Position in chronology
SAA 04 028. Should Esarhaddon Send an Army to Siriš? (AGS 043) [military and political]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) Šamaš, great lord, give me a firm positive answer to what I am asking you! (2) From this day, the 10th day of this month, Sivan (III) of this year, to the 29th day, the day of the moon's disappearance of this month Sivan of this year, for 20 days and nights, the passing and the coming days included, the term stipulated for the performance of (this) extispicy — (4) within this stipulated term, (should) Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, who is now intent on sending men, horses and troops, as he wishes, to Siriš, (and) whom your great divinity knows — (6) in accordance with the command of your…
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/P237363/
Why it matters
Transliteration
dUTU EN GAL-ú šá a-šal-lu-ka an-[na] GI.NA a-pal-an-[ni] / TA UD-mu NE-i UD 10-KAM šá ITI NE-i ITI.SIG₄ šá MU.AN.NA NE-ti EN UD 29-⸢KÁM⸣ / UD.NÁ.A šá ITI NE-i ITI.SIG₄ šá MU.AN.NA NE-ti 20 UD-MEŠ 20 MI-MEŠ È-MEŠ-tu / u TU-MEŠ-ti ši-kin RI DÙ-eš-ti ba-ru-ti ina ši-kin RI šu-a-ti mAN.ŠÁR—ŠEŠ—SUM-na LUGAL KUR—AN.ŠÁR / šá TA-an-ni ERIM-MEŠ ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ Á.KAL mál ŠÀ-ba-šú ub-lam a-na KUR.si-ri-iš…
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 P237363.
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/P237363/..
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/P237363/.
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