PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

• See 32.S.59; the two omens have the same protasis, but the Sultantepe omen’s apodosis only reads ‘dilapidation of the house’. The Sultantepe omen also includes a gloss.

protasis

• The signs we read above as na-kíl-tu and translate as ‘severed’ warrant discussion:

If a City 2 (180-81, *32.116’) interprets the same signs as na-gil-tu and translates the omen as follows:

If there is a glowing(?) lizard in a man’s house–weakening of that house; grain will be scarce for it.

For the differences in the apodosis, see the commentary further below.

If a City 2’s (181, n. 116’)[1] translation follows CAD N/1, 121 s.v. *naglu (fem. nagiltu), for which the above omen’s protasis is the only attestation: “if a phosphorescent(?) lizard appears in a man’s house”.

Both translations interpret na-gil-tu as a feminine adjective derived from the verb nagālu, a word of uncertain meaning (CAD N/1, 107 s.v. nagālu). The AHw II, 709 s.v. nagālu understands the verb’s G-stem form to mean ‘something like ‘to gleam, to glow’’.[2] The AHw II bases its translation on Meissner’s (1931, BAW 2: 47-48 s.v. 43-nagâlu) suggestion that nagālu must mean ‘shining, to be bright, glowing’.[3]

Although forms of nagālu frequently appear (though certainly not exclusively) as an adjective for stars, Meissner’s suggestion is problematic. His argument centers on a gloss appearing in an astrological report (Thompson 1900, 2:lxxiii&77 RMA No. 223a lines r 5-6).[4] Meissner interprets the gloss nin-bu-ṭa (from nabāṭu ‘to shine brightly’), following the signs nen-gu-la, as nengula’s synonym. As the CAD N/1 (107 s.v. nagālu) notes, however, the gloss is a variant to, not a lexical explanation of nengula.

Nevertheless, in literary contexts, scholars extend Meissner’s suggestion ‘to glow’ to translate the N-stem adjective nengul as variations of ‘impassioned’ when the adjective appears with emotional body parts such libbu ‘heart’ or kabattu ‘an inner body part, mind’. For example, in the Fable of the Fox, the emotional fox’s heart is described using the adjective na-an-gul. Kienast (2003, 46–47 II column iv ms. F line 18) translates, „Hitzig erregt war sein Herz, er war voller Tränen“.[5]

Even assuming an assimilation between the second n and the second root g, to form neggulu or naggulu, the signs in our protasis do not fit with an N-stem verbal adjective as in the literary examples. Therefore a meaning such as ‘glowing’, in the sense of ‘impassioned’, can be rejected for 32.A.55.

In other divinatory texts, animals and even human infants are occasionally described using the G­-stem stative nagil[6] (sg.). See CAD N/1, 107 s.v. nagālu a for attestations. Scholars often translate this as ‘spotted’ or ‘spots’. For example see Cohen (2020, 154 §17), who translates an omen from the Šumma immeru ‘If a sheep’ series as “If the sheep has the horns of a goat and it is spotted white, its liver will be full of ‘Arrow-head’(-marks).”[7] Cohen (2020, 176 note §17) remarks on the CAD’s leaving the verb nagālu untranslated, but also references an omen in the series Šumma ibzu ‘If a (birth) anomaly’, where the signs na-gìl appear in combination with BABBAR ‘white’ (De Zorzi 2014, 443 Tablet IV omen 14).[8]

While the above protasis’s syntax permits a translation such as ‘If a spotted lizard’, the lack of a color appears odd. More importantly, the attested feminine stative of the word is naglat, which does not fit with our signs.

Finally, KAL 1 (16-17, Vs. 55 A55) reads the signs as na-kíl-tu and translates (16-17, 72 Vs. 55)

Wenn eine besondere Eidechse im Haus eines Mannes erscheint: Verfall des Hauses, dieses Haus wird Getreide benötigen.

KAL 1 does not expound[9] on the translation of besondere, but it appears to be from nakiltu, the feminine of naklu ‘ingenious, clever, artistic’. While the adjective is attested to describe humans (CAD N/1, 188 s.v. naklu), Šumma ālu’s context make it an unlikely descriptor for a lizard. Nevertheless, Ebeling (1923, 77 n. 2) appears to use this meaning when he discusses what animal EME.DIR could be.[10] He refers to the phrase EME.DIR nakiltu as evidence that the animal could be trained,[11] expanding the definition from ‘clever’ to ‘trainable’.

While we follow KAL 1 to read na-kíl-tu, we do not interpret nakiltu as ‘ingenious’ or ‘special’. The above omen (32.A.55) is placed between two omens with dead lizards in the protasis. Beyond the problems already mentioned above, an omen about a glowing or ingenious lizard is simply out of place in such a sequence. We would expect nakiltu to refer to a characteristic of a lifeless lizard.

We therefore suggest interpreting nakiltu as the feminine adjective of the verb nakāsu ‘to cut, to sever’, while perhaps leaving open the possibility of ‘spotted’ mentioned above. Though the CAD N/1, 196 s.v. naksu refers the reader to naglu ‘phosphorescent’ (discussed above), the AHw II, 723 s.v. naksu(m), however, supports the translation and includes the above omen as an attestation for ‘cut through’.[12] This interpretation assumes a consonant shift from s-t to l-t (see GAG §30g for the grammar). 

apodosis

• The verb enēšu in combination with houses refers to dilapidation, see CAD E, 167 s.v. enēšu 1c. The apodosis ‘dilapidation of the house’ also appears in 32.N.46'. The Nineveh omen features another difficult adjective, napultu, in the protasis.
• If a City 2 (200, *32.116’) omits one of the signs read as É ‘house’ above. The omission occasions the grammatical differences in the apodosis’s translation (181, *32.116’) between our and that edition. Nevertheless, the overall meaning remains similar.