Position in chronology
SAA 10 051. Mistaking Mercury for Venus (ABL 0618) [from astrologers]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the ki[ng, my lord]: your servant [Balasî]. Good health [to the king, my lord]! May Nabû and Marduk bl[ess the king], my lord! (6) Concerning the planet [Venus] about which the king, my lord, [wrote to me: "I am] told that it has [become visible]" — (10) the man who wrote (thus) to the king, [my lord], is in (complete) ignorance. He does not k[now] the [...], the cycle [...], (or) the (synodic) revoluti[ons of Venus]. (17) (Break) (19) Venus is not y[et] vis[ible]. Tonight, as I am sending [this] message to the king, [my] lord, we [see] only Merc[ury]; we do not [see] Venus. Presently…
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334428/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na ⸢LUGAL⸣ [EN-ia] / ARAD-ka [mba-la-si-i] / lu DI-mu [a-na LUGAL EN-ia] / dPA dAMAR.UTU [a-na LUGAL] / EN-ia lik-[ru-bu] / ina UGU MUL.[dil-bat] / ša LUGAL be-⸢lí⸣ [iš-pur-an-ni] / ma-a iq-ṭi-[bu-u-ni] / ma-a it-[ta-mar] / ša a-na LUGAL [EN-ia] / iš-pu-ra-[an-ni] / ina la mu-da-[nu-te] / šu*-ú ri*-[x x x] / a-da-an-nu [x x x x] / da-a.a-la-[te ša MUL.dil-bat] / la ú-[da] / i-ga-ra-⸢at⸣ [x x x]…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334428.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334428). 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/P334428/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
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.