Position in chronology
SAA 04 088. Will Chief Eunuch Ša-Nabu-šu be Attacked by the Egyptians? (PRT 036+) [military and political]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 4(1) Šamaš, great lord, [give me a firm positive answ]er to what I am asking you! (2) Ša-Nabû-šû, chief eunuch, whom [Esarhaddon, king of Assyria], has now sent and who has gone, (whom) your great divinity kno[ws — (3) in accordance with the command of your great divinity, Šamaš, great lord], and your favorable decisions, should the subject of this query, Ša-Nabû-šû, [chief eunuch, ......]? (5) [After he ...] has reached the city [...]-Aššur [..., will N]echo and Šar[ru-lu-dari, Egyptian kings, ......] and the Egypti[ans ......]? (8) As long as [he stays] in the dis[trict of Egypt, will either…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
dUTU EN GAL-ú šá a-šal-lu-ka ⸢an⸣-[na GI.NA a-pal-an-ni] / mšá—dAG—šú-ú LÚ.GAL—SAG-⸢MEŠ⸣ šá i-ne-an-na md[aš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na LUGAL KUR—aš-šur.KI] / iš-pur-šú-ú-ma il-li-ku ⸢DINGIR⸣-ut-ka GAL-ti ⸢ZU⸣-[u GIM KA DINGIR-ut-ka GAL-ti dUTU EN GAL-ú] / ù EŠ.BAR-ka šal-mu EN—MU.[MU] ⸢NE⸣-i mšá—dPA—šú-⸢ú⸣ [LÚ.GAL—SAG-MEŠ x x x x] / [GIM a]-⸢na URU.x-ni—aš-šur x⸣ [x x]-ú ik-tal-du [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 P336341.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P336341). 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/P336341/.
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.
A major witness to the Mesopotamian Flood tradition and its relationship to later biblical literature. The date of this particular copy must be distinguished from the older history of the story.
An object naming and depicting a powerful priestess and royal daughter around 2300 BCE. Enheduanna is also a landmark in named literary authorship, but that literary legacy must be distinguished from this disk’s dedication.