Position in chronology
SAA 04 060. Should Esarhaddon Send his Army against Kaštaritu? (PRT 006) [military and political]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [Šamaš, great lord, give me a f]irm positive answ[er to what I am asking you]! (2) [From the ...th day of this month], Shebat (XI) of [this year, to the ...th day of Nisan (I) of the] coming [year], 40 days [and nights, my stipulated term] — (4) [within this stipulated term], should [Esarhaddon, k]ing of Assyria, s[trive and plan, and send NN with an army, as he wishes, ag]ainst Kaštari[tu, city lord of Karkaššî]? (6) [If he sends him and he goes, is it pleasing] to [your great] divinity? (Break) (r 1) May (this query) go [to your great divinity, O Šamaš, gre]at [lord, and may an oracle be given as an answer].
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/P237027/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[dUTU EN GAL-ú šá a-šal-lu-ka] ⸢an⸣-na GI.⸢NA⸣ [a-pal-an-ni] / [TA UD x-KÁM šá ITI NE]-⸢i⸣ ITI.ZÍZ.ÀM šá [MU.AN.NA NE-ti EN UD x-KÁM] / [šá ITI.BARAG šá MU.AN.NA e]-rib-tu 40 UD-MEŠ [40 MI-MEŠ ši-kin RI-ia] / [ina ši-kin RI UR₅-tú mAN.ŠÁR—ŠEŠ—SUM-na] ⸢LUGAL⸣ KUR—AN.ŠÁR li-⸢iṣ⸣-[rim lik-pid-ma x x x x] / [a-di e-mu-qí mál ŠÀ-šú ub-lu i-na] ⸢UGU⸣ mkaš-ta-ri-[ti EN—URU šá URU.kar—kaš-ši-i] /…
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 P237027.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P237027). source
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/P237027/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
The literary tradition is no longer anonymous from this point. Authorship — the idea that a specific human voice composes a specific work — enters the historical record with her.
The single most influential Mesopotamian king list — the model for every later attempt to chronicle the deep history of the region. It transmits the political theology of divinely granted kingship, an idea that would echo through Babylon, Assyria, and into the Hebrew Bible. The Weld-Blundell prism (WB 444) at the Ashmolean is the most complete surviving copy.