Position in chronology
SAA 04 160. Fragment Similar to No. 156 [appointment]
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (r 1) [whether he will inst]igate [an insurrection and rebellion against ..., or] cause others to insti[gate it, plot it or cause others to] plot it, (r 3) [(or whether) someone else will cause him to plot it], and he will listen [and make common cause with someone else] (r 5) about insurrection [and rebellion against Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, and] Assurbanipal, [the crown prince of the Succession Palace]. (r 7) [Be present] in this ram, place (in it) [a firm positive answer, favorable designs, favorable, propitious] omens [by the oracular command of your great divinity, and may I see (them)]. (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/P237551/
Why it matters
Transliteration
⸢x⸣ [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / [x x x x] šu-ú? [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / [x x x x] ⸢ú⸣-še-ep-pi-[šú x x x x x x x x x] / [x x x x]+⸢x⸣ i-šem-me-[e x x x x x x x x x x] / a-na UGU si-ḫa [ḪI.GAR i-na UGU mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na x x x x x x] / [LUGAL KUR—aš-šur.KI] ⸢ù?⸣ mAN.ŠÁR—DÙ—DUMU.⸢UŠ⸣ [DUMU—LUGAL šá É—re-du-ti ip-pu-uš] / [i-šak-ka]-an i-na ŠÀ UDU.⸢NÍTA⸣ [NE-i…
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 P237551.
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/P237551/..
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/P237551/.
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