Position in chronology
SAA 04 232. Fragment of a Query (PRT 067) [unclassifiable]
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (2) Is it decreed and confirmed in a favorable case [......], by the command of [your great] divinity, Šamaš, great lord? (4) Will he who can see, se[e it? Will he who can hear, hear it]? (5) Disregard that for [......]. (6) Disregard the (formulation) of [today's] case, [be it good, be it faulty]. (7) Disregard that a clean or an unclean person [has touched the sacrificial sheep, or blocked the way of the sacrificial sheep]. (r 1) Disregard that an unclean [man or woman has come near the place of the extispicy and made it unclean]. (r 2) Disregard that [an unclean…
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/P239050/
Why it matters
Transliteration
MU? [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / i-na ⸢SILIM?-tim?⸣ [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / i-na KA DINGIR-[ti-ka GAL-ti dUTU EN GAL-ú qa-bi-i ku-un-i] / a-mi-ri im-[ma-ra še-mu-ú i-šem-me-e] / e-zib šá a-⸢na⸣ a-⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / e-zib šá di-in [UD-mu an-ni-i GIM DÙG.GA GIM ḫa-ṭu-ú] / e-zib šá KUG lu-ʾu-[ú SISKUR.SISKUR TAG-tú lu-ú a-na pa-an SISKUR.SISKUR…
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 P239050.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P239050). 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/P239050/.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
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.