Position in chronology
SAA 08 454. Mercury Sighted in Pleiades (RMA 218) [planetary]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 8(1) If a planet becomes visible in Iyyar (II): the flood will come and irrigate the fields. (3) If the star of Marduk reaches the Pleiades: Adad will devastate. (r 1) On the 14th day the moon and sun will not be seen together, on the 15th day one god will be seen with the other: the king of Subartu will have no rival. I have heard (that) [from the mou]th of my father. (r 7) [From] Bel-ahhe-eriba.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 8 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
1 ina ITI.GUD dUDU.IDIM IGI-ir / A.KAL DU-ma A.ŠÀ A.QAR i-ma-kir / 1 MUL—dAMAR.UTU MUL.MUL KUR-ud / dIM RA-iṣ / UD 14-KÁM 30 u 20 KI a-ḫa-meš / ul in-nam-ma-ru / UD 15-KÁM DINGIR KI DINGIR in-nam-ma-ru / LUGAL SU.BIR₄.KI GABA.RI / NU TUK-ši / [ina pi]-i AD-ia še-ma-a-ku / [ša m]dEN—ŠEŠ-MEŠ—eri-ba
Scholarly note
Astrological report from a court scholar to an Assyrian king, edited by Hermann Hunger (SAA 8, 1992). Celestial and meteorological observation correlated with omens. ORACC text P236969.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P236969). source
Translation excerpted from Hunger, H. 1992. Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. SAA 8. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa08/P236969/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
A major witness to the Mesopotamian Flood tradition and its relationship to later biblical literature. The date of this particular copy must be distinguished from the older history of the story.
An object naming and depicting a powerful priestess and royal daughter around 2300 BCE. Enheduanna is also a landmark in named literary authorship, but that literary legacy must be distinguished from this disk’s dedication.