Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 212. Fragment of a Query (PRT 064) [unclassifiable]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P238836

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(1) [Šamaš, great lord, give me a firm positive answer] to what I am asking [you]! (Break) (r 1) [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)]. (r 4) [May (this query) go to] your great [divinity], O Šamaš, [great lord, and may an oracle be given as an answer]. (r 5) Month Elul (VI), 16th day, eponym year of [NN].

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] / [i-na ŠÀ UDU.NÍTA NE-i GUB-za-am-ma an-na GI.NA GIŠ.ḪUR-MEŠ SILIM-MEŠ] / [UZU-MEŠ ta]-mit SIG₅-MEŠ [SILIM-MEŠ šá KA DINGIR-ti-ka GAL-ti] / [šuk-nam]-ma [lu-mur] / [UGU DINGIR-ti]-ka GAL-ti dUTU [EN GAL-ú lil-lik-ma KIN li-tap-pal] / ITI.KIN UD 16-KAM lim-me m[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 P238836.

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/P238836/..
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/P238836/.

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