Position in chronology
SAA 04 313. Fragment of a Query Concerning a Rumour [appointment]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 4(Beginning destroyed) (1) ...... In the ankle there is a hole whose inside is white. (3) In the base of the 'station' a filament lies crosswise. (4) The 'well-being' is overturned and faces the gall bladder. (5) The gall bladder is flattened. Above the 'increment' there is a 'weapon'-mark which faces the 'yoke.' (7) There are 4 unfavorable omens. (r 1) The man whose name is written in this oblong tablet and placed before your great divinity, (and) concerning whom it was [s]aid to Assurbanipal, king of [Assyria], your servant: (r 7) "[......] Aššur-nemel-[...]" (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
du ri pad? 150 BE ina kur-sin-ni? / BÙR ŠUB-di ŠÀ-šú-nu BABBAR / BE ina SUḪUŠ NA GU pa-rik / BE SILIM BAL-ma ZÉ IGI / BE ZÉ šub-bat ina UGU MÁŠ / GIŠ.TUKUL GAR-ma ni-ri IGI / (blank) 04 TAG-MEŠ ina ŠÀ-bi / LÚ šá MU-šú ina IM.GÍD-ṭu / an-na-a šaṭ-ru-ú-ma / ina IGI DINGIR-ti-ka ⸢GAL⸣-ti GAR / šá a-na mAN.ŠÁR—DÙ—A LUGAL KUR—aš-[šur] / ARAD-ka a-na UGU LÚ UR₅-[tú] / qa-bu-ú um-ma ḫa-[x x x x] / [ina] ⸢IGI?⸣ mAN.ŠÁR—Á.TUK [x x x]
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 P237756.
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/P237756/..
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/P237756/.
Related tablets
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