Position in chronology
SAA 10 339. The Procession of Kurbail (ABL 0029) [from lamentation priests]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [To the king, m]y [lord: your servant Ur]ad-Ea. [Good health] to the king, my [lord]! [May Nabû], Marduk, [Sin and] Nikkal [ble]ss [the king], my lord! (9) [The gods] of Kurba'il set off (for the akītu-temple) under my [directi]on, and the garments of the king go (along). Year after year they go on like this; the penitential psalm is performed over them, (and the gods) bless the king, my lord. (r 7) Let the king, my lord, (now) order that they give [the garments].
Source: Parpola, S. 1993. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/P333981/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[a-na LUGAL EN]-⸢ia⸣ / [ARAD-ka m]⸢ARAD⸣—É.A / [lu-u DI-mu] a-na LUGAL / [be-lí]-ia / [dAG u] dAMAR.UTU / [d30 u] d⸢NIN⸣.GAL / [a-na LUGAL] ⸢EN-ia⸣ / [lik-ru]-bu / [DINGIR-MEŠ] URU.kur-ba-ìl* / [ina pa-na]-⸢tu*⸣-ú-a / [i]-⸢ta⸣-ab-bi-ú / ⸢ku⸣-zip-⸢pi⸣ ša LUGAL / il-lu-ku / ⸢šá*⸣-at-tum <ana> šá-at-ti / ki-i an-ni-i / il-lu-[ku] / ÉR.ŠÀ.ḪUN.GÁ / ina UGU-ḫi in-né-ep-pa-áš / a-na LUGAL be-lí-ia / i-kar-ru-bu / ⸢LUGAL⸣ be-lí / ⸢ṭè⸣-e-mu liš-kun / [ku-zip-pi] li-di-nu
Scholarly note
Letter from a scholar (astrologer, exorcist, physician, lamentation-priest) to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal, edited by Simo Parpola (SAA 10, 1993). ORACC text P333981.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P333981). 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/P333981/.
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.