Position in chronology
SAA 10 175. Deciding about an Extispicy Report (ABL 0773) [from diviners]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Marduk-šumu-uṣur. Good health to the king, my lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord! (7) Concerning the haruspex appointed to the service of Arbayu who last year made a report to the king, [my] lord, and said: "When A[rbayu] comes, [let them question him] and decide about [the re]port [concerning him]," (r 4) Arbayu is now here — let the king question [him] and decide about the report of his servant.
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334547/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ía / ARAD-ka mdAMAR.UTU—MU—PAB / lu-u šul-mu / a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / dAG u dAMAR.UTU / a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / lik-ru-bu ina UGU LÚ.ḪAL / ša ina IGI már-ba-a.a / pa-qí-du-u-ni / ša ina šá-daq-diš / ṭè-e-⸢mu⸣ / ina IGI LUGAL be-lí-[ia] / ú-te-ru-u-[ni] / ma-a ki-ma m⸢ár⸣-[ba-a.a] / it-tal-⸢ka*⸣ / [ma-a] a-na [x x x] / [ṭè]-en-[šú] / [li]-⸢ip*⸣-ru-[su] / ⸢ú*-ma*⸣-a már-[ba-a.a] / ⸢an*⸣-na-[ka] / LUGAL liš-⸢al⸣-[šú] / ṭè-e-mu / ša ARAD-šú / li-ip-ru-su
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334547.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334547). 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/P334547/.
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.