Position in chronology
SAA 04 044. Will Kaštaritu Conquer Karibtu? (PRT 001) [military and political]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 4(1) Šamaš, great lord, [give me a firm positive answer to what I am] ask[ing you]! (2) Should Esarhaddon, k[ing of Assyria], stri[ve and plan, and add to] the troops in the city [Ka]ribtu, which is [located on the border of ...], so that they can keep watch against the enemy? (4) From this [day, the ...th day of this month, the month Iyyar (II), to the ...th day] of the month Sivan (III) of this year, for 40 days and nights, [the term stipulated for the performance of (this) extispicy — within this stipulated term], (6) will Kaštaritu with his troops, or the troop[s of the Cimmerians, or the…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
dUTU EN GAL-⸢ú⸣ [šá a]-šal-[lu-ka an-na GI.NA a-pal-an-ni] / mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na ⸢LUGAL⸣ [KUR—aš-šur].KI li-iṣ-[rim li-ik-pid-ma] / a-na UGU ERIM-MEŠ šá i-na ⸢URU⸣.[ka]-rib-ti šá i-na [ta-ḫu-mi šá KUR.x x x šak-nu lu-ra-ad-di-ma] / EN.NUN i-na IGI LÚ.KÚR li-[iṣ]-ṣur-ru TA UD NE-[i UD x-KÁM šá ITI NE-i ITI.GUD EN UD x-KÁM šá] / ITI.SIG₄ šá MU.AN.NA NE-ti a-na 40 UD-MEŠ 40 MI-MEŠ [ši-kin a-dan-ni…
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 P237711.
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/P237711/..
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/P237711/.
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