Position in chronology
SAA 04 042. Kaštaritu Organizing War (AGS 005) [military and political]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [Šamaš, great lord, give me a firm positive answer to what I am ask]ing you! (2) [Kaštaritu], city [lord] of Kark[aššî, who has] se[nt a messen]ger [to NN saying: "Let us st]and [together], mobilize an army [and ... set out to wage] war against the army [of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria"] — (6) i[n waging] war [......] (7) [...] will he abandon [......]? (Break) (r 2) [whether] Esarhaddon, king of [Assyria, will be ......]? (r 3) [Be prese]nt in this ram, [place] (in it) [a firm positive answer], favorable designs, favorable, [propitious] om[ens] by the oracular command of your great…
Source: Starr, I. 1990. Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria. SAA 4. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa04/P237362/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[dUTU EN GAL-ú šá a-šal]-lu-ka [an-na GI.NA a-pal-an-ni] / [mka-áš-ta-ri-ti EN]—⸢URU⸣ šá KUR.kar—⸢kaš⸣-[ši-i šá a-na x x x x x x] / [x x x x LÚ.DUMU—šip]-ri iš-⸢pu⸣-[ru um-ma x x x x x x x] / [x ni?]-⸢iz?-zi-iz x e?-mu?⸣-qí ni-id-⸢ki?⸣-[ma x x x x a-na e-pe-eš] / [GIŠ].TUKUL ù MÈ a-na UGU e-mu-qu [šá mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na LUGAL KUR—aš-šur.KI ni-il-lik] / [i]-⸢na⸣ [e-pe-eš] ⸢GIŠ⸣.TUKUL MURUB₄ ù ⸢MÈ⸣…
Scholarly note
Extispicy query addressed to Šamaš, the sungod and patron of divination, edited by Ivan Starr (SAA 4, 1990). The king asks the deity to render a yes/no verdict on a political or military question. ORACC text P237362.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Ivan Starr, Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria (State Archives of Assyria, 4), 1990. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2018, as part of the research programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair in the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at LMU Munich (Karen Radner, Humboldt Professorship 2015). The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P237362/..
Translation excerpted from Starr, I. 1990. Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria. SAA 4. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa04/P237362/.
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