Translating OB Omen texts

[us4-he2-gal2]

Lines from YOS 01

So with a similar idea to the that seen on the Translating OB incantations thread, I thought I would post some lines from YOS 01, which is a book publishing mostly liver omens from the collections at Yale. These lines make up a significant amount of the practice exercises in Hughnergard's grammar which we are doing in class this year.. So I am also forced to learn these as part of the course.

One of the reasons for posting this material, besides that it is pretty relevant material for enenuru, is so people looking to learn Akkadian can see some examples of the language broke down ..in as much as I am able to do so.




Terms relating particularly to liver/gall bladder divination:


bāb ekallim 'palace gate' the umbilical fissure
kakkum 'weapon' a distinctive mark on the liver
naplaštum 'flap, lobe'
padānum 'path' near the naplaštum
šēpum 'foot' like the kakkum, a distinctive mark
ubānum 'toe/finger' another part of the liver

Important:

amūtim = liver

martum = gall bladder




So each of these items may be used when describing the liver in omen texts, sort of like when may say 'the knuckle of the finger' or this sort of thing.

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Example 1 - line from an OB omen text

Transliteration:

1. DIŠ ^gišTUKAL i-mi-tim i-na re-eš mar-tim ša-ki-im-ma mar-tam ir-de ^gišTUKUL qú-li-im

Notes:

- DIŠ meaning sometimes "1" can also have the meaning "if" in certain contexts. So we transliterate "šumma (if)".

Omen texts, like legal texts, often follow a distintive "if...then" format. Often the the 'then' clause will relate in some close way to the 'if' clause.

- ^gišTUKKUL is a Sumerian logogram (with determinitive ^giš = wooden) - because it occurs in an Akkadian sentance, when normalizing we must convert it to it's Akkadian equivolent. so from raw text ^gišTUKKUL we normalize the Akkadian kakkum or kakki "weapon".




Normalization:

šumma kakki imittim ina rēš martim šakim-ma martam irde, kakki qūlim.


Break down:

šumma (if) kakki (mark) imittim (right) ina (at) rēš (head/top)martim (gall bladder) šakim (is located)-ma

(implied: then) martam (gall bladded) irde(it leds), kakki (mark) qūlim (silence).



Translation:

If the right mark (lit. the right weapon) is situated at the top of the gall bladder and led the gall bladder, (then it is) the mark of silence.

[darkl2030]

YOS 10 31 is the absolute king of all these texts, and with still no edition so you can't cheat. So that's the one you should tackle if you really want to test your meddle . These can be cool for a while, but overall are a little boring for my tastes. If you are into these you should check out the dissertation and forthcoming monograph by Avi Winitzer, about the "Generative Paradigm" in OB omen literature.

I might mention that the use of DISH for "shumma" is a quite late practice, and its presence almost certainly places a text in the Middle Babylonian period rather than OB. Most of the actual "OB" omens themselves, such as the aforementioned YOS 10 31 (which always uses shum-ma) themselves on paleographic and other grounds seem to date mostly to the latter part of the OB period.