Position in chronology
SAA 08 260. New Moon (RMA 047A) [lunar]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [......] will devour. (4) [If the moon at its appearance] wears a crown: the king will reach the highest rank. (6) [If the moon] wears [a crown of a dark day: the moon god] will smite [the enemy. A dark day means] a cloudy [day]. (r 2) [If at the moon's appearance] its right horn becomes long, and its left [horn] short: [the king] will conquer a land not his own. (r 6) [From Nergal-eṭ]ir.
Source: Hunger, H. 1992. Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. SAA 8. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa08/P238048/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x x x x x x] / [x x x x x x x x] / [x x x x x x] KÚ / [1 30 ina IGI.LAL-šú] AGA a-pir / LUGAL [a-šá-ri]-du-ti il-lak / [1 30 AGA UD.ŠÚ.ŠÚ].⸢RU⸣ a-pir / [30 KÚR i]-maḫ-ḫa-aṣ / [UD.ŠÚ.ŠÚ.RU UD] er-pi / [1 30 ina IGI.LAL-šú] ⸢SI ZAG⸣-šú GÍD.DA-ma / [SI] KAB-šú ik-ru / [LUGAL] KUR la šu-a-tum ŠU-su / i-kaš-šad / [šá mdU.GUR—KAR]-ir
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 P238048.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P238048). 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/P238048/.
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.