Position in chronology
SAA 10 097. Consecrating a Priest (CT 53 149) [from astrologers]
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1) May [the goddess DN] subdue [......]; may she day after day, month after month and year after year present the king, my lord, with rejoicing, pride, joy, jubilation and merry mood. (5) The driller, whom your royal father shaved, used to enter the ablution chamber, and your royal father put him in charge of the statues as well. Now, he died in Elul (VI). He has left a son (who) is a novice and 'stands with his hair.' Now, if it is acceptable to the king, my lord, let them shave him. The king, my lord, knows that these are the days of the ritual — that is why I am…
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P313564/
Why it matters
Transliteration
⸢x x x x⸣ ši lu tas-ḫu-up UD-mu a-na UD-mi / ITI a-na ITI MU.AN.NA a-na MU.AN.NA / ul-ṣu bal-tu ḫi-du-tu me-lu-lu / ù nu-um-mur ka-bat-ti a-na LUGAL EN-ia / lu ta-qiš LÚ.GAR.U.U ša LUGAL AD-ka / ú-gal-lib-u-ni ina É—rin-ki er-rab / ù ina IGI ALAM-MEŠ is-se-niš LUGAL AD-ka / ip-ti-qid-su ú-ma-a ina ŠÀ ITI.KIN / me-e-te DUMU-šú ḫur-du i-ba-áš-ši / LÚ.di-di-bu-ú šu-ú TAv pi-ir-te / i-za-az ú-ma-a /…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P313564.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P313564). 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/P313564/.
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.