Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 236. Fragment of a Query (PRT 081) [unclassifiable]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P240161

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (1) [Disregard that a clean or un]clean person [has touched the] sacrificial [sheep or blocked the way of the sacrificial sheep]. (2) [Disregard that an unclean man or wo]man [has come near the] place of the extispicy [and made it unclean]. (3) [Marduk-šumu-uṣur and] Naṣiru [......]. (r 1) [Disregard that an unclean person has performed extispicy] in this place. (r 2) [Disregard that the] ram (offered) to [your] divinity [for the performance of the extispicy is deficient or faulty]. (r 3) [Disregard that he who] touches the forehead [of the sheep is dressed in his…

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

Transliteration

[e-zib šá KUG lu]-ʾu-ú SISKUR.[SISKUR TAG-MEŠ ú—lu a-na IGI SISKUR.SISKUR GIL-MEŠ] / [e-zib šá lu-ʾu-ú lu]-ʾu-ú-ti ⸢KI MÁŠ⸣ [DIB-MEŠ-ma ú-le-ʾu-ú] / [mdAMAR.UTU—MU—ŠEŠ u] mna-ṣi-ru [x x x x x x x x] / [e-zib šá i]-⸢na⸣ KI an-ni-i [lu-ʾu-ú MÁŠ MÁŠ-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 SAG.⸢KI⸣ [UDU.NÍTA TÚG gi-né-e-šú ár-šá-a-ti lab-šú mim-ma…

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 P240161.

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/P240161/..
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/P240161/.

Related tablets

Related sources