Position in chronology
SAA 10 324. Ear Remedies (ABL 0465) [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! (8) Concerning the cure of the ears, all the preparations have been made, (but) the king did not even begin with it yesterday. Let him now carry it out today. (13) Concerning the potion about which I said in the presence of the king [......] (16) (Break) (r 1) Let him carry out these cures of the ears today. (r 4) (As) the king, my lord, knows, the ilku-duty (of the physicians) is tomorrow. A 'third man' is…
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334320/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[a-na LUGAL EN-ia] / [ARAD-ka mARAD—dna-na-a] / [lu DI-mu ad—dan-niš ad—dan-niš] / [a-na LUGAL EN-ia] / dMAŠ u dgu-la ṭu-ub lib-bi / ṭu-ub UZU a-na LUGAL / EN-ia lid-di-nu / ina UGU bu-ul-ṭi / ša UZU.PI.2 šá-aṣ-bu-tú / gab-bu : šá-ki-in ina ti-ma-li / LUGAL re-e-šú la iš-ši / ú-ma-a UD-mu an-ni-iu-u / le-pu-šú ina UGU / maš-qi-te ša ina pa-an LUGAL / ⸢aq⸣-bu-u-⸢ni⸣ [x x x x] ⸢bi*⸣ / [x x x x x x…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334320.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334320). 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/P334320/.
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.