Position in chronology
SAA 08 065. Full Moon on 14th Day (RMA 139) [lunar]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) If the moon and sun are in balance: reliable speech will be placed in the mouth of people; the king of the world will make the throne last long. (4) — It will be seen on the 14th day. The remainder of the words are (also) favorable for the king my lord; (when the moon) went into clouds we did not see it. (8) If the moon at its appearance glides through clouds: the flood will come. (r 1) "to glide" is "to go." (r 2) If the moon at its appearance "piles up" the sky: it will rain. (r 4) — It is seen in a piled-up cloud. (r 5) From Nabû-ahhe-eriba.
Source: Hunger, H. 1992. Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. SAA 8. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa08/P336459/
Why it matters
Transliteration
1 d30 dšá-maš ši-it-qu-lu / at-mu-u ke-e-nu ina KA UN-MEŠ GAR-an / LUGAL kiš-šá-ti GIŠ.GU.ZA ú-lab-bar / UD 14-KÁM in-na-mar-ma / re-eḫ-ti di-ib-bi du-un-qu / šá LUGAL EN-ia ina ŠÀ IM.DIRI-MEŠ / il-lak la né-mur / 1 30 ina IGI.LAL-šú / ina IM.DIRI-MEŠ DIRI-pu / A.KAL il-la-ak / né-eq-il-pu-u a-la-ku / 1 30 ina IGI.LAL-šú / AN-ú / DUB-ik / zu-un-nu iz-za-nun / ina IM.DIRI šá-pi-ik-ti in-na-mar-ma / šá mdPA—PAB-MEŠ—SU
Scholarly note
Astrological report from a court scholar to an Assyrian king, edited by Hermann Hunger (SAA 8, 1992). Celestial and meteorological observation correlated with omens. ORACC text P336459.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P336459). source
Translation excerpted from Hunger, H. 1992. Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. SAA 8. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa08/P336459/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
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.