Position in chronology
SAA 10 201. Curing the Queen Mother (ABL 0549) [from exorcists]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 10(1) To the king, [my lord]: your servant Adad-[šumu-uṣur]. Good health to the ki[ng, my lord]! May Nabû and Marduk, and the [great] gods of heaven and earth very greatly [bless the king, my lord]! (7) The mother of the king is doing ve[ry] we[ll] indeed; the king, [my lord, can be] glad [indeed]. (Break) (r 3) [The ritual] "Sick [...]"; [the incantation "E]a, Šamaš, [Asalluhi]" of (the ritual) "Nullifying the Curse"; the incantation "You, River, [Creator of Everything]" — she has performed (these) 10 tablets together wit[h their rituals], and is very [well]. The ki[ng, my lord], can be glad indeed.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 10 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL ⸢be⸣-[lí-ia] / ARAD-ka mdIM—[MU—PAB] / lu DI-mu a-na ⸢LUGAL⸣ [EN-ia] / dAG dAMAR.UTU DINGIR-[MEŠ GAL-MEŠ] / šá AN-e u KI.TIM [a-na LUGAL EN-ia] / a—dan-niš a—dan-niš [lik-ru-bu] / MÍ.AMA—LUGAL a—⸢dan*⸣-[niš] / a—dan-niš ⸢šul⸣-[mu] / ⸢lib-bu⸣ šá LUGAL [EN-ia] / [a—dan-niš a]—dan-niš [lu-u DÙG.GA] / [x x x x]+⸢x⸣ [x x] / [x x x] ⸢ia lak*⸣ [x x] / [x x x].GIG.⸢GA*⸣-[MEŠ] / [ÉN dÉ].A dUTU…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334374.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334374). 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/P334374/.
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.