Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 106. Fragment Similar to No. 105 (AGS 096) [military and political]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P237373

Translation · reference

High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (1) [...... Will he who can see, see it? Will he] who can hear, [hear it]? (2) [Disregard that ...]...[...]. (3) [Disregard the (formulation) of today's case, be it good or] fau[lty]. (4) [Disregard that a clean or an unclean person has touched the sacrificial sheep, or blocked the] way of the sacrificial sheep. (r 1) [Disregard that an unclean man or woman has come] near [the place of the extispicy] and made it unclean. (r 2) [Disregard that an unclean person] has performed [exti]spicy [in this place]. (r 3) [Disregard that the ram (offered) to your great divinity for…

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/P237373/

Why it matters

Transliteration

[x x x x x x x x IGI-ru IGI-ra] ⸢še⸣-mu-⸢ú⸣ [i-šem-me-e] / [e-zib šá x x x x x x x]-⸢su⸣ ip-[x x x x x] / [e-zib šá di-in UD NE-i GIM DÙG.GA GIM] ḫa-[ṭu-ú] / [e-zib šá KUG lu-ʾu-ú SISKUR.SISKUR TAG-MEŠ ú—lu ana] ⸢IGI⸣ SISKUR.⸢SISKUR⸣ [GIL-MEŠ] / [e-zib šá i-na KI MÁŠ lu-ʾu-ú lu-ʾu-ú-tu DIB].DIB-ma ú-le-ʾu-⸢ú⸣ / [e-zib šá i-na KI an-ni-i lu-ʾu-ú] ⸢MÁŠ⸣ MÁŠ-ú / [e-zib šá UDU.NÍTA DINGIR-ti-ka šá…

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 P237373.

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/P237373/..
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/P237373/.

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