Position in chronology
SAA 08 157. Morning First of Mercury (RMA 217) [planetary]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 8(1) Mercury became visible in the east. (2) If a planet becomes visible at the beginning of a month: rain and f[lood]. (4) If a planet becomes visible either [in] Iyyar (II) or in Sivan (III): the flood will come and irrigate the fields. (7) If a planet stands in the east: attack of Subartu and the Kassites against the land. (r 1) This is the time for work. I shall go to Nineveh and station the scribes for writing in the [...] pa[lace]. I shall do whatever the k[ing my lo]rd s[ays] in the center of Nineveh. (r 7) Maybe they won't let me to enter; let them give me a sealed order. (r 9) From Nabû-mušeṣi.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 8 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
dGUD.UD ina dUTU.È IGI / 1 dUDU.IDIM ITI IGI.LAL / A.AN u A.[KAL] / 1 dUDU.IDIM šum-ma [ina] ITI.GUD / šum-ma ina ITI.SIG₄ IGI.LAL / A.KAL DU-ma A.ŠÀ A.QAR i-ma-kir / 1 dUDU.IDIM ina IM.KUR.RA GUB / ZI-ut SU.BIR₄.KI / ù kaš-ši-i ana KUR / si-mì-in dul-li šu-u / a-na URU.NINA la-al-lik / LÚ.A.BA-MEŠ a-na šá-ṭa-ri / ina É.[GAL x x] ⸢lu⸣-u-šá-⸢x x⸣ / mi-i-nu ša ⸢LUGAL⸣ [be]-lí i-[qab-bu-u-ni] / ina qab-si URU.NINA le-e-pu-uš / is—su-ri la ú-šá-ru-ni la e-rab / un-qu li-di-nu-ni / ša mdPA—mu-še-ṣi
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 P336518.
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/P336518/..
Translation excerpted from Hunger, H. 1992. Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. SAA 8. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa08/P336518/.
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.