Position in chronology
SAA 08 443. Occultation of Pleiades (RMA 243A) [planetary]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [If] the Pleiades enter the moon and come out to the north: Akkad will become happy; the king of Akkad will become strong and have no rival. (6) From Ṭabiya.
Source: Hunger, H. 1992. Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. SAA 8. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa08/P238063/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[1] MUL.MUL ana ŠÀ 30 TU-MEŠ-ma / ana IM.SI.SÁ È-MEŠ / ŠÀ-bi KUR—URI.KI i-ṭa-ab / LUGAL URI.KI i-dan-nin-ma / GABA.RI NU TUK-ši / 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 P238063.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P238063). 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/P238063/.
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.