SAA 04 283. Will Šamaš-šumu-ukin Fall into the Hands of Assyrian Troops? (PRT 107) [military and political]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P238265

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4

High confidence

(1) [...] the 'path' reaches its 'seats.' (2) [... The 'streng]th' (and) 'well-being' are present. The 'path' on the left of the gall bladder [is long] and reaches the place of the 'base of the throne.' (4) [... 'finge]r' is raised [...]. (one line broken) (6) The left [......]. (7) There is a design in the middle surface of the 'finger' which penetrates from right to left. (9) [... is n]ormal. The upper part is elevated. (10) The base of [the midd]le ['finger' of the lung] is 'bound.' (11) [The breas]t-bone is thick. (12) [The coils of the colon are ... and are ...] in number. (r 1) [From]…

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

Transliteration

[x x x]+⸢x⸣ GÍD GÍR DAG-MEŠ-šú KUR-id / [x x] ⸢KALAG⸣ SILIM GAR GÍR 150 ZÉ / [x x x]-ma KI ŠUB—AŠ.TE KUR-⸢ud⸣ / [x x x ŠU].⸢SI?⸣ ul-lu-ma / 150 ⸢ZÉ?⸣ [x x x x x] / BE ina EDIN U MURUB₄ GIŠ.ḪUR / ⸢TA⸣ 15 ana 150 er-bet / [BE x x] ⸢šá?⸣-lim AN-ti DU / [BE U—MUR] ⸢MURUB₄⸣ SUḪUŠ-sà KÉŠ-is / [BE GAG].⸢ZAG⸣.GA KUG / [BE ŠÀ.NIGIN x x] ŠID-šú-nu / [TA] ⸢UD⸣ 16-KÁM šá ITI an-ni-i / ⸢ITI⸣.APIN šá MU.AN.NA…

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 P238265.

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/P238265/..
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/P238265/.

Related tablets

Related sources

~650 BCE

Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI (the Flood)

The single most important literary discovery of the 19th century. It rewired the understanding of the Bible's literary context and proved that the Mesopotamian flood tradition is older. It is the oldest surviving epic poetry in human history.

~2300 BCE

Disk of Enheduanna

The literary tradition is no longer anonymous from this point. Authorship — the idea that a specific human voice composes a specific work — enters the historical record with her.

~1808 BCE

Sumerian King List (Weld-Blundell Prism)

The single most influential Mesopotamian king list — the model for every later attempt to chronicle the deep history of the region. It transmits the political theology of divinely granted kingship, an idea that would echo through Babylon, Assyria, and into the Hebrew Bible. The Weld-Blundell prism (WB 444) at the Ashmolean is the most complete surviving copy.