Position in chronology
SAA 03 030. Magic against Bel-eṭir
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 3(1) [Inca]ntation. Bel-eṭir, raped captive, doubly so, runny-eyed one, doubly so, squint-eyed man, doubly so, (2) son of Ibâ, unspecified deadline, shit bucket of a farter, lowly family, servant of a dead god, house whose star has disappeared from the heavens, slave girl, woman, slave of the woman Balihitu, 'beard' of raped girls! (5) Bibiya, whose abuses are many — A[mmana]ppu gave your gypsum, saying: (6) "Firstly, his house is dark, beginning and start." He swore by Bel: "I will not let go until I have fornicated with him!" (8) Leave the (schemes) of Ammanappu, do not pursue (those) of Tammaritu! Run away from Ammanipite, keep your loins from Haimbia! I have now spoken to you: (act) according to (my instructions) and rise to me!
State Archives of Assyria, volume 3 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
⸢ÉN?⸣ mEN—KAR-ir ḫi-ib-tú ni-ku a-ki 02-ma maḫ-ḫu a-ki 02-ma bil-ṣu a-ki 02-⸢ma⸣ / A mi-ba-a a-dan-nu la—me-na-nu iš-pik ŠÈ ⸢ṣar⸣-ri-tim / qin-nu šap-il-tú ARAD ša DINGIR ⸢mi⸣-te É šá MUL-šá ina AN-e ḫal-qu / GÉME a-mil-tú ARAD šá MÍ.dKASKAL.⸢KUR⸣-tú SU₆ ni-ka-tim / mbi-bi-ía šá pi-šá-tu-šú ma-aʾ-du m⸢am⸣-[man]—⸢ap⸣-pu id-din IM.BABBAR-ka / um-ma 01.en-šú É-šú a-dir SAG u ⸢šur?⸣-ru-u ina EN…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian court poetry or literary text, edited by Alasdair Livingstone (SAA 3, 1989). ORACC text P336603.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Alasdair Livingstone, Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea (State Archives of Assyria, 3), 1989. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2019-20, as part of the research programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair in the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at LMU Munich (Karen Radner, Humboldt Professorship 2015). The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P336603/..
Translation excerpted from Livingstone, A. 1989. Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea. SAA 3. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa03/P336603/.
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.
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.
The literary tradition is no longer anonymous from this point. Authorship — the idea that a specific human voice composes a specific work — enters the historical record with her.