Position in chronology
SAA 04 113. Should a Eunuch be Sent to a Destination Named on Papyrus? [military and political]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 4(Beginning destroyed) (1) [Should Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, strive and plan, and send] the eunuch whose name [is written in this papyrus and placed before your great divinity, to the ...] which [is written] in this papyrus? (3) [If he, having planned], sends him, [......]. (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[li-iṣ-rim lik-pid-ma] ⸢LÚ.SAG⸣ šá ⸢MU-šú⸣ [ina ni-a-ri x x x x x x x x x] / [a-na x x x x]-bi šá a-na ŠÀ ni-a-[ri x x x x x x x liš-pur] / [GIM ik-tap-du] ⸢il⸣-ta-pa-a-⸢ra⸣ [x x x x x] / [x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ ti an [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 P336612.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P336612). 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/P336612/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
The single most influential Mesopotamian king list — the model for every later attempt to chronicle the deep history of the region. It transmits the political theology of divinely granted kingship, an idea that would echo through Babylon, Assyria, and into the Hebrew Bible. The Weld-Blundell prism (WB 444) at the Ashmolean is the most complete surviving copy.