Position in chronology
SAA 10 290. Rituals of Ab (ABL 0118) [from exorcists]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 10(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Urad-Gula. The best of health to the king, my lord! May Nabû and Marduk very greatly bless the king, my lord! (6) Concerning the (periodic) rites of the month Ab (V) about which the king, my lord, said: "Perform them!" — we shall perform them exactly on schedule. The man who runs according to the word of his master — the gods [will give] him a good genie, and a safe road will be guided to him. (12) [...] the king, his favour [...] (Break) (r 1) We [a]re not wor[ried]; however, an order should be given to the effect that we are allowed to enter regularly.…
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 mARAD—dgu-la / lu-u DI-mu a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia a—dan-niš / dPA dAMAR.UTU a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / a—dan-niš a—dan-niš lik-ru-bu / ina UGU né-pe-še ša ITI.NE / ša LUGAL be-lí ⸢iq*⸣-bu-u-ni / ma-a ep-šá a-⸢na⸣ UD-me né-pa-áš / LÚ ša ina UGU pi-i šá EN-MEŠ-šú / ⸢i-du⸣-lu-ú-ni DINGIR-MEŠ še-e-du / [SIG₅] ⸢SUM⸣-MEŠ-šú KASKAL.2 SIG₅ ir-ra-di-šú / [x x x] LUGAL ṭa-⸢ab⸣-tu-šú /…
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334066.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P334066). 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/P334066/.
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.