Tuesday, November 3, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org

The Letter of Ilum-ma

✦ ─── ⟐ ─── ✦

A Letter from Sippar-Amnanum

A personal letter on a clay tablet from Sippar-Amnanum, a city on the Euphrates in central Mesopotamia, written circa 1800 BCE during the Old Babylonian period. Ilum-ma writes to his friend Ikupisha in a state of fear and confusion. He has visited a man named Ishim-Shulgi, whose actions have terrified him. He questions what he has done to offend Shamash, the god of justice, and uses a vivid simile — a bird fleeing a falcon into the arms of a man — to describe his desperate state. He asks the sun god to advise him whether he should die or live.

The letter contains a nested message: Ilum-ma dictates words for Ikupisha to relay to their lord, Ilum-ma-Ila, explaining his journey to the governor. On the clay envelope, he adds urgent practical instructions — guard the house, ask about delays in fortress construction. Fear, theology, politics, and domestic worry share the same fifty-two lines.

The tablet is preserved in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad (IM.49219). It was transliterated for the Electronic Babylonian Literature project (eBL) by de Boer and revised by Kolba (2023).

Translation

Obverse

1. To Ikupisha

2. speak!

3. Thus says Ilum-ma:1

4. To Ishim-Shulgi2

5. I went.

6. By sorcery(?)3

7. they are making me anxious.4

8. What have I done

9. that is not pleasing to Shamash, that

10. this deed5

11. he has done to me?

12. Like a bird

13. that, before a falcon,

14. into the lap of a man

15. flies in,6

16. in my fear

17. I came in.

18. May Shamash give me counsel:

19. either let me die,

Reverse

1. or let me live!

2. We are not cheerful,7 and

3. I have not sent you my news.

4. Guilt

5. toward Ilumma-ila,

6. my lord,

7. I have not borne.8

8. Why

9. has the god done this to me?

10. To Ilumma-ila

11. speak thus;

12. say this:

13. "Since the governor9

14. has written to me five times."

15. And this is my own word:

16. "Let me go,

17. let me meet [him there],10 and

18. let me come back.

19. Let my lord not be troubled;

20. in this matter be at ease(?)."11

Left edge

Column 1

1. Please, it is urgent!

2. The house

3. behind me12

Column 2

4. keep safe.

5. Sin-iddinam

6. ask, and:13

7. If habderah14

Column 3

8. a fort(?)15

9. to build

10. he has held back.

11. To Ilumma-ila

12. speak, and the brick(?)16

13. [...]

Notes on the reading

This is an Old Babylonian private letter from Sippar-Amnanum, in which Ilum-ma writes to Ikupisha in distress after a journey to Ishim-Shulgi, asking why Shamash and "the god" have struck him, and giving her (or him) a message to carry to his lord Ilumma-ila about a summons from the governor. Its most striking passage is the simile of the bird that flees from a falcon into a man's lap, which the writer uses for his own frightened coming-in. The hardest readings are ip-ši-iš (obv. 6), taken as "by sorcery," and ne-eh-šu (rev. 20), taken as "be at ease"; both are flagged. On the left edge the instructions to keep the house safe are clear, but ha-ab-de-ra-ah (col. 2) is unreadable as Akkadian, du-na-am is only probably "a fort," and the last two lines of column 3 are so damaged and doubtful that only "speak" survives with confidence; line 13 is left as a gap.

Colophon

A Good Works Translation from the Akkadian by the Good Works Library, 2026, made directly from the eBL transliteration of IM 49219 printed below. Before translating, every English translation line and editorial note was removed from the working text, so the English here is independently derived from the cuneiform signs. The translation was then checked line by line against the Akkadian by a second reader. Each line of the English renders the source line with the same number. Broken passages stay broken: [...] marks a gap, and words in square brackets are restorations, explained in the notes.

Earlier English translation: the English translation given line by line in the Electronic Babylonian Literature (eBL) corpus (freely available). This is a new translation made independently from the source language.

Prepared for the Good Work Library by the Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted translation and editorial work.

© 2026 Tianmu Anglican Church. This English translation is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: you may share and adapt it for non-commercial use with credit to the Good Works Library, tianmu.org. The source text keeps its own terms. For other uses, see Rights and Reuse.

🌲

Source Text: IM 49219 (transliteration)

Akkadian transliteration from the Electronic Babylonian Literature (eBL) corpus, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, licensed CC BY 4.0, with its English translation lines and notes omitted. %n marks eBL's normalized Akkadian, and %akk the return to the transliteration.

