PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

• Just as in the previous omen 32.S.43, we would expect the above omen to be similar to 32.A.42, which reads as follows:

If a lizard crawls into a bread box and lies down — ditto (= bread will be scarce for him.)
DIŠ EME.DIR a-na ^giPISAN NINDA KU₄-ma ir-bi-iṣ ŠU.BI.GIM.NAM (NINDA i-qir-šu)

As in the previous omen, however, the traces of the apodoses’ verb, as drawn on the manuscript’s hand copy, do not exactly match up with the Assur omen.

The earlier edition If a City 2 (186, 32.44), however, reconstructs the above omen on the basis of 32.A.42, but reads the apodosis’s verb differently:

         [DIŠ EME.ŠID ana GI.PISAN NISAN TU]-ma ir-bi-iṣ NINDA i-qa₂-ar-[šu₂]

The first of the three signs read as ˹x˺ above (and as -qa2 in If a City 2) is broken. There is a horizontal wedge crossed by the tails of two vertical wedges, followed by two Winkelhaken. It resembles a broken GA.

The next sign read as ˹x˺ above resembles IGI, though the Winkelhaken appears to be a diagonal wedge and the remaining wedges are oddly shortened. It appears If a City 2 combines this sign with the following, read as -ri?, to read -ar. While the sign AR consists of an IGI on the left and a RI on the right, the two signs are drawn with significant distance between them on the hand copy making such a reading less likely. The final sign read as ˹x˺ is drawn on the manuscript’s broken right-hand edge and is no more than the head of a wedge.

As with 32.S.43, we read 32.S.44 as it appears on the hand copy, but, given the similarities in the Sultantepe and Assur sequences along with the presence of ir-bi-iṣ NINDA, we suggest 32.S.44 and 32.A.42 should be seen as related. Collation of SU 1952, 242 would be necessary to determine a more certain reading.