Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 104. Fragment Similar to No. 101 (PRT 072) [military and political]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P240295

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (1) [Should ..., king of Assyria, send NN], together with [men, horses and troops, to ......]? (2) If [he sends him, will ......] (3) against [......]? (4) Disregard the (formulation) of the pra[yer to god, request to god and goddess]. (5) Disregard the (formulation) of the pray[er for today's case, be it good, be it faulty]. (6) Disregard that [an unclean man or woman has come near] the place of the extispicy [and made it unclean]. (Break) (r 1) [Be present in this ram, place (in it) a firm positive answer, favorable designs, favorable, propitious] omens [by the oracular] command of [your great] divi[nity, and may I see (them)]. (r 3) The gall bladder is flatt[ened ......]. (r 4) The middle [part ......]. (Rest destroyed)

State Archives of Assyria, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).

Transliteration

EN [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / GIM [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / UGU [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / e-zib šá ⸢ik⸣-[rib DINGIR me-reš-ti DINGIR u iš-ta-ri] / e-zib šá ik-[rib di-nim UD-mu NE-i GIM DÙG-ab GIM ḫa-ṭu-ú] / [e]-zib šá KI ⸢MÁŠ⸣ [lu-ʾu-ú lu-ʾu-ú-tú DIB-MEŠ-ma ú-le-ʾu-ú] / ⸢UZU⸣-[MEŠ ta-mit SIG₅-MEŠ SILIM-MEŠ šá SILIM-tim] / šá KA ⸢DINGIR⸣-[ti-ka GAL-ti šuk-nam-ma lu-mur] / BE ZÉ šub-[bat x x x x x x x x] / BE MURUB₄-⸢tum?⸣ [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 P240295.

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/P240295/..
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/P240295/.

Related tablets

Related sources