Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 300. Should Assurbanipal Appoint Sin-tabni-uṣur over Ur? (PRT 135) [appointment]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P336365

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (1) [......] the angry [god] will recon[cile himself] with the man. (2) [If the left side of the 'cap'] grows a 'finger': [divine] merc[y for the man]. (3) [The breast-bon]e is thick. The coils of the colon are 12 in number. The heart of the ram is [normal]. (4) Favorable. (5) Will [Si]n-tabni-uṣur, [so]n of Nikkal-iddina, be reliable? If [he is ap]pointed [ov]er Ur, will he make common cause [with] Šamaš-šumu-ukin? (Break) (r 1) [Month A]b (V), 11th day, eponym year of [NN]. (r 2) Dannaya, eunuch, r[eporter]. (r 3) [Performed in] Arbela.

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

Transliteration

[BE-ma DINGIR] zi-nu-u KI LÚ ⸢SILIM⸣-[im x x x] / [BE 150 U].⸢SAG ŠU⸣.SI DÙ-nu ta-a.a-⸢rat⸣ [DINGIR ana LÚ] / [BE GAG.ZAG].⸢GA⸣ e-bi ŠÀ.NIGIN 12 ŠÀ ⸢UDU.NÍTA⸣ [šá-lim] / [o] (space) DÙG.GA-ab / [md]⸢30⸣—tab-ni—ŠEŠ / ⸢DUMU⸣ mdNIN.GAL—MU / i-šá-lim GIM-ma / [a]-⸢na⸣ UGU ŠEŠ.UNUG.KI / [ip]-⸢pi⸣-qid KA-šú u ŠÀ-šú / [KI md]GIŠ.NU₁₁—MU—GI.⸢NA⸣ / [i-šá]-⸢ka-an⸣ / [x x x] šá ⸢x⸣+[x x x] / [ITI].⸢NE⸣ UD 11-KÁM lim-mu [mx x x] / [m]⸢dan⸣-a LÚ.⸢SAG LÚv⸣.[EN—UMUŠ] / [ina] ⸢URU⸣.arba-ìl [e-tap-šú]

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 P336365.

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/P336365/..
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/P336365/.

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