CCP 3.1.58.A.b - Enūma Anu Enlil 58(59)-62(63) Group B A

A mukallimtu commentary from Nineveh on 24 omens1 derived from the appearance and behaviour of Venus.2 As is typical of mukallimtu commentaries in Neo-Assyrian script from Nineveh, the lines following the first line of a new entry are indented. The terminology of the rubric is used to describe eleven other commentaries from Nineveh, all on different Chapters of EAE.3

The explanations in this commentary fall into two categories. The more common one substitutes the astronomical phenomenon described in part or all of the omen’s protasis with an alternative phenomenon. The substitution is sometimes derived from pre-existing associations between constellations and planets, e.g., the substition of the constellation Stars (mul.mul) in omen 10 with the planet Mars (l. 26).4 The second, less frequent category of explanation uses a colon to equate brief phrases from the base text with synonyms or specifications. Thus: “Morning watch” means “late watch” (l. 22), “great gods” means “Jupiter and …” (l. 39), and perhaps “[šu]b?” means “to throw” (l. 51). Interestingly, the commentary more often uses the colon to indicate variant readings of the base text (ll. 15, 25, 37 and 40).

The text proper is divided into four sections by three single rulings.5 The first section (ll. 1-17) deals with seven omens, of which the first four involve Venus becoming suddenly luminous or scintillating (ṣerhu tuku, ṣarāru). The second section (ll. 18- 23) deals with two omens, both of which are concerned with Venus’s rising. The third section (ll. 24-39), which runs from the obverse onto the reverse, deals with four omens, the first two of which feature non-standard month names and apodoses related to “famine in the land”. The fourth section (ll. 40-61) deals with between nine and eleven omens derived from the appearance of Venus’s “position” (ki.gub-sà).

Minor corrections to the readings of individual signs in ll. 13, 15, 36 and 40 (and see also n. 2), based on collation of the original tablet, are marked in the transliteration by asterisks. Unless noted otherwise, restorations follow the edition by E. Reiner and Pingree, D. , Babylonian Planetary Omens. Part Three. Styx, 1998. Pp. 100, 102.

• 1. Following the tally by E. Reiner and Pingree, D. , Babylonian Planetary Omens. Part Three. Styx, 1998. P. 79. Since Reiner & Pingree assume that the seven lines ll. 49-55 (rev. 14-20) contained four omens (omens “18-21”), it is possible that the original total number of omens was slightly lower.
• 2. As noted by J. C. Fincke, “Der Assur-Katalog der Serie enūma anu enlil (EAE)”, Orientalia Nova Series, vol. 70, pp. 19-39, 2001. P. 31, the base text corresponds to Chapter 59 of the Nineveh recension of EAE (= Chapter 53 of the Assur recension).
• 3. For details see E. Frahm, Babylonian and Assyrian Text Commentaries. Origins of Interpretation. Ugarit-Verlag, 2011. P. 133.
• 4. For the exclusive association of Stars with Mars see D. Brown, Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology. Styx, 2000.. Pp. 62-63.
• 5. E. Reiner and Pingree, D. , Babylonian Planetary Omens. Part Three. Styx, 1998. P. 79 do not distinguish between the third and fourth sections, but a ruling on the tablet clearly separates them.