PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

The syntax of this omen, especially of the first protasis, is complicated, as noted by Freedman, ‘It is not certain whether the snake or the man is the subject of the verb IGI, ‘sees’, in these and the following omens. Word order favours the snake as subject’ (If a City 2, 8, n. 1-4). Compare Freedman’s translation given with our reconstructions.

Also compare the translation by Pientka-Hinz (2010, 193), ‘Wenn am 1. Nisannu, noch bevor ein Mann seinen Fuß aus dem Bett heraus auf den Boden gesetzt hat, eine Schlange aus einem Loch herhauskommt, und bevor irgend jemand (es) sieht, sie (bereits den Mann anschaut: dieser Mann wird (noch) im Verlauf des selbigen Jahres sterben.’

After the first apodosis, a conditional clause with an instruction for an apotropaic ritual is inserted before a second apodosis: ‘If that man wishes to live, he should make incisions in (his) head, he should shave his cheeks.’ Despite the differences from typical namburbû-rituals, which usually have the verb in the second person (see, e.g., omen 22.36), the passage should be discussed with them in mind. Maul (1994, 291-293) includes this passage in his book on namburbû-rituals.

The noun ḫurru ‘hole’ in the protasis of omen 22.1 is semantically and phonetically associated with uḫarrar in the ritual instruction. The interpretation of uḫarrar (D-stem of ḫarāru) requires a detailed discussion: the G-stem of ḫarāru can be translated as ‘to dig (with a hoe), to groove’ (CAD Ḫ, 91, ḫarāru A), ‘to dig, to hollow out’ (graben, aushöhlen, AHw I, 323), ‘to dig furrows’ (Furchen graben, GAG § 101, 2b). The CAD lists the D-stem ḫurruru separately under ḫarāru B ‘mng. uncertain:’ ḫurruru ‘uncert. mng., referring to some expression or act of mortification,’ and quotes our passage from omen 22.1 (CAD Ḫ, 91-92, CT 38 34: 21 = K 01350+, line 3). The AHw lists the D-stem under ḫarāru ‘to dig,’ giving the translation ‘to burrow/bury’ (eingraben) for ḫurruru; the passage fom omen 22.1 is translated as ‘den Kopf, sich selbst ú-ḫar-ra-ar schneidet er ein’ (AHw I, 323, CT 38, 33/4, l. 21f.). The Concise Dictionary of Akkadian has the translation ‘to make incisions in something’ for the D-stem, ‘of part of body, stat. “is hollowed out”; “make incisions in” s.th.’ (Concise Dictionary, 107). The translation of omen 22.1 in If a City 2 leaves uḫarrar untranslated (If a City 2, 9, *22.1), but lists the above-cited references from the CAD and the AHw (see If a City 2, 8, n. 1-4).

An ancient commentary comments on uḫarrar, but unfortunately most of the commentary is broken. In his edition of the commentary, Jiménez (2014 = CCP 3.5.22.A.b, 1-2) translates uḫarrar as ‘He should hollow out his head’:

The verb ḫurruru also appears in a snake omen found in BM 78960, among omens from Tablets 25-26 of Šumma ālu (see If a City 2, 84-87, text 7; 94-97, text 4):

Freedman’s ‘gashes’ seems a good translation for ḫurruru in this context.

The omen has a parallel in an Assur text, VAT 10116+ (KAL 1, no. 13, 54, 56, l. 21), but Heeßel leaves uḫarrissu untranslated and seems to interpret the snake as the subject of the verb:

For qaqqada uḫarrar in omen 22.1 (var. BM 036389+: qaqqassu uḫarrar) we suggest a meaning closer to the following lētīšu ugallab ‘he should shave his cheeks’. As the CAD (Ḫ, 92) points out, ‘[t]he interchange of qaqqadu and ramānu [as seen in omen 22.22] indicates that ḫurruru refers to some form of self-mortification,’ which also fits the context of the ritual instruction.

Mediae geminatae roots of Akkadian verbs describe durative actions and processes, which consist of short identical movements, which von Soden terms ‘Kettendurative’ in GAG § 101, 2b (see there for several such mediae geminatae verbs with chain-durative meaning, including ḫarāru). This continuous movement is also reflected in the shaving of the cheeks (lētīšu ugallab).

Because ‘to hollow out the head’ makes little sense in English, we lean towards the translation given in the Concise Dictionary (p. 107), ‘to make incisions’. Perhaps this action of self-mortification was performed with a razor blade, as would be used in shaving the cheeks. An idea to be further investigated in this context, is the possible practice of trepanation, i.e., the drilling or scraping of holes into a patient’s skull, which is known to have been a medical practice in many prehistoric, ancient, and mediaeval cultures (see, e.g., Nerlich et al. 2003 on trepanation in Ancient Egypt, and Martin 2003, 336-337, for a descriptive account of the technique, as well as other contributions in the same volume). According to Biggs (2005, 15) there is no evidence for trepanation in Mesopotamia.  There is, however, archaeological evidence from third-millennium eastern Iran (Van Laere 2018, 70) and Van Laere (2018, 69) suggests the possibility, that ‘opening the temple’ in §218 of the Code of Hammurabi may describe trepanation or bloodletting. The meaning of ḫurruru as ‘to make holes’ would fit the technique of drilling holes into the skull; a repeated durative meaning like ‘to scratch’ would fit the technique of scratching off the layers of the skull. In qaqqassu uḫarrar, the person is said to perform the act themselves, and self-trepanation is not unheard of (see André 2017). Perhaps some form of self-trepanation was practised in Mesopotamia as an act of self-mortification.