Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

SAA 04 273. Fragment Similar to No. 271 [military and political]

~675 BCE·Neo-Assyrian·P336627

Translation · reference

High confidence
(Beginning destroyed) (2) Will he/they go [......] (3) against [......]? (4) Is it decreed and confirmed in a favorable case, b[y the command of your great divinity, Šamaš, great lord]? [Will he who can see, see it? Will he who can hear, hear it]? (6) Disregard that insignificant Elamite troops [...]. (7) Disregard the (formulation) of today's case, be it good, [be it faulty]. (8) [Disregard] that a clean or an unclean person has touched the sacrificial sheep, or [blocked the way of the sacrificial sheep]. (9) [Disregard] that unclean people have come near the place of the extispicy and made…

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/P336627/

Why it matters

Transliteration

⸢ki⸣ [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / DU-ku ⸢šá?⸣ [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / a-na UGU [x x x x x x x x x x x x x x] / i-na SILIM-ti i-[na KA DINGIR-ti-ka GAL-ti dUTU EN GAL-ú] / ⸢qa⸣-bi-i ku-un-[i IGI-ru IGI-ra ŠE.GA-ú ŠE.GA-e] / e-zib šá LÚ.ERIM-MEŠ LÚ.NIM.MA.KI-a.a e-ṣu-⸢ti⸣ [x x x x x x] / e-⸢zib⸣ šá di-ni UD-me an-ni-e GIM DÙG.GA [GIM ḫa-ṭu-ú] / [e-zib] šá KUG lu-ʾu-ú UDU…

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 P336627.

Attribution

Image: BM 099053 (British Museum, London, UK) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P336627). 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/P336627/.

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