Position in chronology
SAA 10 089. Why is Nothing being Done Month after Month? (ABL 1397) [from astrologers]
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (2) [The moon] was eclip[sed ......] (3) [fa]ll of oxen [...] (4) o[f] horses [...] (5) But attention should be paid to ransoming the king's [...]! "When it (or he) emerges during it, the king will be well." I have now brought up this matter and spoken to the king, (for) it concerns us. Have we now ...ed our case [li]ttle or much? And what harm (would it do)? (13) [The king should indeed pay] attention to this matter. [Why], up to now, [the king] has not given [...]? [......]... (r 4) A reed [...] should be constructed, and (the ritual) "Giving a person's substitute to…
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334883/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x] mu šá ⸢x x⸣ [x x x x] / [d30] AN.MI is-⸢sa⸣-[kan x x x x] / [mì]-⸢qit?⸣-ti ša GUD-MEŠ* [x x x x] / ⸢ša⸣ ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ a-[x x] / ù a-na pu-ud-de-e ša ⸢x x x⸣ / LUGAL uz-nu lu-u šá-kin ma-a ki-ma ina ŠÀ-bi / it-tu-ṣi ma-a a-na LUGAL DI-mu / ú-ma-a a-bu-tu an-ni-tú / us-se-ṣi-a a-na LUGAL EN-ía aq-ṭi-bi / in*-nu-u ú-ma-a ⸢e?⸣-ṣe-e / mu-ud-de-e ni-iṭ-⸢ṭu⸣-nu / ù mi-i-nu ḫi-[ṭu] / [LUGAL]…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334883.
Attribution
Image: BM 099159 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334883). 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/P334883/.
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.