Omen 22.11
Maya Rinderer, 2021, "Šumma ālu, Omen 22.11", Nicla De Zorzi et al., Bestiarium Mesopotamicum, 2018-2021; accessed 10/08/2026 12:07 a.m. at tieromina.acdh-dev.oeaw.ac.at/omens/Omen-22-11/tei
↓ 22.11 
BM 036389+.2   13  [DIŠinaitiBÁRAKI.MINMUŠana]ZAG⸢LÚ⸣ŠUB-utNABI⸢GIZKIM⸣gišNÁD[AB...]
K 02128+   14  [DIŠina]itiBÁRAKI.MINMUŠanaZAGN[A...]
K 06071+   15  DIŠinaitiBÁRAKI.MIN[...]
K 01350+   18  19  DIŠinaitiBÁRAKI.MINMUŠanaZAGLÚŠUB-utNABIGIZKIMgišNÁDAB-su-maÉBIBIR-aḫ
Copy Text
  • DIŠinaitiBÁRAKI.MINMUŠanaZAGLÚŠUB-utNABIGIZKIMgišNÁDAB-su-maÉBIBIR-aḫ
  • šummainaNisanniKI.MINṣēruanaimittiamēliimqutamēlušūittieršiiṣabbassumabītušūissappaḫ
  • If, in Nisannu, ditto (between the first and the thirtieth day), a snake falls to a man’s right- that man will become bedridden and that house will be dispersed.
PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

We interpret the first protasis amēlu šū itti erši iṣabbassuma, literally ‘that man: the sign of the bed will seize him’ as ‘that man will become bedridden’.

A similar apodosis is found in a hemerological text, which, however, does not include GIZKIM:

I U4 20-KÁM i-dir-tú NU ŠE / KI.MIN ŠUB gišNÁ NA DAB-at (VAT 10564 i 28-29)

 

Livingstone (2013, 131) translates: ‘The 20th day: Calamity. Unfavorable. / Ditto. Falling out of bed will beset the man.’

Casaburi (2003, 73, § 168) has a different reading of line 29, KIMIN ina! ŠÀ! GIŠ.NÁ NA DAB5-at, and translates: ‘Il giorno 20: tristezza (?); sfavorevole. Ditto, dentro al (suo) letto, (quest’)uomo sarà catturato’, which in English means, ‘The 20th day: sadness (?); unfavourable. Ditto, in (his) bed, (this) man will be captured/trapped.’The CAD (E, 318, eršu d 2’) has the same reading as Livingstone and translates: ‘confinement to bed will befall (this man)’.

 

A commentary for omen 22.11 is found in CCP 3.5.22.A.b, 5:

[... NA] ˹BI˺ GIZKIM gišNÁ : ina giš˹NÁ˺? [DAB? ...][... amēlu] šū itti erši : ina erši? [iṣṣabbat? …]
‘[...] that [man], the sign of the bed (means) [he will be trapped]? inside the bed? […]’ (BM 129092 5a).

 

Most of the commentary is broken, but we can see that ‘the sign of the bed’ is connected to being inside the bed (ina erši). Perhaps the broken commentary even quoted from the above-cited hemerology in VAT 10564 i 28-29, and said ina gišNÁ [DAB …] or the like.  We have tentatively restored the commentary accordingly.