PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

• The above omen’s apodosis is a common one among various genres of divinatory texts, but it is rarer among the omens in Šumma ālu. See CAD Š/1, 99 s.v. šaḫluqtu for examples, including the above omen. Since the apodosis makes a prognosis about the country as a whole, it belongs to a genre known as ‘public omens’. Public omens are common in some omen series such as Šumma izbu ‘If a malformed birth’, which records omens about malformed human and non-human animals at birth. For the most part, omens in Šumma ālu, especially the lizard omens, are ‘private omens’ that address the fates of individuals or smaller groups of people. 

The numeral seven in the protasis is the likely cause for the appearance of a public apodosis within a series of otherwise private ones. In Akkadian, the sign for 7 can also be read as kiššatu ‘entire inhabited world’ or ‘all, totality’ (CAD K, 457 s.v. kiššatu A). A sign with this connotation would be expected to make a prognosis about the entire country.

Alternatively, as noted by Konstantopoulos (2015, 15–16) in her doctoral thesis on the Sebettu ‘heptad’ demons, Mesopotamian literature is replete with motifs involving the number seven. She (2015, 16) postulates that the number is symbolically linked to transitions, especially those involving death. All omens can be said to denote transitions—as they predict events yet to occur—but the above omen does not specifically indicate a transition or death. Perhaps the word catastrophe, though, implies death. One reference to the number seven in Assurbanipal’s annals is certainly associated with both death and a catastrophic outcome for a people whose leader and troops broke an oath with the Assyrians. Prism A (BM 91026) preserves an account of famine and the resulting cannibalism: “(As for) Uaite', along with his troops, who did not honor my treaty, … Famine broke out among them and they ate the flesh of their children on account of their hunger … The foal (of camels), the foal (of donkeys), the calf, (and) the spring lamb sucked more than seven times at (their) wet nurses and (yet) they could not satisfy their stomachs with milk.”[1] 

See also the omen preserved on VAT 09906 ii 15–17.

• The two manuscripts above only vary in the amount of information covered by the sign of replacement MIN. The signs for lizard, EME.DIR, are written in variant VAT 09793 8’, but in variant VAT 10167 r. 25’, they must either be interpreted as part of MIN ‘ditto’ or as an omission on the part of the ancient scribe. See 32.A.94’ for the preceding line VAT 10167 r. 24’, where EME.DIR is written.

Surprisingly the CAD E, 30 s.v. edēru 1b interprets the numeral 7 on VAT 10167 r. 25’ as an odd writing for MIN and reads as follows:

šumma NA MIN MIN(!)(wr. 7) GÚ.DA.RI-ma U₅.MEŠ ugallissunūte NU [DU₈.M]EŠ
if somebody ditto (= when walking along the street) scares ditto (= lizards) that are locked in an embrace and are mating, but they do not separate

We do not follow the CAD’s interpretation and instead interpret the sign as written, namely, the number seven. Given that the number 7 is rare among the lizard omens, it is implausible that the ancient scribe wrote the sign for 7 by mistake for MIN. Most importantly, we can find no other attestations, whether from omens or other text genres, of the sign 7 being used as a sign of replacement. Finally, see the previous comment on the nature of the apodosis likely being influenced by the use of seven in the protasis.

• We follow KAL 1 (16-17, Rs. 25’ A25’) and reconstruct the missing verb [DU₈].MEŠ ‘they separate’ from 32.A.92’, which also involves mating lizards and a negative apodosis.

If a City 2 (174, *32.23’) does not reconstruct the sign DU₈, but otherwise reconstructs the omen along the lines of variant 09793. Other than omitting the final verb of the protasis, however, there is little difference in the translation from If a City 2 (175, *32.23’). KAL 1 (16-17 Rs. 25’ A25’ and B8’) reads the lines as above and translates (16-17, 73 Rs. 25’) along the lines of variant 10167.