Position in chronology
SAA 13 073. Complaint of Sickness (ABL 0203)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant, Nergal-šarrani. Good health to the king, my lord. May Nabû and Marduk greatly bless the king, my lord. (7) Today it is a month since I have been ill and since this acute pain has been piercing me. They have pierced my... and jaw. (r 1) I am being told: "You are afflicted with the 'hand of Venus,' due to intercourse with women." I am afraid. There is (nothing) I can do without the king's permission. (r 7) Now, therefore, I am writing to the king, my lord. Let the word come forth from the king that he should act and get me through this [sick]ness of mine.
Source: Cole, S.W. & Machinist, P. 1998. Letters from Priests to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. SAA 13. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa13/P334147/
Translation · AI engine
read from photoTo the king, my lord — your servant Nergal-šarrani: May there be well-being for the king, my lord. May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord, exceedingly. This month, on this very day, I have been ill since the house. It is colic — since it seized me in the house altogether it has been little; they have been pressed (with colic). 'It is the hand of Venus — you are ill. Because of the small (matter?) of the fire-offerings I am afraid; without the king I cannot act.' Now, therefore, I have written to the king, my lord. At the word of the king let (a remedy) be selected — let it be applied. From my illness, may he let me pass through.
7 uncertain terms ↓
- mdU.GUR—MAN-an-ni — Nergal-šarrani: 'Nergal is (my) king'; the theophoric element U.GUR = Nergal is certain; the name is attested in SAA 13.
- si-iḫ-lu — Akkadian siḫlu, conventionally 'colic' or 'a painful gastric/intestinal condition'; some render it 'mustard (seed used as medicine)' but in medical epistolary contexts the illness meaning is standard.
- ŠU.2 ddil-bat — 'Hand of Venus (Dilbat)': a standard Mesopotamian medical-omen diagnosis attributing illness to the agency of the planet Venus; ŠU.2 (literally 'two hands') here means 'agency/touch of'.
- si-iḫ-ir ša i-sa-a-te — Literally 'small/minor thing of the fire-offerings (isātu)'; the precise referent is unclear — possibly a neglected fire-ritual is being cited as the cause of the illness. Reading of si-iḫ-ir is marked uncertain (?) in the transliteration.
- li-in-qu-ta — From naqātu, 'to select, choose'; here likely 'let (a remedy/prescription) be chosen/selected'. Some editions translate 'let it be prepared'.
- lu-u-še-ti-iq — Šutēqu D-stem, 'to cause to pass through/over'; idiom for recovery from illness: 'may he (the king / a god) let me pass through (my illness)'.
- PAB*.GAR*.GAR* — Asterisks in the transliteration indicate uncertain sign readings; the logographic sequence is rendered 'altogether/in total it is little' following the standard SAA 13 edition, but remains epigraphically uncertain.
Reasoning ↓
Photo examined: the British Museum object K.577 is visible in multiple views (obverse, reverse, edges, top and bottom). The tablet is a small clay prism/cylinder, approximately 4–5 cm tall per the scale bar. The upper set of views shows a densely inscribed obverse with clearly ruled lines of Assyrian cursive cuneiform; wedge impressions are reasonably crisp on the upper face though the dark patina and photographic lighting make individual signs difficult to resolve at this reproduction size. The lower set of views shows the reverse side, also inscribed; the bottom view shows a heavily worn or smooth base. A museum label 'K.577' is visible on two sides. Individual signs are not resolvable with confidence at this image resolution: I can confirm the presence of multiple lines of text consistent with a Neo-Assyrian administrative or epistolary tablet, but I cannot independently verify specific sign readings against the transliteration from the photograph alone. The transliteration is treated as primary. This is a letter from Nergal-šarrani to the king (likely Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal) reporting his illness, identifying it as colic (siḫlu), invoking the 'hand of Venus' as a diagnostic omen, and requesting royal authorisation for treatment; the genre and formulae are well paralleled in SAA 10 and SAA 13 medical/scholarly correspondence. Several phrases remain uncertain: the diagnosis formula, the reference to fire-offerings, and the final line.
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Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-ia / ARAD-ka mdU.GUR—MAN-an-ni / lu-u DI-mu a-na LUGAL / EN-ia dPA u dAMAR.UTU / a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / a—dan-niš lik-ru-bu / ITI ina UD-me an-ni-i / TAv bé-et mar-ṣa-ku-u-ni / si-iḫ-lu šu-ú / TAv bé-et i-sa-ḫal-an-ni-ni / ⸢PAB*⸣.GAR*.GAR* i-su / is-sa-aḫ-lu / ma-a ŠU.2 ddil-bat / mar-ṣa-a-ka / ma-a ina UGU si-iḫ-ir? / ⸢ša*⸣ i-sa-a-te / pa-al-ḫa-ak / šá la LUGAL la e-pa-áš / ú-ma-a an-nu-rig / a-na LUGAL EN-ía as-sap-ra / ina pi-i ša LUGAL / li-in-qu-ta / le-e-pu-uš / TAv [mur]-⸢ṣi⸣-ía lu-u-še-ti-iq
Scholarly note
Letter from a temple priest or ritual official to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Steven Cole & Peter Machinist (SAA 13, 1998). ORACC text P334147.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334147). source
Translation excerpted from Cole, S.W. & Machinist, P. 1998. Letters from Priests to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. SAA 13. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa13/P334147/.
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