Position in chronology
SAA 08 449. New Moon on 1st Day (RMA 013) [lunar]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) If the moon becomes visible on the 1st day: reliable speech; the land will become happy. (2) If the moon at its appearance [wears a] cr[own: regular]ly the harvest of the land will prosp[er; the land will live as if in pastures near the city]; the king [will reach] the highest r[ank]. (5) From Ahhešâ of [Uruk].
Source: Hunger, H. 1992. Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. SAA 8. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa08/P237908/
Why it matters
Transliteration
1 30 UD 01-KÁM IGI KA GI.NA ŠÀ KUR DÙG-ab / 1 30 ina IGI.LAL-šú ⸢AGA⸣ [a-pir SAG.UŠ]-⸢ma*⸣ / BURU₁₄ KUR SI.⸢SÁ⸣ [KUR a-bur-riš TUŠ]-⸢ab⸣ / LUGAL SAG.⸢KAL⸣-[tú DU] / šá mŠEŠ-MEŠ-šá-a LÚ.[UNUG.KI-a.a]
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 P237908.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P237908). 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/P237908/.
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.