Position in chronology
SAA 10 008. Omens from Retrograding Planets (ABL 0519) [from astrologers]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 10(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Issar-šumu-ereš. Good health to [the ki]ng, my lord! May Nabû [and Marduk] bless [the king], my lord! (5) Con[cerning what the king, my lo]rd, wrote to me: "[Why] have you never told me [the truth]? [When] will you (actually) tell me [all] that there is to it?" — [Aššur, Sin, Šamaš, B]el, Nabû, [Jupiter, Venus, Sat]urn, [Mercury, Mars], Sirius and [...] be my witnesses [that] I [have never] untruly (14) [......] the word (15) [... to] the king, my lord (16) [...... signs which] have occurred in the sky (17) [......] Jupiter (18) [......] backwards (19)…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 10 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / ARAD-ka m15—MU—KAM-eš / lu šul-mu [a-na] ⸢LUGAL⸣ be-lí-ia / dAG [u dAMAR.UTU a-na LUGAL] EN-ia lik-ru-bu / ina ⸢UGU⸣ [ša LUGAL be]-lí iš-pur-an-ni / ma-[a am—me-ni ina] ma-te-me-e-ni / [ke-e-tu is-si]-⸢ia⸣ la ta-ad-bu-ub / [a-na ma-a-ti mi-i-nu] šá ši-ti-ni ta-qab-bi-a / [aš-šur d30 dUTU d]⸢EN⸣ dAG / [dSAG.ME.GAR ddil-bat dUDU].⸢IDIM⸣.SAG.UŠ / [dUDU.IDIM.GUD.UD…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334356.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334356). source
Translation excerpted from Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334356/.
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.
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.