Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 231. Fragment of a Query [unclassifiable]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P237081

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (1) [Is it decreed and confirmed in a favorable case, by the com]mand of [your great] divinity, [Šamaš, great lord]? (2) [Does your great divinity] know (it)? Will he who can se[e, see it? Will he who can hear, hear it]? (3) [Disregard that ......]...[......]. (Break) (r 1) [Disregard the (formulation) of] today's [ca]se, b[e it good, be it faulty]. (r 2) [Disregard that a clean or an un]clean person has touc[hed] the sacrificial sheep, [or blocked the way of the sacrificial sheep]. (r 3) [Disregard that an unc]lean man or woman [has come near the place of the extispicy and made it unclean]. (r 4) [Disregard that an unclean person has performed extispicy in] this pla[ce]. (Rest destroyed)

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

Transliteration

[i-na SILIM-tim i-na] ⸢KA⸣ DINGIR-⸢ti⸣-[ka GAL-i dUTU EN GAL-ú] / [qa-bi-i ku-un DINGIR-ut-ka GAL-ti] ZU-e IGI-⸢ru⸣ [IGI-ra ŠE.GA-ú ŠE.GA-e] / [x x x x x x x] ⸢ti ar?⸣ [x x x x x x x] / [e-zib šá di]-⸢in⸣ UD NE-i ⸢GIM⸣ [DÙG-ab GIM ḫa-ṭu-ú] / [e-zib šá KUG lu]-ʾu-ú SISKUR.SISKUR ⸢TAG⸣-[MEŠ ú—lu ana IGI SISKUR.SISKUR GIL-MEŠ] / [e-zib šá lu-ʾu]-⸢ú⸣ lu-ʾu-ú-⸢ti⸣ [KI MÁŠ DIB-MEŠ-ma ú-le-ʾu-ú] / [e-zib šá i-na] ⸢KI⸣ NE-i [lu-ʾu-ú MÁŠ MÁŠ-ú] / [x x x x x x x x x]+⸢x ti?⸣ [x x x 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 P237081.

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/P237081/..
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/P237081/.

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