Position in chronology
SAA 10 048. Can the Crown Prince Come While Mars is Bright? (ABL 0356) [from astrologers]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Balasî. Good health to the king, my lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord! (6) Concerning the crown prince about whom the king, my lord, wrote to me: "The planet Mars is bright" — (true), Mars will be clothed with brilliance right into the month Iyyar (II); (so) when is it that he (= the crown prince) can come into the presence of the king? (15) When Mars is bright, have we got no profit from it? He will not return to the area of Subartu; he will not go outside, either. There is nothing (wrong) — he will come into the presence of the king…
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334232/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-ia / ARAD-ka mba-la-si-i / lu-u šul-mu a-na LUGAL / EN-ia dPA dAMAR.UTU / a-na LUGAL EN-ia lik-ru-bu / ina UGU DUMU—LUGAL / ša LUGAL be-lí iš-pur-an-ni / ma-a MUL.ṣal-bat-a-nu / ba-ʾi-il MUL.ṣal-bat-a-nu / a-du ŠÀ ITI.GUD ba-ʾi-il / šá-ru-ri na-a-ši / im—ma-te-em-ma šu-ú / ki-i ina pa-an LUGAL / er-ra-bu-u-ni / MUL.ṣal-bat-a-nu / ki-ma ba-ʾi-il / in-nu-ú / zi-it-ti-in-ni / ina ŠÀ-bi…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334232.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334232). 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/P334232/.
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