Position in chronology
SAA 10 172. Mars Approaching Libra; Mercury in Capricorn (ABL 1113) [from astrologers]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 10(beginning destroyed) (1) "Mars has become visible; why have you not written?" — (4) Mars was sighted in the month of Ab (V); now it has approached within 2.5 spans (= 3°30') of Libra. As soon as it has come close to it, I shall write its interpretation to the king, my lord. (r 5) What was sighted now is Mercury in Capricorn; (the sighting) of Mars [...] (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 10 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
MUL.ṣal-bat-a-nu / it-tan-mar mi-na-a / la taš-pu-ra / MUL.ṣal-bat-a-nu ina ITI.NE / a-mir en-na it-ti / MUL.ZI.BA.AN.NA / 150 ú-ṭu / iq-te-ru-ub / áš-šá iṭ-ṭe-ḫu-šú / ⸢pi*-šìr*⸣-šú a-na / LUGAL be-lí-ia / a-šap-pa-ra / šá en-na in-nam-ru / MUL.UDU.IDIM.GUD.UD / ina ŠÀ-bi MUL.SUḪUR.MÁŠ.KU₆ / šu-ú šá dṣal-bat-a-nu / [x x] ⸢x⸣ [x x] ⸢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 P237252.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P237252). 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/P237252/.
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.