Obverse

  1. a-na i-ku-pi₂-ša

  2. qi₂-bi₂-ma

  3. um-ma DINGIR-ma-ma

  4. a-na i-šim-{d}šul-gi

  5. at-ta-la-ak

  6. ip-ši-iš

  7. u₂-ha-da-ru-ni-ni

  8. mi-na-am e#-pu-uš

  9. ša {d}UTU la ṭa₃-bu-šu-um-ma

  10. e-pe₂-<ša>-am an-ne-am

  11. i-te-ep-ša-ni

  12. ki-ma i-ṣu₂-ri-im

  13. ša i-na pa-ni ka-su-si₂-im

  14. a-na su₂-un a-wi-li-im

  15. i-ru-bu

  16. i-na pu-lu-uh-ti-ia

  17. e-ru-ub

  18. {d}UTU | li-im-li-ka-ni

  19. u₃-lu lu-mu-ut

Reverse

  1. u₃-lu lu-ub-lu-uṭ

  2. u₂-la ni-na-wi-ir-ma

  3. ṭe₄-mi u₂-la a-di-ku-um

  4. ar-na-am

  5. a-na DINGIR-ma-i₃-la

  6. be-li-ia

  7. u₂-la ub!-la-am

  8. a-na mi-ni-im

  9. i-lu-um ki#-am i-pu-ša-ni

  10. a-na DINGIR-ma-i₃-la

  11. ki-am qi₂-bi

  12. um-ma at-ta-ma

  13. ki-ma ša-ka-na-ku-um

  14. ha-am-ši-šu iš-pu-ra-am

  15. um-ma a-na-ku-ma

  16. lu-li-ik

  17. lu-na-am-ra-am-ma

  18. lu-ut-ta-al-ka-am

  19. be-li la i-ha-da-ra-am

  20. i-na a-wa-ti-im ne-eh-šu

Left edge

Column 1

  1. a#-pu-tum

  2. bi-ta-am

  3. wa-ar-ka-ti

Column 2

  1. šu-li-im

  2. {d}SUEN-i-din-nam

  3. ša-al-ma

  4. šum-ma ha-ab-de-ra-ah

Column 3

  1. du-na-am

  2. e-pe₂-ša-am

  3. ik-ta-la

  4. a-na DINGIR-ma-i₃-la

  5. qi₂-bi₂-ma li#?-bi#?-tu?-um?

  6. la#? i?-qa₂#?-li?-il#? li?-it?-hu?-ši?

Source Colophon

Transliteration of IM 49219 from the Electronic Babylonian Literature (eBL) project, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (ebl.lmu.de), DOI 10.5281/zenodo.10018951, CC BY 4.0, fetched 2026-10-16. eBL's English translation lines and notes were removed before translation.

🌲

Footnotes

  1. The sender's name is written DINGIR-ma, "Ilum-ma" (or "Ilumma"); the line reads umma Ilumma-ma, the usual "thus says" formula. ↩

  2. Ishim-Shulgi is taken as a place name (a town) because the verb is "I went." It could in principle be a person, "to (the house of) Ishim-Shulgi." ↩

  3. ip-ši-iš is the hardest word on the obverse. It is read here as the noun ipšu, "(magical) working, sorcery," with the adverbial ending -iš, "by means of a working." This fits what follows ("what have I done to Shamash ... this deed he has done to me"), but it is not certain; a verbal form from pašāšu, "to anoint," is also possible in shape and would make poor sense. ↩

  4. u₂-ha-da-ru-ni-ni, uhaddarūninni, is the D present (durative), not a preterite (which would be uhaddirū-): the trouble is ongoing. ↩

  5. The sign ša is missing on the tablet and is supplied by the editor (e-pe₂-<ša>-am), giving epēšam annêm, "this deed." ↩

  6. Lines 12–15 are one clause in Akkadian: "like a bird that enters a man's lap before a falcon." Line 14 has no verb, only ana sūn awīlim, "into the lap of a man." The one verb, irrubu, "enters," stands on line 15 and is rendered there as "flies in" so that the English reads naturally; it echoes ērub, "I came in," on line 17. ↩

  7. ula ninawwir is read as G present first-person plural of nawāru, "to be bright," that is, "we are not bright (of face)," a common way of saying "we are not glad." The plural may include the writer's household. ↩

  8. arnam ... ula ublam: "I have not carried guilt to," that is, "I have committed no offense against" my lord. The sign ub is marked as corrected by the editor (ub!). ↩

  9. kīma marks lines 13–14 as a subordinate clause, "since" or "that the governor has written to me five times." ↩

  10. lu-na-am-ra-am-ma is read as N precative of amāru, lunnamram, "let me meet / present myself," with the ventive. Who is to be met (the governor, most likely) is not stated; "[him there]" is supplied for English and is not in the Akkadian. ↩

  11. ne-eh-šu is uncertain. It is taken as related to nêhu, "to be calm," hence "be at ease," but the form is irregular and could hide a different word (for instance from nahāšu, "to prosper"). The signs themselves are intact; it is the meaning that is uncertain. ↩

  12. warkatī may mean "behind me," "after my departure," or "my estate"; the house is to be cared for in the writer's absence. ↩

  13. ša-al-ma is read as the imperative šāl, "ask!", with -ma: "ask Sin-iddinam, and ...," leading into the "if" of line 7. A stative "Sin-iddinam is well" is less likely, since for one man it would normally be written ša-li-im(-ma), šalim. ↩

  14. ha-ab-de-ra-ah is clearly written but yields no known Akkadian word; it may be a scribal error or a foreign word. It is left untranslated. ↩

  15. du-na-am is read as dunnam, "fortified place / fort." It might instead be a different noun; the reading is uncertain. ↩

  16. The end of line 12 (li#?-bi#?-tu?-um?) is damaged and every sign is doubtful; "brick" (libittum) is only a possible reading. The transliteration shows no break after these signs, so no gap is marked, but the sentence is left unfinished in the English because its sense cannot be recovered. Line 13 (la#? i?-qa₂#?-li?-il#? li?-it?-hu?-ši?) is marked doubtful in every sign and is left as a gap; it might contain "let him not slight" (la iqallil), but that cannot be relied on. ↩