Position in chronology
SAA 10 301. Report on a Royal Baby (ABL 0178) [from exorcists]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To the king, my lord: your servant Nabû-naṣir. May Nabû and Marduk very greatly bless the king, my lord! (7) The charge of the 'Lady of Cults' is doing very well; the king, my lord, can be glad indeed. (r 1) May the king, my lord, lift the grandchildren of the charge of the 'Lady of Cults' upon his knees and see gray hairs in their beards!
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P334123/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / ARAD-ka mdAG—PAB-ir / dAG ù dAMAR.UTU / a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / a—dan-niš / lik-ru-bu / DI-mu a—dan-niš a—dan-niš / a-na pi-qi-te / ša dGAŠAN—par-ṣi / ŠÀ-bi ša LUGAL / be-lí-ia / a—dan-niš / lu ṭa-ab-šú / ša pi-qit-te / ša dGAŠAN—par-ṣi / LUGAL be-lí / DUMU—DUMU-MEŠ-šú / ina bur-ke-e-šú / li-in-tu-ḫu / par-šu-ma-a-te / ina zi-iq-ni-šú-nu / le-mur
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P334123.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334123). 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/P334123/.
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.