Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 343. Fragment Similar to No. 340 [unclassifiable]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P238939

Translation — scholar edition

SAA 4
High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (1) The upper [part ......] (2) Between [the 'cap' of the lung and the 'lift of the head' of the lung] a piece of flesh is ...[...]: the sun in its rising. [......] (5) From the mouth [......]. (Break) (r 1) judgment [......] (r 2) true [......] (r 3) is not unfavorable [......] (Rest destroyed)

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

Transliteration

BE AN.⸢TA?⸣ [x x x x x x x x] / BE ina bi-⸢rit⸣ [U.SAG MUR u MU.SAG MUR] / UZU mun-[dur x x x x x x x x] / dUTU ina MÚ-[šú x x x x x x] / šá KA ⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x x x x] / DI.⸢KUD?⸣ [x x x x x x x x x] / GI.NA ú-[x x x x x x x x] / ul TAG [x x x x x x x x x] / lu? [x x x x 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 P238939.

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/P238939/..
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/P238939/.

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