Position in chronology
SAA 04 237. Fragment of a Query [unclassifiable]
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (r 1) [Disregard the (formulation) of today's case, be it good, be it faulty, (and that) the da]y is overcas[t and it is raining]. (r 2) [Disregard that an unclean person has touched the sacrificial sheep, or] blocked [the way of the sacrificial sheep]. (r 3) [Disregard that an unclean man or woman has come near the place of the extispicy and made] it unclean. (r 4) [Disregard that an unclean person has performed extisp]icy [in this place]. (r 5) [Disregard that the ram (offered) to your great divinity for the performance of the extispicy is deficient or] faulty. (r 6)…
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/P336624/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[e-zib šá di-in UD-me an-ni-e GIM DÙG.GA GIM ḫa-ṭu-ú UD]-⸢mu⸣ ŠÚ-⸢pu⸣ [A.AN ŠUR-nun] / [e-zib šá lu-ʾu-ú SISKUR.SISKUR TAG-MEŠ ú—lu a-na IGI SISKUR.SISKUR] GIL-MEŠ-⸢ku⸣ / [e-zib šá lu-ʾu-ú lu-ʾu-tú KI MÁŠ DIB-MEŠ-ma ú]-⸢le⸣-ʾu-ú / [e-zib šá ina KI an-ni-e lu-ʾu-ú MÁŠ MÁŠ]-ú / [e-zib šá UDU.NÍTA DINGIR-ti-ka šá a-na MÁŠ MÁŠ-ú LAL-ú] ḫa-ṭu-ú / [e-zib šá TAG-it SAG.KI UDU.NÍTA TÚG gi-né-e-šú ár-šat…
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 P336624.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Ivan Starr, Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria (State Archives of Assyria, 4), 1990. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2018, as part of the research programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair in the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at LMU Munich (Karen Radner, Humboldt Professorship 2015). The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P336624/..
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/P336624/.
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