Position in chronology
SAA 08 442. New Moon on 30th Day (RMA 073) [lunar]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) If the moon becomes visible in Ab (V) on the 30th day: dispersal of Akkad. (3) May the king of the world, my lord, not abandon me! Every day I approach the king because of my hunger, and now he assigned me to (making) bricks, saying: "Make bricks!" May the king my lord not abandon me so that I do not (have to) die! (r 7) From Ṭabiya.
Source: Hunger, H. 1992. Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. SAA 8. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa08/P237637/
Why it matters
Transliteration
1 30 ina ITI.NE UD 30-KÁM IGI-ir / BIR-aḫ KUR—URI.KI / LUGAL kiš-šá-ti be-lí-a / la ú-maš-šar-an-ni a-na-ku / UD-mu-us-su a-na UGU / bu-bu-ti-ia LUGAL a-maḫ-ḫar / u en-na a-na SIG₄ it-ta-as-ki-in-ni / um-ma li-bit-ti li-bi-in / LUGAL be-lí-ia la ú-maš-šar-an-ni-ma / la a-ma-ti / šá mṭa-bi-ia
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 P237637.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P237637). source
Translation excerpted from Hunger, H. 1992. Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. SAA 8. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa08/P237637/.
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.