Position in chronology
SAA 08 055. Venus Approaching Scorpius (RMA 112) [planetary]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 8(1) [If the moon] is surrounded [by a halo] and Cancer stands [in it]: the king of Akkad will extend the life. (3) This [night] (the moon) was surrounded by a halo, it did not close. (4) [If] the moon is surrounded by a drawing: there will be an eclipse. (5) Eclipse (means) trouble. (6) This night (the moon) was surrounded by a drawing, it did not close. (7) If Venus comes close to Scorpius: winds which are not good will blow towards the land; Adad will give his rains, and Ea his springs, to the Gutian land. (r 3) If (Venus) came close to the Breast of Scorpius, it would be copied like this;…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 8 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[1 30 TÙR] NIGIN-ma MUL.AL.LUL / [ina ŠÀ-šú] GUB-iz LUGAL URI.KI TI.LA ur-rak / [mu-šu] an-ni-ú TÙR NIGIN la ik-ṣur / [1] d30 GIŠ.ḪUR NIGIN AN.MI / GAR-an / AN.MI du-luḫ-ḫu-u / mu-šu an-ni-ú GIŠ.ḪUR NIGIN la ik-ṣur / 1 MUL.dil-bat a-na MUL.GÍR.TAB TE-ḫi / TU₁₅-MEŠ / NU DÙG.GA-MEŠ a-na KUR il-la-ku / dIM A.AN-MEŠ-šú dÉ.A nag-bi-šú / ana KUR gu-ti-e i-nam-din / ki-ma a-na MUL.GABA—GÍR.TAB iṭ-ṭi-ḫi…
Scholarly note
Astrological report from a court scholar to an Assyrian king, edited by Hermann Hunger (SAA 8, 1992). Celestial and meteorological observation correlated with omens. ORACC text P336434.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Hermann Hunger, Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings (State Archives of Assyria, 8), 1992. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2016-17, as part of the research programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair in the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at LMU Munich (Karen Radner, Humboldt Professorship 2015). The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P336434/..
Translation excerpted from Hunger, H. 1992. Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. SAA 8. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa08/P336434/.
Related tablets
Related sources
Whatever its purpose, this single tablet shows that Babylonian mathematicians, working in base-60, had an arithmetic understanding of right triangles a millennium before Pythagoras was born.
The single most important literary discovery of the 19th century. It rewired the understanding of the Bible's literary context and proved that the Mesopotamian flood tradition is older. It is the oldest surviving epic poetry in human history.
The literary tradition is no longer anonymous from this point. Authorship — the idea that a specific human voice composes a specific work — enters the historical record with her.