Position in chronology
SAA 08 294. Full Moon on 14th Day (RMA 150) [lunar]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 8(1) If the moon reaches the sun and follows it closely, and one horn me[ets] the other: there will be truth in the land, and the son will spe[ak] the truth with his father. — On the 14th day the moon and sun will be seen with each other. (7) If the moon and sun are in opposi[tion]: the king of the land wil[l widen] his understanding; the foundation of the king's throne will becom[e stable]. — On the 14th day one god will be seen with the other. (r 3) At the beginning of the year an eclipse was seen ......; on the 14th day (the moon) wa[s seen] with the sun. This is good for the king my lord. (r 7) From Nabû-iqiša of Borsippa.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 8 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
1 d30 dUTU ik-šu-ud-ma KI-šú / it-ten-tu SI SI i-⸢dir⸣ / ina KUR kit-ti GÁL-ši-ma / DUMU KI AD-šú kit-ti i-ta-[mi] / UD 14-KÁM d30 u dUTU / it-ti a-ḫa-meš IGI-MEŠ-[ma] / 1 d30 u dUTU šu-ta-⸢tu⸣-[ú] / LUGAL KUR uz-na ú-⸢rap⸣-[pa-áš] / LUGAL SUḪUŠ GIŠ.GU.ZA-šú i-⸢ka⸣-[an] / UD 14-KÁM DINGIR KI DINGIR IGI-ma / re-eš šat-ti AN.⸢MI?⸣ [x x x] / ⸢u* du* pi*⸣ ti šá IGI [x] / UD 14-KÁM KI dUTU it-⸢tan⸣-[mar] / SIG₅ šá LUGAL EN-ia šu-ú / šá mdAG—BA-šá DUMU BÁR.SIPA.KI
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 P237296.
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/P237296/..
Translation excerpted from Hunger, H. 1992. Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. SAA 8. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa08/P237296/.
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.