Just finished reading "Letters from Mesopotamia", here are some thousands of years old letters preserved in cuneiform.
1. "Mom buy me this" - Iddin-Sin to his mother
2. "Dad buy me this" - Adad-abum to his father.
3. "take my wife"
If you didn't pay your debts your family members can be confiscated.
4." to encourage the others" - letter from a military commander to the king of Mari.
5. Logistic letter requesting 10 boats of 300 kor to send 3000 kor to the kingdom of Mari.
Since a kor equals 300 liters, the capacity of each of these middle bronze age ships is 100 tons.
Relatedly
6. Letter reporting cart problems
7. Report of an investigation of a brutal murder in the kingdom of Mari.
8. Letter about a really fun military campaign, everybody was having a blast.
9. So we caught a lion
10. Letter from the king of Babylon to the king of Egypt in which the Babylonian king discovers Egypt is far away.
11. Several letters from the king of Cyprus (Alashiya) to the king of Egypt about the ongoing plague in Cyprus.
"even in my family, there was a child of my wife's who died"
12. Letter from a governor in the Levant sucking up to the king of Egypt.
"I was extremely glad when the fragrance of the king wafted towards me and there was a festival every day because I was so glad"
13. Letter to the Neo-Assyrian king, the people you appointed are drunkards.
14. Letter from the daughter of the king of Assyria to the daughter-in-law of the king, reassuring her that she is of lower status.
15. Letter describing a religious ritual between the gods in the city of Calah.
16. Neo-Assyrian letter describing an Arab raid on the desert Caravans, one of the earliest attestations of the Arabs.
17. Backroom politics between the neo-Assyrian king and his governor.
You sent troops to confiscate lapis lazuli from the people and I will pretend to be angry about it.
18. Bayblonain letter from a sister to her brother.
19. Bayblonain letter from a brother to his sister.
20. letter from the Hittite king about how murder cases are handled.
21. Letter between Anatolian merchants, admonishing not to send merchandise to those who are permanently unavailable.
Letter collection can be found here:
isac.uchicago.edu/research/publi…
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