Position in chronology
SAA 04 013. Midas Sending for Troops (AGS 051) [military and political]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) Šamaš, great lord, [give me a firm positive answer to what I am asking you]! (2) [M]idas, c[ity] lord of [......] (3) [who has sent] his messengers t[o NN, the troops] (4) of his nephew and the t[roops of ......] (5) to Ilu-takl[ak ......] (6) [...] king [......] (7) [...] sei[zed ......] (8) [... in th]is [y]ear [......] (9) [... Mi]das [......]? (10) [Does your] great [divinity know it]? Is it de[creed and confirmed in a favorable case, by the command of your great divinity, Šamaš], gr[eat lord? Will he who can see, see it? Will he who can hear, hear it]? (12) [Disregard the…
Source: 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/P237369/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[d]UTU EN GAL-[ú šá a-šal-lu-ka an-na GI.NA a-pal-an-ni] / [m]⸢mi⸣-it-ta-a EN—⸢URU?⸣ [šá x x x x x x x x x x] / LÚ.DUMU—šip-ri-MEŠ-šú a-[na x x x x x x x x x x] / šá DUMU—ŠEŠ-šú ù ⸢ERIM⸣-[MEŠ x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / a-na mDINGIR—tak-⸢lak⸣ [x x x x x x x x x x x x] / ⸢mx x⸣ LUGAL [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / [x x x] iṣ-⸢ba⸣-[tu x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / [x x ina] ⸢MU⸣.AN.⸢NA NE?⸣-[ti 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 P237369.
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/P237369/..
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/P237369/.
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