Position in chronology
SAA 04 089. Should Prince Assurbanipal Send a Message to Arwad? (AGS 066) [military and political]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [Ša]maš, great lord, give me a f[irm positive answer] to what I am as[king you]! (2) Should Assurbanipal, son of Esar[haddon, king of Assyria], send Nabû-šarru-uṣur, the rab mūgi, to Ikkalû, who dwells in the city Arwad? (4) If he sends him, will Ikkalû listen to and comply with the message which [Assurbani]pal is sen[ding] to Ikkalû by the hand of Nabû-šarru-uṣur, the rab mūgi? (6) Does your great divinity know it? Is it decreed and confirmed in a favorable case, by the command of your great divinity, Šamaš, great lord? Will he who can see, see it? Will he who can hear, hear it? (8)…
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/P336061/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[d]⸢UTU⸣ EN GAL-ú šá a-⸢šal⸣-[lu-ka an-nam GI].⸢NA⸣ a-pal-an-ni / maš-šur—DÙ—DUMU.UŠ DUMU maš-šur—[ŠEŠ—SUM-na LUGAL KUR—aš-šur md]AG—LUGAL—ŠEŠ LÚ.GAL—mu-gi / a-na UGU mik-ka-lu-⸢ú šá⸣ i-na ŠÀ ⸢URU.ar⸣-ú-a-da áš-bu liš!-pur-šú / GIM il-tap-ru-šú mim-ma UMUŠ dib-bi šá [maš-šur—DÙ]—DUMU.UŠ i-na ŠU.2 mdAG—LUGAL—ŠEŠ LÚ.GAL—mu-gi / a-na mik-ka-lu-ú i-šap-[pa-ru] mik-ka-lu-ú i-šá-me-e i-man-gu-ú-ru /…
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 P336061.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P336061). 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/P336061/.
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