Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 180. Fragment of an Appointment Query [appointment]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P336618

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(1) [Šamaš, great lord, give me a firm] positive answer [to what I am asking you]! (2) [The man whose name is written in this] papyrus [and placed before yo]ur great [divinity ......] (Break) (r 1) [May (this query) go to your great divinity], O Šamaš, great lord, [and may an oracle be given as an answer]. (r 2) [... The 'stren]gth' is present. The left of the gall bladder is attached. The 'fing[er' ......]. (r 3) [......]. The base of the middle part is 'loose.' The breast-[bone ......]. (r 4) [......] descends to the right and [......].

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] ŠÀ-bi ni-ʾa-a-ra ⸢an⸣-[na-a šaṭ-ru-ma] / [i-na IGI DINGIR-ti]-⸢ka⸣ GAL-ti [GAR-un x x x x x] / [UGU DINGIR-ti-ka GAL]-⸢ti⸣ dUTU ⸢EN GAL⸣-[ú lil-lik-ma KIN li-tap-pal] / [x x x x x] ⸢KALAG?⸣ GAR 150 ZÉ ṣa-mid ŠU.⸢SI⸣ [x x x x x] / [x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ MURUB₄-tum SUḪUŠ-sà BAR GAG.ZAG.[GA x x x x x] / [x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ ana 15 ma-qit u GÍD-ud [x x x x]

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 P336618.

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/P336618/..
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/P336618/.

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