Position in chronology
SAA 10 023. Refuting a Sighting of Mercury (ABL 0037) [from astrologers]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Issar-šumu-ereš. Good health to the king, my lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord! (6) As to what the king, my lord, wrote to me: "One of your colleagues wrote to me: the planet Mercury will be visible in the month Nisan (I). What do you take the present month to be?" — we take the present month to be Adar (XII) and we take this day to be the 25th. (13) [...]... (14) [The person who] wrote this [... to the king, my lord, ...] (Break) (r 3) "An incompetent one can frustrate [a j]udge, an uneducated one can make the mighty worry" — this is…
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P333989/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-[ia] / ARAD-ka m15—MU—KAM-eš / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-⸢ia⸣ / dPA u dAMAR.UTU / a-na LUGAL EN-ía lik-ru-bu / ša LUGAL be-li iš-pur-an-ni / ma-a 01-en ina LÚ.ki-na-ta-ti-ku-nu / is-sap-ra ma-a dUDU.IDIM / ina ITI.BARAG IGI.LAL / ma-a ITI an-ni-u mì-i-nu tu-kal-la / ITI an-ni-u ITI.ŠE nu-ka-la / UD-mu an-ni-u UD 25-KÁM nu-ka-la / [x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣-ra-ni ka ⸢x⸣ ḫu / [x x x x x x]…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P333989.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P333989). source
Translation excerpted from Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P333989/.
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