180 SHAWn ZeLIG ASTeR As Postgate noted, the purpose of the ceremony was not simply to convey tribute; this could have been accomplished by the emissaries bringing commodities to an Assyrian provincial governor 14. Rather, the tribute was a means of expressing the loyalty of the vassal king and his kingdom to the king of Assyria, and the ceremony of delivery was designed to emphasize this. The emissaries of the vassal king- doms delivered tribute annually to the Assyrian royal capital city. In the Assyrian records, these emissaries are called Δerāni (L¨ MAÙ). At times, the rulers themselves arrived, but more frequently they sent Δerāni. Postgate has compiled a list of the lands sending Δerāni, and has shown, based on their geographical distribution, that these are “precisely the border states of the Assyrian empire” — the lands from which tribute would be exacted 15. He shows that the time of year for the delivery was most frequently in the spring, just before the new year, which began on the first of the month of nisanu. Postgate also notes as a secondary possibility that tribute was sometimes to be de- livered in the autumn, after the campaigns 16. Although we cannot al- together exclude this possibility, all of the texts Postgate cites refer to a spring delivery. one of these (SAA Xv 60) is from a governor in the Zagros mountains, who records a royal order to “set out with your troops and tribute and come”, but he is delayed on account of unex- pectedly heavy snow. The mention of the snow clearly implies a spring date. Another letter, SAA v 52, records emissaries from Šubria who are en route to deliver tribute on 23 of Addar 17. There is no clear indication that tribute was ever expected in the fall. The Δerāni were expected to gather together and to deliver the goods in person. Their visit to the palace had ceremonial features, including an audience with the king. Postgate cites several texts in which emissaries are described as coming to the king ana ßulmu, lit- erally “for greeting”, but in practice this term designated an audience 14 J.n. PoSTGATe, Taxation and Conscription in the Assyrian Empire (Studia Pohl, Series Maior 3; Rome 1974), 121-128. 15 PoSTGATe, Taxation and Conscription, 124. 16 In Taxation and Conscription, 121. 17 The letter labelled SAA Xv 60 is noted by Postgate as k 11148, subse- quently published as letter 60 in S. PARPoLA – A. FUCHS, The Correspondence of Sargon II. Part III: Letters from Media and Babylonia (State Archives of Assyria volume 15; Helsinki 1991). The second letter noted is k 525, published as letter 52 in G.B. LAFRAnCHI – S. PARPoLA, The Correspondence of Sargon II. Part II, Letters from the northern and northeastern Provinces (State Archives of Assyria v; Helsinki 1990).