Position in chronology
SAA 04 118. Fragment of a Military Query (PRT 040) [military and political]
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1) [...]... [will they attack (him), and kill and pl]unde[r him? Will Esarhaddon, king of Assyria], be troubled [and angry? Will he who can see, see it? Will he who can hear, hear it]? (4) [Disregard that the day is ad]vanced (5) [Disregard the (formulation) of the prayer] for today's case, [be it good, be it faulty]. (6) [Disregard that he who touch]es the forehead of the sheep [is dressed in his ordinary soiled garments]. (7) [Disregard that the oracle query has become jumbled in the mouth of] the haruspex, your servant. (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/P237649/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x x x] ni na-[x x x x x i-ma-aq-qu-tu-ú] / [i-duk-ku-ú i]-⸢ḫab⸣-ba-⸢tu⸣-[ú ŠÀ-bi šá mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na] / [LUGAL KUR—aš-šur.KI] i-mar-ra-ṣu [i-lam-mì-ni IGI-ru IGI-ra ŠE.GA-ú ŠE.GA-e] / [e-zib šá UD-mu] ⸢iš⸣-qa-a ⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x x x x x] / [e-zib šá ik-rib] di-nim UD-mu ⸢NE⸣-[i GIM DÙG.GA GIM ḫa-ṭu-ú] / [e-zib šá TAG]-⸢it⸣ pu-ut UDU.NÍTA [TÚG gi-né-e-šú ar-šá-a-ti lab-šú] / [e-zib šá i-na KA] ⸢DUMU⸣—LÚ.ḪAL ARAD-⸢ka⸣ [ta-mit up-tar-ri-du]
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 P237649.
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/P237649/..
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/P237649/.
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