Position in chronology
SAA 04 166. Query Similar to No. 156 (PRT 056) [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 office whi[ch is written in this papyrus]? (5) If he appo[ints him, will he] instigate [an insurrection and rebellion against Esarhaddon, ki]ng of Assyria, or against [Assurbanipal, the crown prince of the Succession Palace], or will he cause others to instigate it? (7) [Will he plot it, or cause others to plot it? Will he incite it]? Or will someone else [cause him…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
⸢d⸣UTU EN GAL-ú šá a-šal-⸢lu⸣-[ka an-na GI.NA a-pal-an-ni] / LÚ šá MU-šú i-na ni-ʾa-a-⸢ra⸣ [an-na-a šaṭ-ru-ú-ma] / i-na IGI DINGIR-ti-ka GAL-ti [GAR-un mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na LUGAL KUR—aš-šur.KI] / a-na LÚ.EN—pi-qit-tu-tu ⸢šá⸣ [i-na ni-ʾa-a-ra an-na-a šaṭ-ra-tu] / li-ip-qid-⸢su⸣ GIM ip-te-⸢eq⸣-[du-uš si-ḫu bar-tu i-na UGU mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na] / ⸢LUGAL⸣ KUR—aš-šur lu-ú a-na UGU md[aš-šur—DÙ—DUMU.UŠ…
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 P240263.
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/P240263/..
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/P240263/.
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