Position in chronology
SAA 04 133. Fragment Similar to No. 132 (PRT 058) [military and political]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 4(Beginning destroyed) (1) [... Will it be carried out s]uccessfully? (2) [Does your great divinity] know it? (3) [Is it decreed] and confirmed in a favorable case, b[y the command of your] great [divinity], Šamaš, great lord? [Will he who can s]ee, see it? [Will he who ca]n hear, hear it? (5) [Disre]gard that the ram (offered) to [your] divinity for the performance of the extispicy is deficient or faulty. (Break) (r 1) Be present [in this ram, place (in it) a firm positive answer, favorable designs], favorable, propitious omens by the oracular [command] of your great [divini]ty, [and may I see (them)]. (r 4) [May (this query) go to] your great [divi]nity, [O Šamaš, great lord], and may an oracle be given as an answer.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 4 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[in-né-ep-pu-ú-šu i-šal]-li-i-[mì] / ⸢DINGIR⸣-ut-ka ⸢GAL⸣-[ti] ZU-[e] / i-na SILIM-tim i-[na KA DINGIR-ti-ka] GAL-[ti] / [d]UTU EN GAL-ú [qa-bi-i] ku-un / [IGI]-ru IGI-⸢ra⸣ [ŠE].GA-ú ŠE.GA-[e] / [e]-⸢zib⸣ šá UDU.NÍTA DINGIR-⸢ti⸣-[ka] ⸢šá⸣ a-na MÁŠ-ri MÁŠ-[ú] / ⸢LAL⸣-ú ḫa-ṭu-[ú] / [i-na ŠÀ UDU.NÍTA an-ni-e] GUB-[za]-am-ma / [an-na GI.NA GIŠ.ḪUR-MEŠ ta]-mit SIG₅-MEŠ SILIM-MEŠ šá SILIM-⸢tim⸣ / [šá KA DINGIR]-⸢ti⸣-ka GAL-⸢ti⸣ [šuk-nam-ma lu-mur] / [UGU DINGIR]-ti-ka GAL-[ti dUTU EN GAL-ú lil-lik]-⸢ma⸣ li-tap-pal
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 P336349.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P336349). 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/P336349/.
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.