Position in chronology
SAA 04 161. Fragment Similar to No. 156 (AGS 122) [appointment]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 4(1) [Šamaš, great lord, give me a firm positive answer to what I am asking you]! (2) [Should Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, appoint the man whose name is written in this papyrus and placed before your great divinity, to the pos]iti[on which is written in this papyrus]? (4) If he appoints him, as [long as he hol]ds [this position, will he instigate an insurrection and rebellion against Esarhaddon, king] of Assyria, and Assurbanipal, [the crown prince of the Succession Palace, or cause others to instigate it]? (6) [Will he order it or] cause others to order it? Will he pl[ot it, or cause others to plot it or incite it]? Or will someone else cause [him to plot it ......]? (Rest destroyed)
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] / [LÚ 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]-⸢qit-tu⸣-[ú-tu šá i-na ni-ia-a-ri] / [an-na-a šá-aṭ-rat-tú lip-qi-su] ⸢GIM⸣ ip-taq-du-uš ⸢a-di UD-MEŠ mál⸣ [pi-qi-tu-ú-tu šu-a-tu ip-pu-šú] / [si-ḫu ḪI.GAR a-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 P336098.
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/P336098/..
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/P336098/.
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