SAA 04 149. Should Esarhaddon Appoint Sin-nadin-apli as Crown Prince? (AGS 107) [appointment]

(1) Šamaš, great lord, give me a firm positive answer to what I am asking you!

(2) Should Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, strive and plan? Should he enter his son, Sin-nadin-apli, whose name is written in this papyrus and placed before your great divinity, into the Succession Palace?

(4) Is it pleasing to your great divinity? Is it acceptable to your great divinity? Does your great divinity know it?

(7) Is the entering of Sin-nadin-apli, son of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, whose name is written in this papyrus, into the Succession Palace, decreed and confirmed in a favorable case, by the command of your great divinity, Šamaš, great lord? Will he who can see, see it? Will he who can hear, hear it?

(11) Disregard the (formulation) of today's case, be it good, be it faulty.

(12) Disregard that a clean or an unclean person has touched the sacrificial sheep, or blocked the way of the sacrificial sheep.

(13) Disregard that an unclean man or woman has come near the place of the extispicy and made it unclean.

(r 1) Disregard that an unclean person has performed extispicy in this place.

(r 2) Disregard that the ram (offered) to your divinity for the performance of the extispicy is deficient or faulty.

(r 3) Disregard that he who touches the forehead of the sheep is dressed in his ordinary soiled garments, has eaten, drunk, or anointed himself with anything unclean, (or) has altered or changed the proceedings.

(r 5) Disregard that I, the haruspex your servant, have eaten, drunk, or anointed myself with anything unclean, or have jumbled the oracular query in my mouth.

Let them be taken out and put aside!

(r 7) I ask you, Šamaš, great lord, whether Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, should enter his son, whose name is written in this papyrus, into the Succession Palace.

(r 10) Is it pleasing to your great divinity? Is it acceptable to your great divinity?

(r 11) Be present in this ram, place (in it) a firm positive answer, favorable designs, favorable, propitious omens by the oracular command of your great divinity, and may I see (them).

(r 14) May (this query) go to your great divinity, O Šamaš, great lord, and may an oracle be given as an answer.

(r 15) [... and] the 'well-being' are present. The left of the gall bladder is attached. The left surface of the 'finger' is split. The 'increment' is normal. The lower part is elevated.

(r 16) [Ditto] and the base of the middle 'finger' of the lung is 'bound,' a storm will cause a ship without a rudder to drift, but [Šamaš] and Marduk will always see it into a safe mooring. It is favorable in both a favorable and unfavorable case.

(r 18) The breast-bone is thick. The coils of the colon are 14 in number. The heart of the r[a]m is normal.