PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

In If a City 2, 276 (reconstruction) and 284 (score), K 06315' 14'-15' are mistakenly interpreted as two separate omens, *38.39'-40' respectively. Collation of both K 06315+ and the parallel BM 30427 has revealed that K 06315+ 15' likely contains the apodosis of the omen in line 14'. In the previous edition, K 06315+ 13'-15' are tentatively placed at the beginning of the nappillu sequence (*38.38'-40'). In If a City 2's reconstruction, these omens appear not to have been attested on Sm 0472+: K 06315+ 13'-15' are placed between Sm 0472+ 8' and 9'. However, since it is now clear that Sm 0472+ is a standard text, not, as was previously thought, an excerpt text (see also the comment to 38.48'), it seems highly improbable that it did not include these omens. As mentioned above, If a City 2 does not see that K 06315+ 14'-15' form one long omen written over two lines. In fact, this is the only omen written over two lines on K 06315+. Sm 0472+ 21' is followed by some space which is not counted as a line in If a City 2, 285. No other section on Sm 0472+ is followed by an empty space: it seems probable that it contains the very same omen written over two lines. Finally, note that K 06315+ 13' has now been placed with the previous omen, 38.48'.

The length of the omen might explain why it is the only instance in which K 03726+, a four column tablet with consequently narrower columns than the other exemplars, does not include the final omen in a section.

Inspection of the photo of Sm 0472+ available from the BM online database (download: 30.11.2020) shows that traces of PIL (= IZI) are visible in line 21', but these were not drawn on the handcopy.

In omens, incantations, and medical texts, the Akkadian asurrû usually refers to a sewer (George 2015, 102). If a City 2 (277, *32.39') translates asurrû as 'base court of masonry'. See George (2015, 76) for previous translations of asurrû.

The description of the nappillu as 'from the sewer' raises the possibility of an identification with the camel cricket (Family Rhaphidophoridae), an insect which is faintly reminiscent of a grub with long legs, and so could explain the lexical equation of nappillu with mūnu (see the commentary to 38.37'). Camel crickets do not have wings, however, and nor are they capable of making sounds, and so the only way in which they can be considered is if the term nappillu covered a range of insects which are distinct in modern taxonomies.