Position in chronology
SAA 10 111. Meteors; Invading Mannea (ABL 1237) [from astrologers]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king of the lands, my lord: your servant B[el-ušezib]. May Bel, Nabû and Šamaš bless the king, my lord! (3) If a star flashes like a torch from the east and sets in the west: the main army of the enemy will fall. (5) If a flash appears and appears again in the south, makes a circle and again makes a circle, stands there and again stands there, flickers and flickers again, and is scattered: the ruler will capture property and possessions in his expedition. (9) If the king has written to his army: "Invade Mannea," the whole army should not invade; (only) the cavalry and the…
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P237234/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL KUR.KUR be-lí-ia ARAD-ka md[EN—ú-še-zib] / dEN dAG u dUTU a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia lik-ru-⸢bu⸣ / 1 MUL ki GIŠ.di-pa-ri TA dUTU.È SUR-ma / ina dUTU.ŠÚ.A ŠÚ ERIM KÚR ina DUGUD-šá ŠUB-ut / 1 mi-iš*-ḫu IM.U₁₈.LU iš-kun iš-kun-ma / im-ṣur im-ṣur-ma GUB-iz GUB-iz-ma / ip-ru-uṭ ip-ru-uṭ-ma is-sa-pi-iḫ / NUN ina KASKAL DU-ku NÍG.NAM NÍG.GÁL.LA ŠU.2-su KUR-ad / ki-i LUGAL a-na e-mu-qí-šú il-tap-ru…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P237234.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P237234). 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/P237234/.
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.