Position in chronology
SAA 10 057. The King Should not be Afraid of the Eclipse (ABL 0691) [from astrologers]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Balasî. Good health to the king, my lord! (4) The king sho[uld not] be afraid of this eclipse! The planets Jupiter, Venus and [Sa]turn were present [during the eclipse]. (10) [The gre]at [gods ......]... (Break) (r 1) [May ......] give [life of distant days, old age and fullness of life to the kin]g, [my] lo[rd]. (r 3) [Akkull]anu will read and explain [the rep]ort on the lunar [eclipse] [be]fore the king.
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334489/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL EN-⸢ia⸣ / ARAD-ka mba-la-si-i / lu-u DI-mu a-na LUGAL / EN-ia ina UGU AN.MI / an-ni-i-e LUGAL / ⸢lu la⸣ i-pa-làḫ / ⸢MUL⸣.SAG.ME.GAR MUL.dil-bat / [MUL.UDU].IDIM.SAG.UŠ / [ina AN.MI iz-za]-az-zu / [DINGIR-MEŠ] ⸢GAL⸣-MEŠ / [x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ / [a-na] ⸢LUGAL* EN⸣-[ia] / [li]-id-di-nu / [ú-ìl]-tú ša / [AN.MI] d30 / [ina] ⸢IGI* LUGAL*⸣ / [ma-kul]-⸢la*⸣-nu ⸢i⸣-sa-as-si / ⸢ú*⸣-šá-aḫ-ka-am
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334489.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334489). 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/P334489/.
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.