Position in chronology
SAA 04 087. Fragment Similar to No. 84 (AGS 069) [military and political]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [Šamaš, great lord], give me a fi[rm positive answer to what I am asking you]! (2) [Should Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, strive and plan]? Should he, with his troops and camp, [an army as great as he wi]shes, take the road, and go [to the district where he] wishes? Will he [......] reach that district? (6) Will [......] his [provisions] be put in place for him and will a guide direct him? (7) [Will Esarhaddon, king of] Assyria, and his troops and camp, [escape], be saved, save themselves, extricate themselves [from ..., from] a native enemy garrison, or from [any] fierce enemy? (10) [Will…
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/P336064/
Why it matters
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 lik-pid]-ma a-di ERIM.ḪI-šú u KI.KAL×BAD-šú / [e-mu-qu ma-al a-šar ŠÀ-ba-šú] ub-lu ur-ḫa KASKAL li-iṣ-bat-[ma] / [a-na na-ge-e a-šar ŠÀ-ba-šú] ⸢ub⸣-lu lil-lik / [x x x x x x x x x x]-⸢ú⸣ a-na na-ge-e UR₅-tú KUR-da / [x x x x x x x x x]-⸢MEŠ⸣-šú GAR-MEŠ-šú ù LÚ.UŠ-ú UŠ-šú / [x x x x x i-na…
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 P336064.
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/P336064/..
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/P336064/.
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