Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 254. Fragment of a Query (AGS 161) [unclassifiable]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P399305

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (r 1) [Disregard that the ram (offered) to your divinity] for the performance [of the extispicy is deficient or faulty]. (r 2) [Disregard that he who touches the forehead of the sh]eep [is dressed] in his ordinary soiled [garments]. (r 3) [Disregard that I, the haruspex your servant, am dressed in] my ordinary soiled garments, or [jum]bled [the oracle query in my mouth].Let [them be taken out and put aside]! (Rest destroyed)

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

Transliteration

[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-šú ar-šá-⸢a⸣-[ti lab-šú] / [e-zib šá a-na-ku DUMU—LÚ.ḪAL ARAD-ka] TÚG gi-né-ia ár-⸢šat⸣ [lab-šá-ku] / [ú—lu ta-mit i-na KA-ia up-tar]-ri-du lu-ú [ZI-MEŠ lu-ú BAR-MEŠ]

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 P399305.

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/P399305/..
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/P399305/.

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