Position in chronology
SAA 04 052. Will Kaštaritu ...? (PRT 002) [military and political]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 4(Beginning destroyed) (2) [Disregard that I, the haruspex your servant, am dressed in my ordinary soiled garments, have eaten, drunk (or) anointed myself with anythi]ng unclean, [have changed or altered the proceedings, or (that) the oracle query] has become jumbled or impaired [in] my mouth.[Let them be taken out and put aside]! Give me [a firm positive answer]! (r 1) [I ask you, Šamaš, great lord, whether from this day, the ... day of t]his [month], the month Adar (XII) [of this year, to the ...th day of the month ... of the] coming [year], (r 3) [Kaštaritu, city lord of Kar]kaššî [...] (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ / [e-zib šá a-na-ku DUMU—LÚ.ḪAL ARAD-ka TÚG gi-né-e-a ár-šat lab-šá-ku mim]-⸢ma⸣ lu-ʾu-ú / [KÚ NAG-ú ŠÉŠ-šú ku-un qa-ti BAL-ú uš-pe-lu ú—lu ta-mit i-na] ⸢KA⸣-ía ip-tar-ri-du LAL-MEŠ-ú / [lu-ú ZI-MEŠ lu-ú BAR-MEŠ an-na GI.NA] a-pal-an-ni / [a-šal-ka dUTU EN GAL-ú ki-i TA UD x-KÁM šá ITI] ⸢an⸣-ni-i ITI.ŠE.KIN.KUD / [šá MU.AN.NA an-ni-ti EN UD x-KÁM šá ITI.x šá MU.AN].⸢NA⸣ e-rib-⸢ti⸣ / [lu-ú mka-áš-ta-ri-ti EN—URU šá URU.kar]—kaš-ši-⸢i⸣ / [x x x x x 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 P240286.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P240286). 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/P240286/.
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.