SAA 04 280. Will Nabu-bel-šumate Join the War? (PRT 105) [military and political]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P237793

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4

High confidence

(1) The 'station' is present. If the 'paths' are two, (and) the left 'path' is located on the right 'path': the enemy's weapons will prevail over the prince's weapons. (3) If the 'strength' is absent: strife. (4) If there is a hole in the right side of the 'station': downfall of the army. Secondly, 'station' (in the protasis) refers to shrine and dais. (6) If the left of the gall bladder is attached: your expeditionary force will slay the enemy. (7) The 'finger' and 'increment' are normal. (8) If the back of the lung is smashed: defeat; changed disposition of my army. (10) The upper part is…

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

Transliteration

BE NA GAR GÍR 02-ma GÍR 150 UGU GÍR 15 GAR / KÚR GIŠ.TUKUL-MEŠ-šú UGU GIŠ.TUKUL-MEŠ NUN ŠEŠ-MEŠ / BE KALAG NU GAR ni-ip-ḫu / BE ina 15 NA BÙR ŠUB-di ŠUB-ti ERIM-ni / šá-niš NA suk-ku u BARAG / BE 150 ZÉ ṣa-mid GÌR-ka sad KÚR / BE ŠU.SI u MÁŠ šal-mu / BE ku-tal MUR 15 SÌG-iṣ SÌG-iṣ SAG.DU / MÌN-e ṭè-e-mu šá ERIM-MU / BE AN.TA-ti DU-ik / BE SA-ti UGU U.SAG U₅ U—MUR MURUB₄ SUḪUŠ-sà* BAR / BE…

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 P237793.

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/P237793/..
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/P237793/.

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