Position in chronology
SAA 10 032. (no title) (ABL 0672) [from astrologers]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [To the king], my lord: [your servant Issar-šumu]-ereš. [Good health t]o the king, my [lord]! [May Nabû and Mar]duk [bl]ess [the king, my lord]! (7) [As to what the king, my lo]rd, [wrote to m]e: "[......] (Break) (r 2) there is [...] (r 3) they perform [...] (r 4) let them place [...] (r 5) Perhaps [the time of] its sighting is suitable [...].
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334470/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[a-na LUGAL] EN-ia / [ARAD-ka m15—MU]—KAM-eš / [lu DI-mu a]-⸢na⸣ LUGAL / [EN]-ia / [dAG u dAMAR].UTU / [a-na LUGAL EN-ia lik]-⸢ru⸣-bu / [ša LUGAL be]-⸢li*⸣ / [iš-pur-an]-⸢ni*⸣ / [x x x x] ⸢x⸣ [x x] / [x x x x] i-ba-áš-ši / [x x x] ⸢ep⸣-pu-šú / [x x x]-⸢nu⸣ liš-ku-nu / [x x x x]+⸢x⸣ is—su-ri / [si-man? ta]-mar-ti-šá / [x x x] ⸢ta⸣-ri-iṣ
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334470.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334470). 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/P334470/.
Related tablets
Related sources
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.
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.