the assyrians were doing oracles by sacrificing animals, mostly goats and rams as it looks. and they were recording these sacrifices for posteriority or bureaucracy. they always used these severability clauses in their incantations, to make the gods respond even if some of the priest had messed up ("please respond even if the priest is unclean").
and sometimes these questions to the gods were so secret that even the gods were not allowed to hear their content during the sacrifice:
I [ask] you, Ć amaĆĄ, great lord, whether Assurbanipal, son of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, should send NabĂ»-ĆĄarru-uáčŁur, rab-mĆ«gi, to Egypt, and whether he will carry out whatever orders Assurbanipal is giving to him.
they expect a kind of carte blanche here ...
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assyria #
archaeology #
cuneiform
