Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 159. Query Similar to No. 156 (AGS 117) [appointment]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P336094

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(1) [Šamaš, great lord, give] me [a firm positive answer to what I am asking you]! (2) [Should Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, ap]point [the man whose name is written in this papyrus] and placed before your great divinity, to the posi[tion which is written in this papyrus]? (5) [If he appoints him, as long as] he holds th[is position], will he instigate [an insurrection and rebellion against Esarhaddon], king of Assyria, [and Assurbanipal, the crown prince of the] Succession [Palace]? (8) [Will he cause others to instigate it? Will he plot it or cause others to] plot it? [Will he order it, or…

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

Transliteration

[dUTU EN GAL-ú šá a-šal-lu-ka an-na GI.NA a-pal-an]-ni / [a-me-lu šá MU-šú i-na ni-ia-a-ri an-na-a šaṭ-ru-ma a-na IGI] DINGIR-ti-ka GAL-ti GAR-un / [mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na LUGAL KUR—aš-šur.KI a-na pi-qi]-tu-ú-tu / [šá i-na ŠÀ-bi ni-ia-a-ri-im-ma an-na-a šaṭ-rat-ma] ⸢lip⸣-qi-is-su / [GIM ip-taq-du-uš a-di UD-MEŠ mál pi-qi-tu-ú-tu šu]-a-⸢tu⸣ ip-pu-uš / [si-ḫu bar-tú i-na UGU mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na] LUGAL…

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 P336094.

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/P336094/..
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/P336094/.

Related tablets

Related sources