PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

• The omen 32.S.5 has been used to reconstruct the above omen’s protasis as has also been done by If a City 2 (178 , *32.66’) and KAL 1 (16-17 Vs. 5 A5).

It should be noted, however, that 32.S.4 and 32.S.5 have the exact same protasis—assuming the hand copy STT 323 is correct. The omen 32.S.4 shows similarities to 32.A.7. Reconstructing both 32.A.5 and 32.A.7, using the respective Sultantepe omens, would therefore result in 32.A.5 and 32.A.7 also having the same protasis, just as 32.S.4 and 32.S.5 do.

Though we reconstruct 32.A.5’s protasis above, see the discussion at 32.A.7 as to why, for the time being, we have left 32.A.7 as it appears on the manuscript, without reconstructing the protasis.

• While the repetition of protases is unusual, this particular protasis ‘If a lizard falls in front of a man’, however, is an exception. All three recensions feature omens with this protasis (32.N.22’ and 32.S.63 are additional omens about two-tailed lizards falling in front of a man) and not always with identical apodoses—though all the apodoses relate to overcoming adversaries. Further, 32.A.5 and possibly 32.A.7 as well as 32.S.5 and 32.S.7 (all four omens are similar) repeat the protasis within the same recension.