Position in chronology
SAA 04 061. Will Kaštaritu Defeat Assyrian Troops? (PRT 013) [military and political]
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1) [Will Kaštaritu, city lord of] Karkaššî [......] (2) speak [...]? Will he [......]? (3) Will he wage war against them? [......] (4) Will Kaštar[itu, in waging] this war [......] (5) [...] or attack the magnates [and governors, the army of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria] (6) [Will they] kill, pl[under, ......]? (7) [Will Esarhad]do[n, king of Assyria, be troubled and angry]? (Break) (r 3) [Be present in] this ram, [place (in it) a firm positive answer, favorable designs], (Rest destroyed)
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/P237700/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[mkaš-ta-ri-ti EN—URU šá URU].kar—kaš-ši-i ⸢ANŠE?⸣ [x x x] / [x x x x x x x x] i-dab-bu-bu šu-ú [x x x x x x x x x x x x] / [DÙ-eš GIŠ.TUKUL MURUB₄ u] MÈ KI-šú-nu ip-pu-šú ⸢ki?-ma?⸣ [x x x x x x x x x x x] / [x x x x ina? DÙ]-eš MÈ šu-a-tú mkaš-ta-⸢ri⸣-[ti x x x x x x x x x] / [x x x x x x x] lu-ú ana UGU LÚ.GAL-MEŠ [LÚ.NAM-MEŠ e-mu-qu šá mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na] / [LUGAL KUR—aš-šur.KI…
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 P237700.
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/P237700/..
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/P237700/.
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