Position in chronology
SAA 04 137. Fragment Similar to Nos. 129-130 [military and political]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [Šamaš, great lord], give me a firm positive answer [to what I am ask]ing you! (2) [Esarhaddon, king of Assyria], who has now [writt]en whatever he wishes [in this papyrus] and placed it before your great divinity, and (whom) your great divinity knows — (4) [in accordance with the command of your gre]at [divinity], Šamaš, great lord, (and) your favorable decisions, should [the subject of this query, Esa]rhaddon, king of Assyria, strive and plan, and do [whatever] he has written [in] this [pa]pyrus? (7) Is it pleasing [to the grea]t [lord, ...]? (Break) (r 1) [...] the right of the…
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/P237534/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[dUTU EN GAL-ú šá a-šal]-⸢lu⸣-ka an-na GI.NA a-pal-an-⸢ni⸣ / [mAN.ŠÁR—ŠEŠ—SUM-na LUGAL KUR—AN.ŠÁR] šá TA-an-ni mim-ma šá ŠÀ-ba-šú ub-lam / [i-na ni-a.a-ru an-ni-i iš-ṭu]-⸢ru⸣-ma ina IGI DINGIR-ti-ka GAL-ti šá-kan-ú-ma DINGIR-ut-ka GAL-ti ZU-u / [GIM KA DINGIR-ti-ka] ⸢GAL⸣-ti dUTU EN GAL-ú EŠ.BAR-ka šal-mu / [EN—MU.MU NE-i mAN].⸢ŠÁR⸣—ŠEŠ—SUM-na LUGAL KUR—AN.ŠÁR li-iṣ-rim lik-píd-ma / [mim-ma 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 P237534.
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/P237534/..
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/P237534/.
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