Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 185. Should Esarhaddon Take a Medication? (AGS 145) [medical]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P239001

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (1) [Should Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, as] he wishes, [drink this drug which is placed before your great divinity, and] in drinking this dr[ug will Esarhaddon], king of Assyria, [be rescued and spared? Will he live and get well]? (4) [Is ......] to leave [...] (5) dea[th ......] (6) [i]n [......] (Break) (r 1) Disregard that [......]. (r 2) Disregard that he who tou[ches the forehead of the sheep is dressed in his ordinary soiled garments], has eaten, dru[nk, or anointed himself with anything unclean, (or) has altered or changed the proceedings]. (r 4) Disregard that…

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

Transliteration

ŠÀ-ba-šú ⸢ub-lu⸣ [i-na IGI DINGIR-ti-ka GAL-ti GAR-un lil-ti-ma] / i-na ša-qé-e šam-[me an-na-a mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na] / ⸢LUGAL⸣ KUR—aš-šur.⸢KI⸣ [i-šet-i KAR-i TIN-ṭu i-šal-li-mi] / a-na e-zeb [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / mi-⸢tu⸣-[tu x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / [i]-na [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / e-zib šá [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / e-zib šá ⸢TAG⸣-[it SAG.KI UDU.NÍTA TÚG…

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 P239001.

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/P239001/..
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/P239001/.

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