Position in chronology
SAA 10 197. Blessing the King (ABL 0007) [from exorcists]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Adad-šumu-uṣur. Good health to the king, my lord! (4) The charge of the 'Lady of Cults' is doing very well; the king, my lord, can be very happy indeed. (7) May Aššur, Sin, Šamaš, Adad, Nu[sku], Jupiter, Venus, Marduk, [Zarpanitu], Nabû, Tašmetu, Sa[turn], Mercury, Lady [of Nineveh], Lady of Kidmuri, [Lady] of Arbela, Ninurta, [Gula], Nergal and Laṣ, the great gods of heaven and earth, the gods dwelling in Assyria, [the gods] dwelling in Akkad, and all the gods of the world [very greatly bless the ki]ng, [my lord], and may they give [the king], my [lord,…
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P333959/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / ARAD-ka mdIM—MU—ú-ṣur / lu DI-mu a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / a-na pi-qit-ti ša dGAŠAN—GARZA / DI-mu a—dan-niš ŠÀ-bu šá LUGAL EN-[ia] / a—dan-niš a—dan-niš lu-u ṭa-a-ba / daš-šur d30 dUTU dIM d⸢PA⸣.[TÚG] / dSAG.ME.GAR ddil-bat dAMAR.UTU ⸢d⸣[zar-pa-ni-tum] / dAG dtaš-me-tum dUDU.[IDIM.SAG.UŠ] / dUDU.IDIM.GUD.UD dšar-⸢rat⸣—[URU.NINA.KI] / dšar-rat—kid-mu-ri d[šar-rat] / URU.arba-ìl…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P333959.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P333959). 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/P333959/.
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.