Position in chronology
SAA 10 320. Give Me a Month’s Leave, Please (ABL 0109) [from physicians]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Urad-Nanaya: The very best of health to the king, my lord! May Ninurta and Gula give happiness and physical well-being to the king, my lord! (7) Aššur-mukin-palu'a is doing very well. The king should not be afraid of this fever which has two or three times seized him; his pulse is normal and sound; he is well. (13) The baby, the crown prince and [all] the children [of the king, my lord] are (likewise) doing well. (r 1) Concerning the cure of the teeth about which the king wrote to me, I will (now) begin with it; there are a great number of remedies for…
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334058/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-ia / ARAD-ka mARAD—dna-na-a / lu šul-mu ad—dan-niš ad—dan-niš / a-na LUGAL EN-ia / dMAŠ u dgu-la DÙG-ub lib-bi / DÙG-ub UZU-MEŠ a-na LUGAL EN-ia / lid-di-nu šul-mu ad—dan-niš / a-na maš-šur—mu-kin—BALA-u-a / ḫu-un*-ṭu* an-⸢ni*⸣-u* ša* 02*-šú* 03*-šú / ⸢iṣ*⸣-bat-ú*-šú*-ni* LUGAL* / la i*-pa-làḫ sa-[kik]-ku*-šú / DI ⸢ta*⸣-ri*-⸢iṣ*⸣ šul*-mu* šu*-ú / šul-mu a-na la*-ku-ú / a*-⸢na*…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334058.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334058). 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/P334058/.
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.