PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

• There are a number of attestations of using the logograms EME.DIR or EME.ŠID to indicate plural lizards (CAD Ṣ, 254–55 s.v. ṣurāru A), without the plural marker MEŠ. The above omen is one such attestation (255). As the protasis’s verb clearly indicates a plural, EME.DIR has been transcribed and translated above as a plural. The only known attestation of a plural marker used with the word ‘lizard’ can be found in 32.N.37’ Variant K 06912+.
• See also the omen preserved on VAT 9906 v 17’ (Assur recensions); it likely preserves the same omen as above.