Position in chronology
SAA 08 130. New Moon on 1st Day (ABL 0817) [lunar]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 8(1) We kept watch on the 29th day; we did not see the moon. May Nabû and Marduk bless the crown prince my lord! (r 1) From Nabû'a of Assur.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 8 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
UD 29-KÁM / ma-ṣar-tu ni-ta-ṣar / d30 la né-mur / dAG ù dAMAR.UTU / a-na DUMU—LUGAL be-lí-ia / lik-ru-bu / ša mna-bu-ú-a / [ša] URU.⸢ŠÀ⸣—[URU]
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 P334570.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334570). 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/P334570/.
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
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.
Part of the earliest known body of international diplomatic correspondence. Akkadian, written in cuneiform on clay, was the lingua franca of Late Bronze Age statecraft — used between Egypt, the Hittites, Mitanni, Babylon, Assyria, and the Levantine vassals.