Position in chronology
SAA 10 198. Continuing the Previous Letter (ABL 0435) [from exorcists]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) This is a continuation of the words of the previous letter. (4) May the rule of the king, my lord, be as pleasant as water and oil upon the peoples of all the countries! May the king, my lord, be their shepherd for ever! (10) I, (nothing but) a dog, blessing the king, his lord, have blessed the king, my lord (with) these blessings. May the gods whose names I have invoked, accept and hear them, and grant these blessings to the king, my lord, a thousandfold! (r 1) And may I, blessing the king, my lord, stand before the king, my lord, and revere (him) wholeheartedly with my arms (lifted in…
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334300/
Why it matters
Transliteration
an-ni-ú re-eḫ-ti / da-ba-a-bi šá e-gír-ti / pa-ni-it-ti / šar-ru-ú-tú šá LUGAL be-lí-ia / ki-ma A-MEŠ ù Ì-MEŠ / e-li UN-MEŠ KUR.KUR-MEŠ / ka-li-ši-na li-iṭ-bi / re-ʾu-us-si-na LUGAL be-lí / le-e-pu-uš a-na du-ú-ri / da-a-ri a-na-ku ka-al-bu / ka-rib LUGAL be-li-šú / an-nu-ú-ti ik-ri-bi / a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia ak-tar-ba / DINGIR-MEŠ šá MU-šú-nu az-ku-ru / li-iḫ-ḫu-ru liš-mi-ú / a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia /…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334300.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334300). 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/P334300/.
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.