PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

• The above apodosis, as drawn on the manuscript’s hand copy, is the same as 32.S.33’s apodosis, except that instead of the verb ŠUB having the phonetic complement -ut as in 32.S.33,  the above omen (32.S.34) replaces it with the enclitic pronoun -šú to form ŠUB-šú (imqutšu). The reading ŠUB-šú is problematic for two main reasons: Firstly, due to the final dental in the verb imqut, we would expect the clitic to be -su, not -šú. Secondly, the man is already sick—as noted in the protasis and by GIG BI ‘that sick man’ in the apodosis—it is illogical that the lizard climbing onto a man’s bed would signal that a sickness would afflict the man as the man he is already sick when the lizard is said to climb up. This is also a problem in 32.S.33 and the almost identical 32.A.33. See the commentary at 32.A.33 for a discussion of the same problem in the context of those two omens.

Moreover 32.S.34’s protasis is the opposite of 32.A.33’s. We would expect the apodoses of 32.A.33 and 32.S.34 to also reflect this polarity. Reading the above omen with ŠUB, however, results in similar apodoses, not opposites.

A solution presents itself in three rather similar omens:[1] the lizard omen 32.N.35’, the gecko omen 33.42’, and a lizard omen in the medical-diagnostic series SA.GIG, TDP 2: 45.

32.N.35’

         DIŠ EME.ŠID ana UGU gišNÁ lúGIG E11 lúGIG BI GIG-su TAG4-šú
         If a lizard climbs onto a sick man’s bed — that sick man’s sickness will leave him.

33.42' (geckos)

[DIŠ MUŠ.DÍM.GURUN.NA ana gišN]Á GIG E11 GIG BI ina U4-me šú-a-tu4 GIG.BI TAG4-šú
[If a gecko] climbs up [onto a] sick man’s bed — that sick man’s sickness will leave him on that day.

SA.GIG TDP 2: 45[2]

DIŠ EME.ŠID ana UGU gišNÁ GIG i-li GIG-su ár-ḫiš TAG4-šú
Wenn eine Eidechse auf das Bett des Kranken hinaufsteigt: Noch am selben Tag wird seine Krankheit ihn verlassen.

All three omens have the same protasis and similar apodoses as the above Sultantepe omen. The problematic ŠUB-šú of the Sultantepe omen, however, is replaced by TAG4-šú in all three omens. The signs ŠUB and TAG4 are similar enough that it is plausible to imagine the modern copyist mistakenly drawing ŠUB instead of TAG4 on the Sultantepe hand copy.

We suggest, therefore, reading TAG4­-šú instead of ŠUB-šú in the apodosis, following Heeßel (2001, 43 n. 45 STT 323 Vs. Zeile 34).

• For the problems with interpreting ŠUB-šú as 'fall (away)' as If a City 2 (185, 32.34) does, see the commentary at 32.A.33.
• For a list of omens involving illness, see the commentary at 32.N.11.