Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 070. Fragment Similar to No. 71 (PRT 019) [military and political]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P336332

Translation · reference

High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (0) [Let] them be taken out [and put aside]! (1) [I ask you, Šamaš, great lord, whether fr]om th[is] day, [the ...th day of the month ..., to the ...th day of] Elul (VI) of [this] year, [the magnates and governors of Bit]-Kari (should) go [...... and ta]ke [the road] to the dist[rict of ......] (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/P336332/

Why it matters

Transliteration

[lu-ú] ZI-MEŠ-⸢ḫa⸣ [lu-ú BAR-MEŠ-ra a-šal-ka dUTU EN GAL-ú] / [ki-i] ⸢TA⸣ UD-mu an-⸢ni⸣-[i UD x-KAM šá ITI.x EN UD x-KAM] / [šá ITI.KIN.d]INNIN šá MU.AN.NA ⸢an⸣-[ni-ti LÚ.GAL-MEŠ LÚ.EN.NAM-MEŠ] / [šá KUR.É]—ka-a-ri DU-MEŠ [x x x x x ur-ḫa KASKAL] / [li-iṣ]-⸢ba⸣-tu-ni a-na na-⸢ge⸣-[e šá KUR.ma-da-a.a] / [x x x] ŠÀ-bi ⸢x x x⸣ [x x x x x x x x] / [x x x]-šú ina? bi-[x x x x x x x x x x x]

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 P336332.

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/P336332/..
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/P336332/.

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