Position in chronology
SAA 04 221. Fragment of a Query [unclassifiable]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 4(Beginning destroyed) (r 1) [Disregard that] I have per[formed extispicy in this uncl]ean [place]. (r 2) [Disregard that the ram (offered) to your great divinity for the performance of the extisp]icy is defici[ent or faulty]. (r 3) [Disregard that he who touches the forehead of the sheep has touched the (libation) be]er, the maṣhatu-flour, the water, [the container and the fire]. (r 4) [Disregard that I, the haruspex your servant], have e[aten, drunk, or anointed myself with anything] unclean, [have seen fear and terror at night, have altered or c]ha[nged the proceedings, or (that) the oracle query has become jumbled in my mouth]. (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[e-zib šá i-na KI an-ni-e lu-ʾu]-ú MÁŠ ab-[ru-ú] / [e-zib šá UDU.NÍTA DINGIR-ti-ka šá a-na MÁŠ MÁŠ]-ú LAL-[ú ḫa-ṭu-ú] / [e-zib šá TAG-it pu-ut UDU.NÍTA mi-iḫ]-⸢ḫa⸣ ZÍD.MAD.GÁ A-⸢MEŠ⸣ [ḫaṣ-bu IZI TAG-tú] / [e-zib šá a-na-ku DUMU—LÚ.ḪAL ARAD-ka mim-ma] lu-ʾu-u a-[ku-lu NAG-ú ŠÉŠ-šú] / [i-na MI LUḪ-tú pi-rit-ti a-mu-ru ku-un ŠU.2 BAL-ú] ⸢uš⸣-[pe-lu ú—lu ta-mit]
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 P239304.
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/P239304/..
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/P239304/.
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