Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 287. Should the Assyrian Army Wage War against Šamaš-šumu-ukin? (PRT 118) [military and political]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P336360

Translation · reference

High confidence
(1) [......]. (2) The breas[t-bone ... is prese]nt. (3) A niphu [......] and faces the [...]. (4) The 'station' is present. The 'path' is cur[led ...]. The left side of the gall bladder is split. (5) The 'path' on the left of the gall bladder is present. The middle of the middle surface of the 'finger' lies towards the 'yo[ke']. (6) A 'foot'-mark in the top of the right surface of the 'finger' is ... towards the area of the 'finger.' (7) The 'well-being' of the 'increment' is drawn over the 'increment.' The upper part is elevated. (8) The 'cap' rides upon the 'outside.' The base of the middle…

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/P336360/

Why it matters

Transliteration

⸢BE⸣ [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / BE GAG.⸢ZAG⸣.[GA x x x x x x x x x x x x] ⸢GAR?⸣ / BE IZI.GAR ⸢15?⸣ [x x x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ ni IGI / BE NA GAR GÍR ka?-⸢pí?⸣-[iṣ x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ 150 ZÉ DU₈ / BE GÍR 150 ZÉ GAR EDIN U MURUB₄ MURUB₄-šú ana ni-[ri?] GAR / BE ina SAG EDIN 15 U GÌR ana KUR U SA-⸢at?⸣ / BE SILIM MÁŠ ina UGU MÁŠ e-ṣir AN.TA-tum DU-ik / BE U.SAG UGU SA-ti U₅ U—MUR MURUB₄ SUḪUŠ-sà…

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 P336360.

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/P336360/..
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/P336360/.

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