Position in chronology
SAA 10 295. Fall of the Heavens (PBS 7 132) [from exorcists]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 10(1) A word of the king to Urad-Gula: (3) I am well, you can be glad. (4) In that writing-board [wh]ich you dispatched to me via Ahi-duri there [were ...] phylacteries [...] (9) And the pertinent ritual is written (there) as follows: (10) "Incantation: ... Ninkilim, exorcist of Ninurta! Fall of the heavens." What is this? The heavens exist forever. (Break) (r 1) Write down and [send me what] they say even (if) there is no alternative [...] how it is p[erformed]. And write down and send (this) via [NN].
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-bat ⸢LUGAL⸣ / a-na mARAD—dgu-la / DI-mu a.a-ši ŠÀ-ba-ka / lu DÙG.GA-ka ina ŠÀ-bi GIŠ.ZU / šu-u ⸢ša⸣ ina ŠU.2 mPAB?—⸢BÀD?⸣ / tu-še-bi-la-an-ni / me-UGU-šú-nu ⸢x⸣+[x x]-a-te / i-na ŠÀ-bi [x x x] / ù DÙ.DÙ.BI-šu šá-ṭi-⸢ir⸣ / ma-a ÉN ŠUR dNIN.KILIM MAŠ.MAŠ / dMAŠ ŠUB-ti AN-e mi-i-nu šú-u / ka-a.a-[ma]-⸢nu⸣ AN-e i-ba-ši / [x x x x]+⸢x x⸣+[x x] / [ša] i-qab-[bu-u-ni] / šu-ṭur [še-bi-la] / ù la-a pu-ḫi ⸢x⸣+[x x x] / i-ba-ši a-ki šá in-[x x x] / ù i-na ŠU.2 m⸢x x⸣+[x x x] / šu-ṭur šup-ra
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P258805.
Attribution
Image: CBS 01471 (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P258805). 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/P258805/.
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.