Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 315. Should Assurbanipal Perform Sacrifices before ...? [cultic]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P237128

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (r 1) [...... It is favorable in both a favora]ble and unfavor[able case. ...] (r 2) Should [Assurbani]pal, king of Assyria, [your] creature, [at the beginn]ing of month Adar of [this] ye[ar] perform [...] sacrifices be[fore god ...], his [...]? (r 5) [Does your great] divinity [know it? Is it pleasing] to the great lord, ...? Is it acce[pt]able [to the great lord, ...?] (Rest destroyed)

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

Transliteration

[x x x x ina SILIM?]-⸢tim?⸣ u NU ⸢SILIM⸣-[tim SILIM-át x x x] / [i-na? e?]-⸢reb⸣ ITI.ŠE šá MU.⸢AN⸣.[NA NE-ti] / [mAN.ŠÁR—DÙ]—A MAN KUR—aš-šur DÙ-ut ŠU.[2-ka] / [x x x x] UDU.SISKUR.SISKUR-MEŠ ina ⸢IGI⸣ [dx] / [x x x x]-šú li-pu-uš DINGIR-⸢ut⸣-[ka] / [GAL-ti ZU-e] ⸢UGU⸣ EN GAL dx [DÙG.GA-i] / [IGI EN GAL dx] ⸢ma-ḫi⸣-[i]-⸢ri x⸣+[x 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 P237128.

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/P237128/..
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/P237128/.

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