Position in chronology
SAA 10 245. Prophylactic Rituals for the Royal Family (ABL 0453) [from exorcists]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 10(1) [To the king, my lord: your servant Marduk-šakin]-šumi. [Good he]alth to the king, my lord! May Aššur, Šamaš, Bel, Zarpanitu, Nabû, Tašmetu, Ištar of Nineveh and Ištar of Arbela bless the king, my lord, a hundred years! May they appoint a guardian of health and life for the king, my lord! May they sate the king, my lord, with old age and fullness of life! May they keep firm the foundations of the royal throne of the king, my lord, until far-off days! May they let the king, my lord, see Assurbanipal and his brothers prosper! May the king lift their grandchildren into his lap! May the king…
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 mdAMAR.UTU—GAR]—MU / [lu-u DI]-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ia / aš-šur dUTU dEN dzar-pa-ni-tum / dAG dtaš-me-tum d15 ša NINA.KI / d15 ša URU.arba-ìl 01-me MU.AN.NA-MEŠ / a-na LUGAL EN-ia lik-ru-bu / ma-aṣ-ṣar DI-me u TI.LA / TAv LUGAL EN-ia lip-qi-du / ši-bu-tú lit-tu-tu a-na LUGAL EN-ía / lu-šab-bi-ú SUḪUŠ GIŠ.GU.ZA LUGAL-ú-ti / ša LUGAL EN-ía a-na UD-me ṣa-a-ti /…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334315.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334315). 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/P334315/.
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.