Position in chronology
SAA 04 264. Should the Statue of Marduk be Loaded onto a Boat? (AGS 104) [cultic]
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [Šamaš, great lord, giv]e [me a] firm [positive answer to what I am asking you]! (2) [On the ... of month Iyyar (II) of] the [c]om[ing year...], [should they load the statue of the great lord Marduk] on the boat [in the Inner Ci]ty, and should he g[o to B]abylon [...]? (5) Is it pleasing [to your great divinity and to the great lord], Marduk? [Is it acceptable to your great divinity and to the great lord, M]arduk? (7) [Does your great divinity know] it? [Is the going of the statue of the great lord Marduk] to Babylon [decreed and confirm]ed [in a favorable case, by the command] of your…
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/P237364/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[dUTU EN GAL-ú šá a-šal-lu-ka an-na] GI.NA a-[pal-an-ni] / [UD x-KÁM šá ITI.GUD šá MU.AN.NA e]-ri-ib-[ti x x x] / [ṣa-lam dAMAR.UTU EN GAL-i i-na URU.ŠÀ]—⸢URU⸣ a-na ŠÀ GIŠ.MÁ.⸢U₅⸣ / [lu-še-lu-ú-ma x x x x a-na] ⸢KÁ⸣.DINGIR.RA.KI lil-⸢lik⸣ / [UGU DINGIR-ti-ka GAL-ti u UGU EN GAL-i d]AMAR.UTU DÙG.GA / [pa-an DINGIR-ti-ka GAL-ti u pa-an EN GAL-i d]⸢AMAR⸣.UTU ma-ḫi-i-⸢ri⸣ / [DINGIR-ut-ka GAL-ti ZU]-e…
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 P237364.
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/P237364/..
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/P237364/.
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