Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 107. Will the Assyrian Army Conquer a City Named on Papyrus? (AGS 094) [military and political]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P238981

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (1) [within this stipulated term, should Esarhaddon, king of Assyria], who is no[w intent on ......, (and whom) your great] divinity [knows, ......]? (4) [Will ...... th]at city [......] (5) either through [......] (6) that city [......]? (7) Will the army o[f Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, conquer it]? (8) Will he who can see, see [it? Will he who can hear, hear it? Does your great divinity know it]? (9) Disregard what happens af[ter my stipulated term ......]. (10) Disregard what [they speak] with [(their) mouths, or what they think]. (11) Disregard the (formulation) of…

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

Transliteration

[i-na ši-kin a-dan-ni šu-a-ti mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na LUGAL KUR—aš-šur.KI] / šá ⸢TA⸣-[an-ni x x x x x x x x x x ti-iṣ-mu-ru-ma] / DINGIR-ut-[ka GAL-ti ZU-u x x x x x x x x x x x x] / URU šu-[a-ti x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / lu-ú ina ṣa-[x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / URU šu-a-⸢ti⸣ [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / e-mu-⸢qu šá⸣ [mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na LUGAL KUR—aš-šur.KI i-kaš-šá-a-da] / IGI-ru…

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 P238981.

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/P238981/..
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/P238981/.

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