Position in chronology
SAA 10 291. Poor Reading (ABL 0873) [from exorcists]
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning lost) (1) May they give [...], vigour, happiness and physical well-being to the king, my lord, like the king, my lord, has remembered his servant. (5) Concerning what the king, my lord, wrote to me, it was indeed not well read, I did not read well. (10) The king, my lord, knows that Nabû-gamil and Inurta-ahu-iddina are busy and Sumaya son of Nabû-zeru-lešir is ill. If it is acceptable the king, my lord, let them commission Balassu son of Nabû-ahu-iddina. (r 7) [Also t]o the crown-prince [...] (Rest broken away)
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334600/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x] ⸢x x x⸣ [x x] TI.LA / ù ṭu-ub ŠÀ-bi ṭu-ub UZU-MEŠ / a-na LUGAL EN-ia lid-di-nu / ki-i šá LUGAL be-li ARAD-šú / ḫa-si-is-u-ni ina UGU šá LUGAL / be-li iš-pu-ra-an-ni / ket-tu la dam-mu-qu / la sa-su-ú šu-u / la ú-dam-mi-iq la as-si / LUGAL be-li ú-da / mdAG—ga-mil mdMAŠ—PAB—AŠ / dul-la-šú-nu / i-ba-áš-ši / msu-ma-a.a / DUMU mdPA—NUMUN—GIŠ GIG-iṣ / šúm-mu ina IGI LUGAL EN-ia / ma-ḫi-ir a-na mba-la-su / DUMU mdAG—PAB—AŠ / ṭè-e-mu liš-ku-nu / [ù a]-⸢na⸣ DUMU*—MAN
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334600.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334600). 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/P334600/.
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.