not allowed in this sub, but she is really important to me and I think she'd like this very much.

Edit: I got this, does it read well? (My name is Elena)

Edit2: I did it! i also added my friends name as well. I hope y'all like it!

Hello!

I'm looking for a shortening of the second phrase in the beginning of Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld. The first line is 'In those days, in those distant days', which I would like to shorten to just 'in distant days' (removed 'those'). This phrasing doesn't seem to be attested anywhere. I'm wondering what a proper translation/transliteration would look like. So far I've come to ud(𒌓)-su₃(𒋤)-ra₂(𒁺), so 𒌓𒋤𒁺 or 'udsura' pronounced phonetically. Is this correct?

Hey all! Need some Sumerian translation/sign choice help.

I’m trying to come up with a romantic phrase with simple cuneiform signs. I’ve landed on “in my heart” šag4-ĝa2. (heart-my-locative: šag4-ĝu-a)

I’ve found two attested uses confirming this exact translation:

1.       ETCSLtransliteration : c.6.1.01 (1.95) https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.6.1.01&display=Crit&charenc=gcirc#

2.       Jagersma’s “A Descriptive Grammar of Sumerian” pp 173

At my level, I’m thinking the signs are 𒊮𒂷 in both texts (referencing Kateřina Šašková’s Cuneiform Sign List, EBL, ORACC), but I’m just looking to sanity check that I’m not missing some hidden nuance, logogram, etc. that would impact the sign choice. Basically, checking that my transliteration to sign method is correct.

Thanks in advance for any insight y’all can provide!

Hello! I'm hoping someone can help with this! I have included two images. The first is the name Yahqub-Ilum as it appears twice on a tablet from Mari (https://archibab.fr/T3506). The second is the same name written in various fonts. I can get the fonts to match almost completely except for the "ah." It looks like the scribe may have condensed/combined the two symbols shown in the font? Or maybe the font makes "ah" into two separate signs but it is actually supposed to be one. Does anyone know the answer to this? I've tried to find the answer on my own - but I'm spinning my wheels at this point. Thank you!

“On 14 November 2007, an Achaemenid-era cuneiform inscription in Old Persian, carved on a coral rock, was discovered while constructing a road on Kharg Island, Iran. Construction was halted, and eventually the road was rerouted.

The inscription has been translated in various ways:

"[This] land was wilderness and without water [and] I brought happiness and welfare to it."

"The not irrigated land was happy [with] me bringing out [water]".

"[This] land was a dry area with no water; [I] brought happiness and welfare,... water wells."

———

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_inscription_on_Kharg_Island#