Position in chronology
SAA 04 183. Is Esarhaddon Ill with ...? (AGS 099) [medical]
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 4(1) [Šamaš, great lord], give me a firm positive answer [to what I am] asking you! (2) [Esarhaddon, king] of Assyria, who is now [ill] and on whom [the 'hand' of god ...] is being 'placed' in extispicy — (4) [if the 'hand' of god] ... is placed on him in extispicy, [is it decreed] and confirmed [in a favorable case, by] the command of your great divinity, [Šamaš, great lord]? (7) [Disregard the (formulation) of] to[day's case], be it good, be it faulty. (8) [Disregard that a clean or an unclean person] has touched [the sacri]ficial sheep, or bloc[ked] the way of the sacrificial sheep. (9)…
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 / [mdaš-šur—ŠEŠ—SUM-na LUGAL] KUR—aš-šur.KI šá i-ne-an-na / [mar-ṣu-ma ŠU.2 dx] i-na MÁŠ iš-šak-kan-áš-šú / [ki-i ŠU.2 d]⸢x x⸣ i-na MÁŠ GAR-šú / [i-na SILIM-tim i-na] KA DINGIR-ti-ka GAL-ti / [dUTU EN GAL-ú qa-bi]-⸢i⸣ ku-un-i / [e-zib šá di-in UD-mi an]-⸢ni⸣-e GIM DÙG.GA GIM ḫa-ṭu-ú / [e-zib šá KUG lu-ʾu-ú SISKUR].⸢SISKUR⸣ TAG-MEŠ-tú ú-⸢lu…
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 P336079.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P336079). 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/P336079/.
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.