The oracle queries themselves may have undergone a process of evolution. It has been suggested by Aro that the earliest ones were written in Babylonian and generally left undated, or, if dated, then only by the day and month of the performance; further, that names of the officiating haruspices were generally not noted in the older queries.[[238]] In this view, reports in Assyrian script made their appearance only gradually, toward the end of Esarhaddon's reign, while at the same time dating by year eponym (limmu) started to become a habit and finally, at the latest stage of the evolution, a rule. The earliest year date attested in an unbroken context is Nabû-belu-uṣur, eponym for the year 672 (no. 183, a text in Assyrian script). However, if the other part of Aro's theory is correct, viz. that queries in Babylonian script tend to be earlier than those in Assyrian script, then some of the earliest ones do have the names of the participating officials, at least, as well as a date, e.g. nos. 3, 5 and 13.
Many of the queries preserve the names of the officiating haruspices or the officials involved in recording them. It is noteworthy, however, that no titles are ever mentioned. In particular, the title bēl ṭemi, "reporter," so prominent in the reports, is conspicuously lacking.[[239]] In the reports, by contrast, not only are the names of the officiating haruspices and the reporting officials systematically given but they are also consistently differentiated by title or profession. Both diviners and "reporters" are occasionally listed side by side, e.g. nos. 279, 296, 316 and 324. The title "reporter" appears to have been indicated regularly. It also appears that the chief haruspex too could serve as a reporter, see 319 r.5, 326 r.3f and 334 r.3.
Many queries from the reign of Esarhaddon are dated by month and day; some also indicate provenance (e.g. city Calah, Succession Palace, etc.). It is not clear, however, how prevalent dating by eponym was. The word limmu is preserved five times in the extant queries from Esarhaddon's reign (nos. 13, 89, 90, 183 and 212), and it is restorable in three further texts (nos. 23, 35 and 74). However, many of the texts are fragmentary, and an eponym date may have been included in the portion of the tablet now lost. It is therefore difficult to determine whether dating by eponym indicates a development in the latter part of the reign of Esarhaddon, or just the vagaries of preservation.
It certainly appears to have become standard practice in the "reports," all of which are from the reign of Assurbanipal. However, in the queries from this reign, the practice of dating appears to have been as erratic as under Esarhaddon. It is true that four of the relatively few (sixteen) queries extant from this reign bear an eponym date (nos. 262 and 271-273, dating from years 668 and 658-657 respectively); but it has to be noted that a date is certainly lacking in at least one (no. 267), and possibly many more of these texts.
Systematic vs. unsystematic dating may thus simply reflect the functional difference between queries and reports. As primary documents prepared at the time and probably also at the site of the extispicy (see above, pp. XXIII and XXVIII), the former were often left undated; whereas the latter, as documents prepared primarily for archival purposes, were bound to be dated more systematically.
238 See Aro, CRRAI 14 (1965) 112ff.
239 Reading EN.MEŠ—[UMUŠ] in no. 129 s.4 is excluded according to collation. On bēl ṭemi, "reporter," see Stolper, JNES 48 (1980) 300ff.
Ivan Starr
Ivan Starr, 'Texts Dated by Eponym Year', Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria, SAA 4. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1990; online contents: SAAo/SAA04 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa04/chronologyandhistoricalbackground/textsdatedbyeponymyear/]