Position in chronology
SAA 04 011. Will Mugallu of Melid and Iškallu of Tabal Wage War? (AGS 059) [military and political]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 4(Beginning destroyed) (r 1) [I ask y]ou, Šamaš, gr[eat] lord, [whether Mugallu, the Melidean, or] Iškallû the Ta[balean, or ... will strive] and plan, (r 4) (and whether) [they ......] will leave and [... to wage] war? (r 6) Be present [in thi]s [ram, place (in it) a firm positive answer, favorable designs], favorable, propi[tious omens by the oracular command of your great divinity, and may I see (them)]. (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[a-šal]-⸢ka dUTU⸣ EN ⸢GAL⸣-[ú ki-i lu-ú mmu-gal-lu KUR.mi-li-da-a.a] / [lu-ú m]iš-ka-lu-u KUR.ta-[ba-la-a.a lu-ú x x x x x] / [i-ṣar-ri]-⸢mu⸣ i-kap-pi-⸢du⸣ [x x x x x x x x x x] / [x x x x]-si uṣ-ṣu-⸢nim⸣-[ma x x x x x x x x x] / [DÙ-eš GIŠ].⸢TUKUL⸣ MURUB₄ u ⸢MÈ⸣ [x x x x x x x x x] / [i-na ŠÀ UDU.NÍTA an-ni]-i GUB-za-⸢am⸣-[ma an-na GI.NA GIŠ.ḪUR-MEŠ SILIM-MEŠ] / [UZU-MEŠ ta-mit] SIG₅-MEŠ ⸢SILIM⸣-[MEŠ šá SILIM-tim]
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 P336057.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P336057). source
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/P336057/.
Related tablets
Related sources
Whatever its purpose, this single tablet shows that Babylonian mathematicians, working in base-60, had an arithmetic understanding of right triangles a millennium before Pythagoras was born.
The single most important literary discovery of the 19th century. It rewired the understanding of the Bible's literary context and proved that the Mesopotamian flood tradition is older. It is the oldest surviving epic poetry in human history.
The literary tradition is no longer anonymous from this point. Authorship — the idea that a specific human voice composes a specific work — enters the historical record with her.