PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

• Collation of K 03730+ 29 shows remnants of NA and GÁL on the break. The sign NA is omitted in If a City 2 (193, 32.44’, Ex(1)).
• This omen is part of a triad of omens about lizards of various colors on manuscript K 03730+. See also 32.N.43’ and 32.N.45’.
• Though the break at the end of Sm 0710+ 8’b is not large, the thickness of the manuscript itself would have allowed the scribe enough room to write the remainder of the apodosis as it appears on K 03730+ 29.
• The  color ṣalmu ‘black’ is usually associated with auspicious outcomes among the omens in Šumma ālu (Hirvonen 2014, 35). The reason for the association with the divine is unclear. One suggestion may be that there is an Akkadian homophone ṣalmu (though written logographically as ALAM or NU). The term ṣalmu is often translated as ‘statue’, ‘relief’ or ‘likeness’ (CAD Ṣ, 78–85 s.v. ṣalmu), but as Bahrani (2003) explains in her book The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonian and Assyria, a ṣalmu is more than a mere image of something, but is actually a facet of its existence. The statues or likenesses of deities are referred to as ṣalmu (CAD Ṣ, 79–80 s.v. ṣalmu a). Since the presence of a diety’s ṣalmu ‘statue’ in a temple meant the deity was present, the homophone ṣalmu ‘black’ perhaps triggers the existence of a deity in the apodosis.