Position in chronology
SAA 10 179. Will the Chief Eunuch Take over the Kingship? (ABL 0755+) [from diviners]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [To the king of the lands, my lord]: your [servant] Kudurru. [May Aššur, Šamaš, Bel and Nabû bless] the king of the lands, my lord! (3) [Ever si]nce the day when the king my lord [dep]orted me, I have sat in confinement, praying to the king, my lord, [every day], (until) [Nabû-kill]anni the chief cupbearer sent [a cohort commander] to release me. (8) As I was walking [with him], he says to me: "You are an expert in [scrib]al lore? [NN] tells me [you] are an expert in scribal lore." (11) It was the month of Marchesvan (VIII) when Nabû-killanni fetched me, and I ended up standing in the…
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P237270/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[a-na LUGAL KUR.KUR be-lí-ia ARAD]-ka mNÍG.GUB / [aš-šur dUTU dEN u dAG] a-na LUGAL KUR.KUR be-lí-ia / [lik-ru-bu TA] ⸢UGU*⸣ UD-mu šá LUGAL be-la-a / [ú-še-eg]-la-an-ni ṣab-ta-ak* u áš-ba-ak* / [UD-mu-us-su a]-⸢na⸣ LUGAL be-lí-ia ú-ṣal-la / [mdAG—kil-la]-an-ni LÚ.GAL—LÚ.ŠU.DU₈.A-MEŠ / [LÚ.GAL—ka-ṣir ki]-i iš-pu-raš-šú ip-ta-ṭar-an-ni / [it-ti-šu ki]-i al-li-ku i-qab-ba-a / [um-ma…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P237270.
Attribution
Image: BM 099139 + (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P237270). 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/P237270/.
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.