Position in chronology
SAA 08 457. New Moon on 29th Day (RMA 024) [lunar]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 8(1) [If the moon] becomes visible on the 29]th day: Adad will devastate. (2) [......] ... (3) [......] ... on the 29th the moon [beca]me visible. (4) [If the day is short compared to its normal leng]th: a reign of short days; [...] there will be unreliable speech, [bad] ways in the land. (7) [From the ... day] until the 30th day, until the month [......] the month of Elam. (9) [From Bel-le'i], descendant of Egibi, exorcist.
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 30 UD 29]-KÁM IGI.LAL dIM RA-iṣ / [x x x x]+⸢x⸣ / [x x x]+⸢x⸣-ra UD 29-KÁM d30 ⸢IGI⸣.LAL / [1 UD ana ŠID-MEŠ-šu LÚGUD].⸢DA⸣ BALA UD-mu LÚGUD.DA-MEŠ / [x x x] KA la ki-ni a-lak-ti / [la ṭa-ab]-⸢ti⸣ ina KUR TUK-ši / [x x x]-KÁM EN UD 30-KÁM EN ITI / [x x x] ITI KUR.NIM.MA.KI / [šá mdEN—DA] DUMU me-gi-bi LÚ.MAŠ.MAŠ
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 P238068.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P238068). 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/P238068/.
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.