Simo Parpola - Böcker

This volume is a continuation of the publication of the correspondence of Sargon II begun in SAA 1. The letters published in this volume are of special interest because of the particular geographical area from which they originate. This area extends, in the shape of a broad crescent, roughly from the Euphrates of the Diyala river, surround and enclosing the Mesopotamian plain to the north and to the NE. From the geographical point of view, the various territories which lie in this wide area all share a common feature: they represent the transition from the alluvial plain or the piedmont to the highlands of Anatolia and Iran, such as the eastern Taurus or the Zagros chain.

The State Archives of Assyria project is an ambitious computerized program that aims to present the entire extant corpus of Neo-Assyrian texts in transliteration and translation. The present volume is one of four to be devoted to the correspondence of Sargon, founder of the last imperial dynasty of Assyria, and his officials. 258 letters are treated, many of which have previously appeared only in cuneiform copies; three fragments were hitherto quite unpublished. The text editions—transliterations and translations side by side, with a minimum of apparatus criticus—are liberally interspersed with photographs and line-drawings of basreliefs from various Assyrian palaces, which illustrate passages in the correspondence. A glossary introduces the various indexes. The volume closes with autograph collations of difficult or broken passages.