Position in chronology
SAA 04 267. Will Chief Eunuch Recover Fortresses Lost to Manneans? (AGS 150) [military and political]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) Šamaš, great lord, give me a (firm) positive answer to what I am asking you! (2) Should Nabû-šarru-uṣur, chief eunuch, and the men, horses, and army [of] Assurbanipal, king of Assyria, which are at [his disposal, go to recover the fort]resses of Assyria which the Manneans conq[uered? (5) If he go]es, [will he], be it through friendliness and peaceful nego[tiations, or by waging war], or by [whatever tr]icks, [recover] these fortresses? [Does your great divinity know it]? (8) Is it decreed and confirmed in a favorable case, by the command [of your great divinity, Šamaš, great lord]? Will…
Source: 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/P336114/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[d]UTU EN GAL-ú šá a-šal-lu-ka an-na a-pal-an-ni / [md]AG—LUGAL—ŠEŠ LÚ.GAL—SAG a-di ⸢LÚ.ERIM⸣-MEŠ ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ ù e-mu-qí / [šá m]daš-šur—DÙ—DUMU.UŠ LUGAL KUR—aš-šur mál it-⸢ti⸣-[šú a-na tur-ri šá bi]-⸢ra⸣-a-ti / [šá KUR]—aš-šur šá LÚ.man-na-a.a iš-⸢šu⸣-[ú-ni lil-lik GIM it-tal]-⸢ku⸣ / lu-ú i-na KA DÙG.GA si-lim ṭu-⸢ub⸣-[ba-a-ti lu-ú i-na DÙ-eš GIŠ.TUKUL MURUB₄ ù ta-ḫa-zi] / lu-ú i-na 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 P336114.
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/P336114/..
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/P336114/.
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